USA, NY: Fairport Brewing’s new production facility to be fully operational in the next few weeks

It has been a turbulent year for Tim Garman and Fairport Brewing. The year has been filled with change and challenge, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reported on August 15.

Monroe County's original farm brewery decided it had outgrown its production space on Turk Hill Road near the tasting room in the village of Fairport, then began to look for larger spaces in the area, and ultimately settled on University Avenue in Rochester.

Garman, FBC's owner, said the brewery picked a 9,500-square-foot building that formerly housed a commissary for Bruegger's Bagels. The new production will be fully operational in the next few weeks, Garman said. And there are plans to open a second tasting room there.

"We’re trying to do the right thing and grow," Garman said. "Grow and innovate."

All the while, Garman proposed a sizable expansion to the brewery's historic tasting room, a former Pure Oil Co. gas station constructed in 1934, at 99 S. Main St. in Fairport. That plan was presented to the village's Historical Preservation Commission, rejected, then modified, and rejected once again before the brewery appealed to the Village Board. That board upheld the decision of the commission last month. Both boards said the proposed plan didn't match the historic character of the building.

So where does that leave Fairport Brewing? According to Garman, the expansion plan is dead, but he thinks the brewery has found new ways to reach more consumers with its plan for a second tasting room on University Avenue.

FBC, as it is sometimes called, also released a new craft beverage, a blended kombucha/beer drink that Garman said is the first of its kind in the country.

Fairport Mayor Fritz May said the village remains open to discussing the plan to expand the original tasting room. May said he wants to host a workshop to air grievances, outline necessary changes, and then help formulate a revised plan for expansion.

"The major plan that he presented, the one everybody was looking at, that total package is not going to fly, but some modification of that certainly could," May said.

In some social media posts, Fairport Brewing has called on community members to voice concerns to board members, called for a change in elected officials, and organized a parade of sorts that traveled from the brewery tasting room to Village Hall. Some have viewed the posts as needlessly confrontational.

One Twitter post read, "Attention Village of Fairport REGISTERED Republicans: Tonight is the caucus. If you think we need top down CHANGE here in the village, you should be there to make a difference." May, who has been mayor for 12 years and is running for re-election in November, is a Republican.

Garman has also talked about the village's "poor leadership."

May said he hasn’t seen any of the social media posts in which the brewery called out the Village Board or asked brewery patrons to put pressure on village officials.

“I’ve heard some about them, but I’ve not followed them,” May said.

He continued, “It just gets a little confusing and sometimes not to my best advantage. The thing that you need to know is that we’re not against expansion, we’re not against small business. After all, we’ve done all kinds of things to help small businesses in this town. I know that they’ve put that across that we don’t support small business and we’re not working with economic development and all these things, but that’s really not the case. We work really hard to encourage small business."

In 2008, the village of Fairport identified the intersection of Church and Main streets as a vital gateway. In order to promote that corridor, the village's Office of Community and Economic Development purchased the former gas station at 99 S. Main St. in 2012.

"Tim’s additional burden is that he’s working with a historical property," May said. "He was aware of that when he bought it. But that’s the added layer on his project."

May said there were a few holdups in the expansion plan. Firstly, "It was minimizing the historic structure and emphasizing the new structure," May said. Secondly, it filled up the existing parking lot. "It was almost like too much," he added.

May said the board did its best to be supportive of FBC's proposed expansion. The commission offered suggestions to make some changes that would maintain the character of the historic structure. Instead of making those changes, FBC appealed the decision.

Brewery fit village's vision for building
For many years, the building was home to a dry cleaner and then an insurance office, according to Martha Malone, executive director of the village Office of Community and Development.

Malone, who started in her role in 2016, said the village sought a business that was "a vibrant, welcoming, pedestrian-friendly, community-oriented business."

She said Fairport Brewing perfectly fit that role. Garman signed a lease and paid $500 per month, Malone said.

The three-year lease expired in 2016 and the office sought a buyer for the property. Garman and one other business, which made a "very competitive offer," put in offers, Malone said. The organization accepted Garman's bid. Garman said FBC had an "unwritten agreement" to buy the building.

"Ultimately, our board accepted Tim’s offer, because we recognized the investment and improvements that he had made in the property and we didn’t want to displace a successful business," Malone said.

Her office provided financing and still holds the mortgage on the property. (She called the mortgage, “very nice terms.”) She said Fairport Brewing has been an ideal tenant and added, "We’re very happy to have done that for Tim."

Malone said she helped Garman look for space in the village once Fairport Brewing decided it had outgrown its production space. It became untenable to brew across three different levels, with the brewhouse and fermenters all residing on the second floor, Garman said.

"We wanted to stay in Fairport," Garman said. However, they both agreed it was a tall order to find enough commercial space within Fairport. That's when Garman expanded the search radius and found an intriguing space in Rochester.

FBC spent a year looking for new space. Garman said FBC settled on University Avenue in May. The production space is in a building owned by Buckingham Properties. It's on the same side of the building as RocVentures (facing Gleason Works).

The brewery has shifted some of its production toward kombucha, a fermented tea, which needs to remain under 0.5 percent alcohol. (Katarina Schwarz opened Katboocha, the first kombucha-only brewery in Rochester, earlier this year.)

And with the move to Rochester, FBC hasn't had any of its own beer on draft at the Main Street tasting room in the last few months.

"I watched all these other breweries go from zero to 100, and I'm like, 'You know what, we missed the opportunity (to grow),'" Garman said. "When you're in it, you don't know it's happening. So when kombucha came around, I thought that if I don't do it, someone else is going to do it."

The walk-in cooler seemingly occupies half of the space. Scott Gonyeo, FBC's director of operations, said the cooler saved the brewery $150,000.

The state's farm brewery license allows Fairport to serve other beers produced in New York, so it's been able to bridge the gap that way. That's about to change, because the 3-barrel brewhouse is now operational on University.

The farm brewery license also allows a brewery to operate up to five different locations to serve beer.

The new space has a lab (to test for things such as yeast health) and enough room to start a coffee operation Garman has had on the back burner. He purchased a coffee roaster and will offer what he's branding as Liq-Mo (liquid motivation).

"There's tons of room to grow," Garman said. "We have a kitchen over there. We're already talking about the different foods we can offer. We're just taking our time."

Former co-owner and brewer Paul Guarracini left FBC last year. He's expected to open a new brewery, Sager Beer Works, just blocks away from FBC's University Avenue location this fall.

Different ideas on expansion
Garman previously said the Fairport expansion plan is "dead." May said the brewery could wait a year and resubmit the same rejected plan again. With revisions, the plan for expansion could be presented at any time.

The three-term mayor also made members of the Historic Preservation Commission unavailable for interviews. The board is appointed, not elected, for five-year terms, May said. Members can serve up to three terms.

But he said FBC could also sit down and workshop the idea. At this time, neither side has contacted the other to set up such a meeting.

Garman said he has spent $35,000 on architectural renderings and planning. He said there is still hope, but he seems resigned to his fate. "I'm not spending another dime," he said. "That money buys a lot of tanks.

"We didn't expect to lose."

But May remains hopeful.

"Nobody wants to see them go out of business," he said. "We want to encourage him. If he’s got the kind of business that needs an addition, and he says he does, then we need to work together to make something that is acceptable to everybody. Let’s make it happen."

16 August, 2018