Brewers cook up new beer to bow at Marcum Workplace Challenge event

Brewers from around Long Island are working to produce a limited-run charity beer for the 14th annual Marcum Workplace Challenge run-walk at Jones Beach State Park on July 30.

More than 200 companies and 12,000 Long Islanders are expected to attend the workplace challenge fundraising event. The 3.5-mile run-walk has raised more than $930,000 for Island charities since its inception.

“Every year we try and add or do something different,” said Carolyn Mazzenga, office managing partner for Marcum. “This year one of our directors who is doing work with the craft brewing community asked if they would be interested in developing this beer.”

In the end, 23 local beer makers with the Long Island Brewers Guild, a local nonprofit trade association, took on the task of collaborating on the new brew.

The limited-run beer, called the Marcum Workplace Challenge Beer, is a lightly dry-hopped wheat beer with citrus peel being brewed by Ghost Brewing Co., a new brewery and tenant in Great South Bay Brewery’s Bay Shore operation.

Samples of the beer donated by the brewers will be given out at the July 30 event at no cost. The beer will also be available at participating breweries during Craft Cares, a weeklong Brewers Guild event created to raise awareness about local craft beer culture and to promote the local beer industry. Islanders interested in trying the brew can donate money or canned foods to participating breweries. Proceeds for beer in cans or on draft will go to local charities. 

“The recipe was all worked together by all of the Long Island breweries involved in the Brewer’s Guild,” said Paul Komsic, brewmaster for Ghost Brewing Co. and a Brewers Guild board member. “We all came up with the concept and the recipe together.”

Beneficiaries of this year’s charity funds will be Long Island Cares-The Harry Chapin Food Bank, Long Island Children’s Museum, Nassau County SPCA, and Children’s Medical Fund of New York.