MANSFIELD – For a woman who doesn’t drink beer, Barb Scofield has a taste for brew flavors.
It was Scofield who insisted her son-in-law Scott Cardwell, a co-owner of the Phoenix Brewing Company in downtown Mansfield, create a beer using the rhubarb plant. Now, Scofield is the namesake of the Phoenix’s Barb Doe Rhubarb Wheat beer.
The beer and the woman behind it were celebrated on Thursday at Primrose Retirement Community in Mansfield. Cardwell brought a growler to share with Scofield and her fellow Primrose residents.
“It’s not a typical kind of beer, but we enjoy it,” Cardwell said, raising his glass. “Here’s to you, Barb.”
The idea for a rhubarb beer first came to Scofield three years ago, when she came across a patch of rhubarb in her niece’s garden in Litchfield, Ohio. Scofield brought the rhubarb back to Primrose, where she’s been a resident for 10 years, and the cook made 12 pies out of the batch to share.
“The next year I went out and got more, and Scott said he could make a beer out of it,” Scofield said.
The rhubarb wheat beer incorporates Scofield’s locally-sourced rhubarb with small additions of Magnum and Willamette hops, allowing the subtle wheat sweetness to combine with a tart and sour, fruity finish. This is the first year the Phoenix has used ingredients strictly from Ohio to create the rhubarb wheat beer.
Cardwell explained the Phoenix’s basic wheat beer, the John Doe, is also created into the Jane Doe in early summer by adding raspberry.
“With Barb Doe being made with rhubarb and suggested by Barb Scofield, we had to name it that, and we had to have her be the person on the poster,” Cardwell said. “She’s the queen of the rhubarb beer.”
Indeed, Cardwell brought with him a poster for the Barb Doe that included a picture of a 17-year-old Barb Scofield the year she graduated from Medina High School in 1948.
“He didn’t tell me it was named after me until he was done, because I would have said no,” Scofield said with a laugh. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Scofield’s preferred drink is water, but she tried a taste of her namesake rhubarb wheat beer on Thursday.
“It’s tart, but it tastes good,” she said. “It keeps getting better every time I drink it.”
