E-Malt.com News article: USA, NY: Good Nature Brewing in Hamilton looking to expand

A brewery in Hamilton is looking to expand after starting its company a few years ago, twcnews.com reported on March 15.

Good Nature Brewing was started in 2012 by married couple Matt Whalen and Carrie Blackmore. The couple has roots in the farming and culinary fields, and is now putting that experience to good use, brewing beer from ingredients sourced as locally as possible.

"We were home brewers, we started developing our recipes around what was available through our local growers. So to this day, not only do we use the same recipes, we've expanded our repertoire a little bit. We continue to work with primarily Madison County growers for our New York State grown ingredients", said Carrie Blackmore.

That effort earned them the title of New York State's first Farm Brewery, and the ability to open a tap room, separate from their small brewery. Their product has been so popular, just a year after opening they were at max brewing capacity. That's why they say it's time to build a new facility.

"In the first year we're hoping to expand our capacity by more than five times, with the possibility within the structure we're creating to up our capacity by more than 25 times," said Blackmore.

And in that process, the company will grow from 10 employees to 26. The overall project will cost about $3 million, and will feature a tasting room, outdoor beer garden and a small ingredient growing operation, at the site where Colgate University's Community Garden currently sits.

"We're gonna be working with their Upstate Institute. Hopefully we'll have a fellow from Upstate Institute every summer to work on region-based research projects. So we're really looking at our facility as an educational facility", said Blackmore.

And the hope is, that by expanding their capacity, Good Nature Brewing can grow their product well beyond Central and Northern New York. The company received about $350,000 from the state towards the project, through regional economic development funding, as part of a push to develop Madison County's Agro-tourism.

Construction of the new brewery should take about a year, with an anticipated opening in fall of 2016.


18 March, 2015