Joseph Owades

Who was Joseph Owades?

Joseph L. Owades was one of the preeminent figures in the world of light and industrially produced beer. He adjusted analytical techniques and quality control, developing the first "light" beer and the process for making it, creating many new, unique, and successful specialty beers.

Born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx, Owades graduated from City College of New York and Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. After wartime work for the US Navy, he went on to Fleischmann’s Yeast, Schwarz Labs, and Rheingold Breweries in Brooklyn, where he became Vice President–Technical Director.

An insight into the nature of yeast metabolism and the starches found in malt led Owades to search for an enzyme that could break the side-branching chains of starch, which could allow yeast to digest all of the starch and produce a beer with no residual carbohydrates and lower calories. Rheingold introduced the first "light beer," Gablinger’s, using this enzyme; its many successors, starting with Miller Lite, have come to dominate the American beer marketplace.

Following his time at Rheingold, Dr. Owades went to work in Greece for the K. Fix Brewery, then to Anheuser-Busch in St.