See Craig Melvin help brew a beer in honor of his late brother, Lawrence

Craig Melvin has found a unique way to honor his late older brother, Lawrence Meadows, who died from colon cancer in 2020 at the age of 43.

Craig brewed a beer in honor of Lawrence with a charity called Melesa’s Wings, which gives people an opportunity to pay tribute to loved ones that they lost to cancer. Created by Jose Manchola and named after his mother, who died of cancer in 1995, the organization raised $32,000 for Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Cancer Research Center last year, with various breweries donating space for the special gatherings throughout the year.

Alternate Ending, in Aberdeen, New Jersey, is one of the breweries that offered up its space to allow its patrons to brew a special beer. Founded by Scott Novick, whose father died of cancer when he was 11, Alternate Ending began making special “Wings” beers, with each one named after someone who died of cancer.

In 2023, Alternate Ending will be one of 22 breweries taking part, with a portion of proceeds from the beers going to cancer research.

Alternate Ending asked Craig if he’d like to make a beer in Lawrence’s memory.

“Without hesitation I was in, as long as I could help,” he said, in a story airing Aug. 30 on TODAY.

After a taste test, Craig chose an India pale ale and then helped reverse engineer the perfect recipe. He got to work in the process, pouring grain into a mill and mixing it into a huge water tank to make a sugar water combination called wort before it’s moved into a kettle to boil.

Craig then helped pick just the right hops, which are added in for flavor. After cooling, yeast was added to start the fermentation process. Alternate Ending finished making the beer and canned several cases of Lawrence’s Wings beer. It may sound confusing, but Craig was onboard.

“It’s an alchemy I’m not sure I fully understand. But I am sure I’ll be a fan of the results,” he said.

The undertaking is not one that necessarily surprises Manchola, who finds great support among those in the brewing world.

“It’s just an amazing community, because they’re always willing to help,” he told Craig. “Without batting an eye, they said, ‘What do you need? When do you need it by?’”

The effort to brew the beers is something that Manchola feels his mother would appreciate.

“She would be proud and she would definitely just tell me, ‘I love you,’” he told Craig before they toasted to Lawrence and Manchola’s mother.

Here’s a list of East Coast breweries who are brewing charity beers:

New Jersey:

The Seed: A Living Beer Project

Twin Elephant Brewing Company

Oak Flower Brewing Company

Bolero Snort Brewing Company

Brix City Brewing

Mindful Ales

Heavy Reel Brewing Company

Alternate Ending Beer Co.

Esker Hart Artisanal Ales

Screamin Hill Farm Brewery

Dekkera Brewing

Ghost Hawk Brewing Company

Autodidact Beer

New York:

Finback Brewery

Wild East Brewing Company

Tin Barn Brewing

District 96 Brewing Company

Marlowe Ales

Obercreek Brewing Company

Connecticut:

Timber Ales

Pennsylvania

Human Robot

Forest and Main Brewing Company

Bonn Place Brewing Company

Rhode Island

Origin Beer Project

This article was originally published on TODAY.com