USA, NY: HopWin's Brewery coming to Bay Shore soon

What started off as a hobby for two brothers-in-law is now turning into a business, Patch.com reported on March 4.

Deer Park resident William Hoppe and Steve Winn, a Bay Shore native, started off brewing beer about 8 years ago using a $25 home brewing kit from Target.

While many were telling the two to open up a business with their beer, they just kept putting it off.

Finally, the two came up with the business while enjoying a drink (beer, presumably) at Tap & Barrel in Smithtown in 2015.

"One day [our wives] were like 'listen you guys are taking 8 to 10 hours a day doing this, unless you're going to be making money, you really can't be doing this,'" Hoppe said.

So now the two with help from their wives, sisters Jennifer Winn and Rhiannon Hoppe, will be opening HopWin's Brewery on 1460 N Clinton Avenue.

The new brewery will be open alongside The Brewers Collective, located right next door.

Despite the growing number of breweries on Long Island, the duo are planning on making theirs stand out using what they call their "split personality system."

The brewery will be making a variety of split batches which means they will make one recipe two different ways but just changing one ingredient. For example, they will have their "Golden Ale" beer and their "Vanilla Golden Ale beer" which have the same basic recipe but one has vanilla added to it.

HopWin's will be offering about 15 different beer styles, split at least 2 different ways each.

"We have a few tricks up our sleeve coming into this but I guess that's what's going to totally set us apart," Winn said.

The two are excited for their first business venture together. When looking for a spot, they knew that Bay Shore would be perfect. There are at least 3 other breweries located in town.

"The other breweries asked us to make it a beer destination," Hoppe said. "Bay Shore seems like the perfect town for our brewery with all the craft beer bars they got right in town and even the restaurants are craft beer oriented."

For Winn, he was happy to return to his hometown.

"Growing up here, I remember when Main Street was basically a ghost town, back after the mall opened up," he said. "So now I want to bring a nice focus to Bay Shore."

With the opening of another brewery, the businesses are planning on working together to become a beer destination and a possible Oktoberfest event in the fall.

07 March, 2019