A pair of neighbors has reason to toast now that Glenville has approved their plan to start crafting their own brews.
The town Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday, Nov. 19, approved the site plan for a part-time microbrewery at the Glenville Grange building, located in the hamlet of West Glenville. The proposal from two residents for a “nanobrewery” spurred the town to add zoning amendments regarding microbreweries and microwineries to the town code earlier this year. An opening date hasn’t been pinned down, and the business must first acquire a state liquor license.
The brewery holds a name fitting of the hamlet it will call home — Wolf Hollow Brewing Company, after the nearby road. Its owners said they hope to focus on the community because production is geared towards selling within the town to local residents.
“Our biggest hope is that people start to see it … as this is the beer that you get when you are here,” co-owner Jordan White said.
The town defines a microbrewery as producing no more than 10,000 barrels annually, but the brewery is looking to produce only 100 barrels per year. A barrel is equal to 31 gallons.
White isn’t a newcomer to the art of brewing, as he’s been practicing at home for about a decade. In 2010, he completed the American Brewers Guild certification program. Later that year, he started working for Adirondack Brewery in Lake George.
Once Adirondack Brewery started to grow, White said he decided to leave. This led White to ponder selling his own beer and he talked to his neighbor, Peter Bednarek. The two are now co-owners of the company, with both having other full-time jobs.
“It is something for me that I always wanted to do on a professional level,” White said. “We started formulating the idea and talking to a couple of friends of ours and they were like, ‘Yeah, it is a good idea. You should go ahead with it.’”
The exact styles of beer the brewery will offer haven’t been selected, but they are looking to offer a range from light to dark.
“We are going to have sort of a standard lineup that will always been available, perhaps three of those, and then a fourth beer would be a seasonal,” White said. “We are going with the idea that the regular beers would be a light to amber color, whereas the seasonal might be a darker beer.”
Bednarek said they realized residents might not want the more hoppy beers commonly associated with craft brewers.
“We want to provide the beverages for the people that live locally, so we want to match whatever their tastes are,” Bednarek said. “A lot of people think that craft brew beer is all dark … and a lot of it will be just the opposite of that.”
All of the beer would be sold on site, probably two nights a week, with two sizes of growlers to purchase and store the beer. The smaller growler would be a quart and the larger a half gallon. Some form of membership plan is also being looked at.
Before pitching their idea with the town, the duo had met with neighboring residents of the grange to explain their proposal. Bednarek said residents responded positively.
“We got pretty much all positive response from the entities around us and from the neighbors, so that sort of gave us motivation to keep going forward with the town,” Bednarek said.