E-Malt.com News article: USA, NY: Binghamton Brewing Co. launching in Johnson City on August 16

Kristen Lyons and Jason Gardner volunteered at Brewery Ommegang's Belgium Comes to Cooperstown celebration in 2004, which served as the couple's first in-depth exposure to craft beer.

But on Saturday August 9 — day two of this year's Belgium Comes to Cooperstown — Lyons and Gardner served their own craft beer at the celebration, Pressconnects reported.

And a week later, on Aug. 16, they will open Binghamton Brewing Co. in Johnson City.

"We've put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this, and it's just crazy to see it happen," said Lyons, 37. "It's a little bit surreal at this point."

This past week, Lyons and Gardner, who wed in 2000 and live in Endwell, worked into the early hours of the morning to get their brewery, located at 15 Avenue B, ready for its grand opening. A ticket to the opening, which is scheduled for 2 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 16, costs $15 and includes admission, beer samplings, a special tasting glass and a tour of the brewery and taproom.

The local area will have five breweries once Binghamton Brewing Co. opens its doors. Water Street Brewing Co. and Galaxy Brewing Co. — separated by not even 500 feet — are located in downtown Binghamton.

Outside of Binghamton, there's The North Brewery on Washington Avenue in Endicott. The FarmHouse Brewery, in Tioga County, recently held a grand-opening celebration of its tap room location in Owego.

With four established breweries and a fifth one soon to open, the region has not missed the craft beer trend.

According to the Brewers Association, an American trade group of more than 1,900 brewers, there are 165 craft breweries in New York, up from 75 in 2011 and 92 in 2012. At 165, New York has the sixth most craft breweries among the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, the Brewers Association found. By comparison, California ranks first with 381 craft breweries, while Mississippi is 51st with four craft breweries.

In New York, craft breweries had an economic impact of nearly $2.2 billion in 2012 and produced almost 860,000 barrels in 2013, according to the Brewers Association.

For Lyons and Gardner, it took longer than expected for Binghamton Brewing Co. to come to fruition.

The couple originally planned to open the brewery in the third quarter of 2012 in downtown Binghamton. Binghamton Brewing Co. LLC, was formed March 30, 2012, according to the state Division of Corporations. In early 2013, they were targeting an opening in downtown Binghamton by the end of the year.

Lyons said they had some positive leads on spaces in downtown Binghamton but those talks eventually fell through.

"We decided to regroup and figure out what it is that we can do right now rather than wait for something that we weren't sure was going to happen," Lyons said. "We spent a long time waiting on a space."

Lyons and Gardner in April 2013 found the Johnson City location, a renovated space that was previously an Endicott Johnson Fire Prevention station. The couple started construction inside the space on Jan. 1 and has been working to get the brewery and taproom ready ever since.

"This is where we're going to start up and refine what we do and perfect our craft," Lyons said. "Even though it hasn't been exactly what we had planned to begin with, we're just really happy to, at this point, be there. We're doing what we wanted to do. We're making our beer."

While the couple started homebrewing in 2008, they started brewing in the Johnson City location July 5. Their first beer was Amber Ale, which they affectionately dubbed, "Amber Waves of Grain." The beer is currently on tap at the Blind Tiger Pub on Watson Boulevard in the Town of Union.

At the grand opening Aug. 16, Binghamton Brewing Co. will offer six beers. The brewery plans to have a standard lineup of brews with a rotating seasonal choice, the next of which will be Pumpkin Stout.

The brewery plans to be open on evenings Tuesday through Thursday, until midnight on Friday and Saturday and Sunday afternoon. The couple expects to hire a couple of employees to help in day-to-day operations.

This brewery has a two-barrel electric brewing system. Much of the brewing equipment has been modified for better performance — not surprising, considering Lyons and Gardner received bachelor's degrees in industrial and systems engineering from Binghamton University in December 2005.

"Brewing is all about process and cleaning and spreadsheets," said Gardner, 36, now a software developer at Ithaca-based Envisage Information Systems.

After he said this, Lyons, an engineer at Honeywell Aerospace, chimed in with a breakdown: Brewing is 80 percent cleaning, 10 percent spreadsheets and 10 percent actual brewing.

Binghamton Brewing Co. plans to produce about 30 barrels a month, or 360 barrels a year. With such a small production level, the business is free to experiment and create many different craft beers.

"We're trying to be creative in the recipe development and trying things that somebody larger can't do," Lyons said. "But at the same time, doing it in a way that creates a good product at the end."

Down the road, Binghamton Brewing Co. hopes to eventually expand to downtown Binghamton, where it could become a brewpub offering food with the craft beer. If that happened, Lyons and Gardner wouldn't necessarily plan to close the Johnson City location but would prefer to keep their two-barrel brewing operation on as a pilot system.

"We're looking forward to seeing what happens here," Lyons said. "This is where we're concentrating, but in the future, definitely there's room for moving and expanding. There's a lot of opportunity around here."


13 August, 2014