As a kid, Jim Lovins used to breed fish in his parents' basement. He turned the hobby into a career when the St. Louis Zoo hired him in the late 1980s to breed endangered fish.
As an adult, Lovins found a new hobby: brewing his own beer. And, again, he's turning it into a career by launching a line of beers called The Fish Guy's Original Craft Brews.
"Brewers are kind of like cooks in that we like to share what we make," Lovins says. "I got some great feedback on this beer, and I figured, What the heck? I'll save my money and try to brew this professionally."
Through a contract-brewing agreement, Lovins last week brewed about 425 gallons of Wild Ass Amber Ale at O'Fallon Brewery in O'Fallon, Mo. The dry-hopped beer will be bottled and kegged this month and will be available for sale next month at the zoo and St. Louis' two Whole Foods Markets.
The brew will be on draft at Ray's Grill near the zoo's stingray exhibit and at Jungle Boogie, which the zoo hosts on Friday nights during the summer. Bottles will sell for about $8.50 a six-pack at Whole Foods.
What makes this homebrewing success story especially sweet is that Lovins, the zoo's senior aquarist, promises to donate a portion of any profits he makes to the zoo's WildCare Institute, which works to save endangered species.
"The institute has 12 projects, but the ones that get the most donations tend to be the ones that focus on cute and furry animals," Lovins says. "So I'm hoping to give money to the projects with the most need."
Lovins describes Wild Ass Amber Ale — named for the Somali wild ass, an endangered, zebra-like donkey that lives at the zoo — as a richly flavored beer with 6.2 percent alcohol by volume. He says it's low in bitterness but has a full mouthfeel and floral hop aroma from the addition of Willamette hops and oak chips.
"I love cask beers and beers aged on oak, so I wanted to create that profile without making oak the primary flavor," Lovins says.
Lovins, 47, has been making his own beer for about 15 years. His first batch was "horrible, undrinkable," he says, but his efforts improved as he learned more about brewing and bought better equipment and ingredients.
Depending on the success of Wild Ass Amber Ale, Lovins says he hopes to work with O'Fallon to brew other styles from his recipes.
The project hasn't been cheap, however. Lovins estimates he's spent $15,000 on packaging, hiring a distributor and setting up the contract-brewing agreement. Most of the money came from Lovins' side job installing fish tanks and aquariums in private homes — former Rams quarterback Marc Bulger was one of his clients.
Despite the sizable investment, Lovins says, being able to take his 5-gallon homebrew recipe and convert it into a commercial beer that could benefit endangered animals was priceless.
"I've always considered myself to be a lucky guy, but this is really the best feeling in the world," he says. "People are going to be able to buy my beer at the zoo — that's a dream come true."
