by George Looby
On Oct. 26, a brisk breeze blew over Westford Hill, home of Westford Hill Distillers in Ashford, CT as they hosted an open house event to support the activities of Slow Food.
The Slow Food movement was founded in Italy in 1986 by Carlos Petrini. The organization encourages people to enjoy cooking again and return to traditional meals cooked from scratch. Advocates encourage the consumption of locally grown produce which dovetails nicely with the programs now in place throughout the country supported by many State Departments of Agriculture. The economic, cultural and health benefits of such a program are evident, and its momentum continues to grow.
Slow Foods also has another goal — the strong hope that many consumers will come to realize the many benefits to be derived from homegrown and locally grown foods.
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by Bethany M. Dunbar
NEWPORT CENTER, VT — Brian and Jenn Cook are ready to take their farm and brewery into a new phase of production with a 22-ounce Meheen bottling machine, purchased thanks to a $20,000 grant from the Working Lands Initiative through the state of Vermont.
Kingdom Brewing has been able to sell kegs and fill half-gallon growlers with screw-on lids, but now they will also be able to fill and cap 22-ounce bottles. They have a tasting room at the farm, and beer sales have been steadily increasing. The couple also has a greenhouse and sells vegetables. They also grow pumpkins for their pumpkin variety of beer. (more…)

by Tamara Scully
“Our mission is to produce malt for Keystone breweries and distilleries using exclusively Pennsylvania-grown barley,” Adam Seitz, owner and maltster of Penns Mault, in Spring Mills, PA, said. “Basically, we want to be a puzzle piece in the Pennsylvania-grown, Pennsylvania-malted, Pennsylvania-brewed equation.”
For those skeptics, Seitz will refer to his biggest inspiration — a quote from William Penn. In 1685, in an attempt to attract more English settlers, Penn wrote that the territory of Pennsylvania was now able to “make mault, and mault drink begins to be common,” signaling that the area was well on its way to prosperity and longevity. (more…)

EAST AURORA, NY — With partial funding by the Farm Credit Northeast AgEnhancement program, Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) of Erie County hosted a two-day workshop taught by New York State hops specialist Steve Miller; NWNY Dairy Team Crop Specialist Bill Verbeten; and Chris Gerling, extension sssociate at the Cornell Geneva Farm. The workshop had 64 participants from three different states. (more…)

East Aurora, NY.  With support of from the Farm Credit Northeast AgEnhancement program, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Erie County will host a two-day workshop taught by Cornell University faculty, the New York State Hops Specialist, Steve Miller, regional Cornell specialists, and experienced Erie County growers and brewers. This workshop will assist individuals in learning how to grow hops and brewery grains commercially.

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by Karl H. Kazaks
CALLAWAY, VA — Within just a few months of opening, Chaos Mountain Brewing has already been noticed and honored for its place in Virginia’s craft brewing industry.
At this year’s Virginia Craft Brewers Festival, held in late August, 51 breweries submitted 221 beers in 23 categories to be reviewed by 28 judges. Chaos Mountain’s took home silver in the stout category for its Coco Borealis and gold in the strong Belgian ale category for its Agents of Chaos.
“We were pretty humbled to be honest,” said Joe Hallock, who is the co-owner of the brewery along with his wife, Wendy. “We have to keep telling ourselves it’s only been four months.”
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by Bill and Mary Weaver
Among the many important decisions a start-up craft distillery must make is choosing a bottle design that will stand out. Far North Spirits, located in Hallock, MN, is receiving more than local noteriety — its striking bottle design has caught the attention of New York distributor T. Edward Wine & Spirits. The company will begin distributing Far North Spirits’ products in New York and New Jersey in September.
“T. Edward found us on a design blog, and they liked our packaging,” recalls Cheri Reese, half of the husband and wife team that started Far North Spirits. (more…)

by Sally Colby
Blind Squirrel Brewery
“The Blind Squirrel was born and raised in Avery County, in the small township of Plumtree, NC,” the story begins. “After years of making and consuming wood alcohol, he began to go blind. After a visit to the doctor, he quickly determined that he must improve the quality of his beverages or his sight would be completely lost forever. The Blind Squirrel is now considered to be legally blind, but he still manages to brew up some of the tastiest beer in the high country.” (more…)

by Emily Enger
Prohibition in the United States officially ended in 1933. New York City’s first distillery since that era didn’t open until 2010. To be such trailblazers is something King’s County Distillery claims with great pride — which is why they named their company after their location, the second-most populated county in the U.S. Their packaging is basic and minimalistic, intended to resemble the old whiskey bottles of Prohibition. (more…)

by Sally Colby
From the 1940s through the 1980s, Jack Hauser was the president of Musselman Foods — a household name when it comes to canned apple products. Hauser also grew apples in his own orchards, which were destined to become the source of fruit for Jack’s Hard Cider.
Many of the trees in the 180-acre orchard are still grown the ‘old’ way, without supports and a fruiting wall, while new plantings are grown in single or double rows that will be trained to trellising in a more modern system. The apples are for Jack’s Hard Cider are primarily Rome, which Shane Doughty, director of off-site sales for Jack’s Hard Cider, says is an ideal variety for hard cider. For new plantings, Doughty is pushing for extremely tart apples. “If we can get the tartest apples with the most tannins possible and then blend, we can get the desired flavor,” he said. “A small amount goes a long way.” (more…)

by Elizabeth A. Tomlin
Despite thunderstorms with continuous lightning and torrential downpours, nearly 40 people traveled to Bob and Andy Crowe’s Inverness Farm near Ames, NY, to take part in a Malting Barley Field Day and Workshop presented by Cornell University and CCE of Central New York.
The workshop featured speakers Plant Pathologist Dr. Gary Bergstrom, Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology of Cornell University; Research Support Specialist David Benscher, Small Grains Breeding & Genetics Project of Cornell University and Central NY CCE Regional Field Crop Specialist Kevin Ganoe. (more…)

by Sally Colby
Michael Faye says he had been drinking kombucha for about five years when the government found that it was over .5 percent alcohol and pulled it off the shelves. “When it was no longer commercially available,” he said, “I started making it myself.”
Faye was working as a commercial photographer, and has a scientific, analytical and health background. He decided to figure out what he didn’t like about commercial kombucha. Through experimenting, he was able to resolve the issues and came up with a product that was much better. When he received positive reviews from friends who tried the beverage, Faye decided to get out of the photography business and start producing kombucha. (more…)

by Karl H. Kazaks
“What interests us is trying to find out whether we can produce brandy of world-class quality and unique character here in the U.S.,” said Dan Farber, the owner and distiller at Osocalis.
Farber began his quest 30 years ago, and given the scope of his ambition, it’s a process still in its initial phases.
Osocalis, which is located in Soquel (near Santa Cruz), makes brandies from grapes and apples grown in northern California’s coastal regions. They make only 40 barrels annually — under 2,000 cases a year. (more…)

by Emily Enger
When four friends, 30 years old and younger, decide to start their own business, they do it Millennial style: with the Internet.
Tom Hill and Justin Kaney met while attending Bemidji State University for prototype design, but their identical major was not the only interest they shared. It didn’t take long for the two to bond over their interest in home brewing as well. They made plans to one day open a brewery together. Though their post-college careers took them different places, in only three short years they returned to Bemidji, the starting place of their dream, along with their significant others, Megan and Tina. (more…)

by Kelly Gallagher
Justin Behan’s up-and-coming brewery in Middleburgh, NY is based on vision — literally and figuratively.
Around the same time Behan was perfecting his beer recipes, his wife Tracey dreamed about a green wolf walking slowly through the woods. Through her description of this vivid image, Behan’s own dream was given a name — Green Wolf Brewery. (more…)

by Kelly Gates
What do you do when you’ve spent a full year barrel aging a brew, only to discover the end product is above the legal alcohol per volume limit? Southern Prohibition Brewing — aka “So Pro”— of Hattiesburg, MS has the answer.
The company recently experienced that very thing. (more…)

by Bill and Mary Weaver
Herdie Baisden and his wife Carol Wiersma already had their future production of hard cider in mind when, after extended corporate careers in personnel and management, they began planting their first apple trees in 1999 on the 80 acres they’d purchased along the Wisconsin side of Lake Pepin, near Stockholm. (more…)

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by Karl H. Kazaks
GREENSBORO, NC — What’s more American than beer and baseball? Perhaps a story involving baseball, beer, and a business success built from scratch.
In 2005, Greensboro’s newly opened brewpub, Natty Greene’s, signed a deal with the local minor league baseball team — the Greensboro Grasshoppers — to provide beer for the team’s home games.
At the first home stand, fans went through 42 kegs, much more than the brewery’s two owners, Chris Lester and Kayne Fisher, expected to sell. (more…)

Albany, NY- Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that Taste NY will partner with the New York State Brewers Association on the Craft New York Rare Beer Fest on Thursday, June 5.  The Rare Beer Fest will bring together 26 breweries from across the state featuring over 50 rare, unique, and award winning beers paired with a variety of locally sourced foods.  (more…)

by Kelly Gates
In 2007, a group of brand savvy advertising professionals in Minneapolis put their heads together and came up with the concept for craft beer centered on the area’s concentrated cabin culture called “Lakemaid Beer.” According to Jack Supple, president of Lakemaid Beer, it all started with the invention of a freshwater version of the mermaid. (more…)

Uses fruitwood to flavor malt
by Karl H. Kazaks
SPERRYVILLE, VA — It’s rare that an enterprise can call itself unique to the world. Yet that is exactly the case at Copper Fox® Distillery, which makes the world’s only fruitwood-flavored whisky.
The idea came to Rick Wasmund, owner and operator of the Copper Fox, as he was cooking with apple wood. Why not use the smoke from fruitwood, he thought, to flavor malt destined to be made into whisky? (more…)

by Karl H. Kazaks
The signs were everywhere. On the historical roadside marker. In the local historic museum. They came to the Nelson brothers while they were on an errand with their father, driving north from Nashville to Robertson County, TN. The trip began as a simple task but has ended up being much more than that — the founding event in what has become a lifelong journey for Charlie and Andy Nelson.
Eight years after that fateful day, the brothers are well on their way to resurrecting Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery. (more…)

by Sally Colby
For some Michigan landowners, growing hops is a way to get started in farming or keep rural land in production. But since hops aren’t a traditional crop, most farmers need guidance as they start. That guidance is available from the Michigan Hops Alliance.
“It’s a grass-roots organization that tries to get smaller farms involved in growing hops,” said Brian Tennis, director of sales and marketing for the Michigan Hop Alliance. “It’s a way for a small farmer to venture into the marketplace, make a couple of bucks doing it, and hopefully, save some Michigan farms.” (more…)

Risks and management discussed at Malting Barley Roundtable
by Elizabeth A. Tomlin
In response to the steady emergence of New York State craft beer breweries — and with New York State ‘Farm Brewery’ legislation encouraging rapid growth of the craft brewing industry — an overwhelming demand has arisen for malting barley produced in the state.
Key information concerning the management and risks of this challenging crop was presented at the CNY CCE Malting Barley Roundtable, where guest speaker Plant Pathologist Dr. Gary Bergstrom, Hops Specialist Steve Miller and CNY Field Crop Specialist Kevin Ganoe led the discussion. (more…)

by Daniel Crofts
A fourth generation farmer and a board member of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Malting Barley Initiative Committee, Hawley is also the owner and operator of New York Craft Malt, which will be producing artisanal malts for micro and craft brewers in New York State and elsewhere. He is working with CY Farms in nearby Byron, NY to grow malting barley and with Harris Farms in Le Roy, NY to install test plots in cooperation with Cornell Cooperative Extension. Once the barley is grown, dried and cleaned, it will go to New York Craft Malt for the malting process. (more…)