USA, NY: DeWolf Brewing Company hoping to launch in Victor in early 2025

Justin DeWolf’s vision for the town of Victor is a brewery that fits the town: elevated, but not upscale. Diverse in its sudsy offerings, but not chasing trends. And cozy, a place fit for hanging out after a day on the slopes, but not overly quaint, CITY Magazine reported on April 26.

“I think (with) Victor, you kind of have to have a picture of two different towns,” DeWolf said. “There’s the village, where we are ... and then there’s the commercial, high-end area where Eastview Mall is.”

DeWolf Brewing Company has been in the works for almost two-and-a-half years, but the finish line is now visible with the gutting of the facility on Maple Avenue underway. If all goes well, DeWolf projects an opening later this year, although realistically doors will open in early 2025.

Victor, meanwhile, has been a complex town for the beer industry. The New York Beer Project’s second location, which opened in 2019 across the street from Eastview Mall, has been wildly successful. Just a stone’s throw away, Farmhouse Brewing failed to achieve the same success and shuttered in 2022. The latter specialized in decadent, rustic Belgian-influenced ales. While failing to draw enough attention to survive, the beer from Farmhouse was often outstanding.

DeWolf Brewing plans to have a 10-barrel brewhouse focusing on a robust lager program. DeWolf, however, wants a tap list that can satiate any palate.

“We don’t plan to have specific, niche beer styles,” DeWolf said. “We look at it as modern beer styles, with a real focus on quality. That’s one of the biggest pet peeves of mine when I visit breweries, like, how can you put this beer out?”

While DeWolf hasn’t tapped a head brewer yet, his history in craft beer goes back over a decade to when he was living in Barcelona and started home brewing. At the time, the brewing scene in the Catalonian capital was, at best, fledgling, and DeWolf organized one of the first home brewing clubs in the city.

When he returned home to the Finger Lakes in 2015, DeWolf entered the beer world through the opening of DeWolf Hop Farm. That project didn’t last long, a problem he attributed to hop farming's “economy of scale."

At the brewery, DeWolf plans to mix some of his experience in Spain into the project. Spanish flavors are planned to accent the menu, and a heavily curated mix of Spanish and Finger Lakes wines will serve as beer alternatives.

Chris Lindstrom, a food consultant working with DeWolf on the brewery, described the cuisine as modern, elevated fusion.

“It’s bringing Spanish and European flavors into dishes everyone’s familiar with,” Lindstrom said. “It’s fusion with intention, not fusion because we don’t know what we’re doing.”

The process of opening a brewery has been a long road for DeWolf, with the past several years spent working to secure funding and shore up the right space. But as the manual labor portion of the project kicks in, DeWolf is eager to cross the finish line.

“It feels like now I can finally actually start doing the work."

27 April, 2024