In the early 1990s, when the homebrew movement matured into the microbrew industry, craft beer appeared in Franklin County in the form of its first local brewery, Berkshire Brewing Co. of Deerfield in 1994. Three years later the first brewpub, The People’s Pint, appeared on Federal Street in Greenfield.
Since then, craft brewing, and hard-cider making has just kept expanding, locally and nationally. Artisanal beer-making in particular has foamed over in the past decade with six additional breweries opening in Franklin County, the most recent, Hitchcock Brewing Co. in Whately, just this year.
These days, lovers of fresh local beer can crisscross the county from Orange to Colrain and taste a wide assortment of fermented beverages on the locavore landscape.
And this weekend for the first time, beer and cider lovers, and the curious, will be able to find all those local fermenters and their brews in one place: Franklin County On Tap, a celebration of local brews sponsored by The Recorder in partnership with Berkshire East and Ryan and Casey Liquors. The tasting festival will bring together 13 area fermenters, local eats and live music and outdoor entertainment at Berkshire East Mountain Resort in Charlemont from noon to 5, Saturday, July 16.
Unlike other beer festivals where attendees can try out the product, On Tap will bring the brewers and their fans together to talk about and taste the hops, malt and yeast, grains, wort and everything else involved in the process of making and enjoying beer, hard cider and mead.
Some of the fermenters will be bringing styles brewed special for the festival. Attending will be beermakers Berkshire Brewing, Brick and Feather, Element, Honest Weight, Lefty’s, People’s Pint, Stoneman Brewery and Hitchcock Brewing Co.; hard cider makers from Bear Swamp Orchard, Headwater Cider, West County Cider and Wheel-View Farm; and fermenters of mead, kombucha and alcoholic ginger beer from Artisan Beverage Coop.
They’re made in all corners of the county, from Honest Weight in Orange to Stoneman’s one-barrel brewery situated in a shack in the hills of Colrain, from BBC’s expansive Deerfield brewery to Headwater’s four-tank setup in Hawley.
These are mom and pop businesses, making libations for their friends and neighbors. They all come with personal back stories they love to share along with their brews — all of which you can discover at On Tap, where the sampling experience gets personal this Saturday.
And speaking of samples, here’a little taste of those back stories:
Gary Bogoff has been brewing craft beer since before it was cool. When he and his former partner Chris Lalli opened Berkshire Brewing Co. in 1994, microbreweries were just trying to gain a foothold in a market dominated by the big guys.
But the market grew, and so did BBC, now the county’s largest brewery, with a staff of 55 and six brewers, the Sam Adams of western Mass.
Bogoff welcomes the newer brewers with open arms.
“I enjoy the diversity. It’s a beer drinker’s paradise,” he said.
Chris Sellers, head brewer at The People’s Pint, could talk about beer for hours. And he often does.
“I recently gave a talk at Mount Holyoke College for a molecular gastronomy class that’s working with beer foam,” he said.
His favorite part comes after the talk, when it’s time for his audience to wet their whistles.
“You watch (the students), and you realize they’ll never taste beer the same way again.”
In 1997, founder Alden Booth of Gill had more in mind than just getting into the beer business.
“Our goal was to provide a place for folks here in Greenfield for wholesome, local, seasonal food and great beer,” he said.
“Beer drinkers in the last five years have really opened up their tastes,” Sellers said.
“Everyone’s brewing different things, and it creates a demand for beers I’d be reluctant to do six or seven years ago. Now, people are always looking for the ‘new’ beer.”
A few years ago, Bill “Lefty” Goldfarb was faced with a decision: Pursue his passion for brewing beer, or continue working as a roofer.
In 2010, he founded Lefty’s Brewing Co. in Bernardston. Lefty’s quickly outgrew its small building, moving to Wells Street in Greenfield a year after opening. It is now the county’s second-largest brewery, churning out 2,000 barrels in 2015, a long way from the 124 barrels he made in his first full year.
Lefty’s right hand is his wife, Melissa Goldfarb, who has been beside him since he was home-brewing.
“Barrel aging is my passion,” Goldfarb says. He’s used whiskey barrels to age many of his beers.
Bonding over beer is big at Lefty’s. It’s not just about enjoying beer, but the things you do and the company you keep while you drink it. That’s why they like to put on events that focus on food, music and fun.
There are certain parts of Italy, England and Australia that share a little something with Franklin County. That something is Element beer, brewed in the little village of Millers Falls since it opened in 2009, and more recently exported to parts of Europe through a local beer importer.
Ben Anhalt and co-owner Dan Kramer have set up Element Brewing Co. on Bridge Street in Millers Falls with taproom, live music, and a game room. They host two pop-up restaurant nights, where area eateries will set up shop for the day, and food trucks often come as well.
Anhalt used to be head brewer at Paper City Brewing Co. in Holyoke, while Kramer was most recently the head brewer of Opa Opa Brewing Co. in Williamsburg. But they had their ideas and plans.
One element of that vision you see before you taste the beer: it comes corked in champagne bottles wrapped in paper.
Tucked away in the hills of Colrain, Stoneman Brewery is a Brigadoon of beer-makers, popping up every month since late 2013 so farm-share customers can pick up their allotment of suds.
“Welcome to the smallest commercial brewery in the state,” says owner Justin Korby. He’s not kidding. Each batch is a single barrel of beer, or 31 gallons, enough for about 180 22-ounce bottles. The one-man show fits in a large shed on Korby’s 74-acre mountainside homestead, mere feet from the home he shares with his wife and their daughter, who’s just a toddler.
“The reason for being this size is that I’m able to use about 90 percent local and regional ingredients most of the time,” Korby explained.
Korby sold 40 “shares” of beer that first year.
“I still really like the CSA model,” he said, “I’m basically the brewer for my friends and neighbors.”
For the people behind Bear Swamp Orchard, cider is all about setting the stage and letting nature run its course.
The Ashfield orchard’s organic hard ciders are made from apples grown right on-site, with naturally occurring yeasts instead of cultivated strains. They make about 3,000 to 4,000 gallons annually, in several styles.
“The whole thing’s a hobby that got out of control,” said co-owner Steve Gougeon.
Those include hopped cider, made with hops grown at the orchard, as well as New England-style and a barrel-aged farmhouse cider.
Gougeon and his wife, Jen, like the sustainable aspect of the business. Everything is grown, processed and bottled on-site, organically.
“A lot of people try it and say ‘It’s not what I expected,’ and you know you’ve cracked the door into the cider world for them,” he said. “Cider-lovers are somewhat of a wine culture, but with more of a beer attitude.”
Peter Mitchell, owner of Headwater Cider Co. in Hawley, has come a long way since his first homemade batch of hard cider.
“I had come out to Franklin County Cider Days and tried all these wonderful ciders, especially West County’s Dry Baldwin,” Mitchell said. “I was just smitten with it.”
“I started looking for an orchard to buy — I really wanted to make cider,” he continued. He found one, a former part of Apex Orchard in 2005.
Since then, he’s gone on to produce some award-winning cider. His New England Dry took home silver in the Great Lakes International Cider and Perry Competition’s New World Cider category in 2016, and earned bronze the previous year.
Mitchell has high hopes for this year’s batch.
While cider is new for Wheel-View Farm in Shelburne, the farm’s been around for more than 200 years.
Co-owner Carolyn Wheeler grew up just around the corner, and her grandparents lived in the farmhouse that’s now home to her and her husband, John. Their daughter and her family now live in the house where Carolyn grew up, bringing things full-circle.
The Wheelers ran the farm as a dairy from 1979 to 1988 and shifted into apple growing and later cider making, bringing Mike Barnes on board as head cider maker. While the Wheelers were new to it, you might say cider runs in Barnes’ blood.
“My family spent generations making hard cider in the cellar in old whiskey barrels from Tennessee,” Barnes said.
When the Maloneys started making hard cider in Colrain in 1984, they were trying to reclaim a lost art.
“Our mission was to bring cider back,” said Field Maloney, son of founders Judith and Terry Maloney. He now runs the cider-making show.
While hard cider was bigger than beer in Colonial times, it didn’t survive Prohibition. When his parents started out, they didn’t have much to go on.
Luckily for the Maloneys, a couple of their hilltown neighbors still made their own small batches of hard cider. They now make about 5,000 gallons of hard cider each year, in up to a dozen varieties.
West County is expanding to Peckville Road in Shelburne, where it will have room for more trees on the 62 acres, as well as a larger place to ferment and package and have a tasting room and store.
Maloney said he’s got something special planned for Franklin County On Tap, something “we haven’t made in about 20 years,” he said.
There’s only one place to buy a bottle of Brick and Feather: 112th Street in Turners Falls, where chances are owner and brewmaster Lawrence George will bottle it while you wait.
“Beer isn’t meant to sit on a shelf,” he explained. “I want people to be able to have brewery-fresh beer at home.”
He also doesn’t think beer should be filtered. That means a lot of beer is left at the bottom of his tanks, going straight down the floor drain.
“It’s the sacrifice you make for having a beer that’s full and alive,” he said.
The small brewery opened in October of 2015 and is on track to brew 300 barrels — or 9,300 gallons of beer in its first full year.
“We’re primarily dealing with two worlds of brewing,” George said. “One is the new hoppy American pale ales and IPAs, and the other is French and Belgian beers, saisons and farmhouse ales.”
Jay Sullivan and Sean Nolan set up Honest Weight Artisan Beer in a former Orange furniture factory “because we love beer,” Sullivan said.
The two are on track to brew, bottle and keg about 700 barrels of beer this year. While much of it goes to restaurants and bars throughout the state, a big chunk of their business is done right at the brewery, face to face with the consumer.
Licensed to sell full-size pours, the tasting room has become a popular place for fans from near and far.
While their beers lean toward hop-forward styles like saisons and pale ales, they always look for balance in their brews.
They’ve brewed about 20 different styles — not just ales — and are always trying new things.
While Franklin County fermenters may rejoice in the gaining popularity of craft beer and hard cider, one company has found a niche with some lesser-known beverages.
Artisan Beverage Cooperative makes three different fermented drinks not far from downtown Greenfield — their Green River Ambrosia meads (a wine made with honey), Ginger Libation alcoholic ginger beer and Katalyst Kombucha, a fermented tea with active cultures.
It started as two companies which shared a facility, merging in 2013.
Will Savitri and Jeffrey Canter founded Katalyst in 2005, and employee Garth Shaneyfelt founded Green River Ambrosia in 2007 with Savitri. The ginger beer came three years later, spearheaded by a former worker-owner who had been making it at home.
Alcoholic ginger beer harkens back to 19th-century Europe. It was exported to a young America, where it gained in popularity until Prohibition brought it screeching to a halt. It’s grown to be the biggest seller, and they’ve made several varieties of it. But it was a homemade kombucha that served as the catalyst for what became Artisan Beverage.
Now, Artisan makes its beverages back where they started. The cooperative moved into a larger space at the CDC’s Wells Street site in the summer of 2014.
Artisan hopes to have its Blueberry Libation ready in time for Franklin County on Tap.
Hitchcock Brewing Co. is the latest to toss its recipe into the mix and make a go of making beer for discerning beer drinkers in the Pioneer Valley.
Located on Christian Lane in Whately, its taproom overlooks a field where about 850 hop plants twist up into the sky.
Rich Pederson, who co-owns the beer business with his wife, Geneva Pederson, said their goal is to build a brand that keeps in touch with local flavor.
“We produce local ales for local people,” he said. “We want to make beer that people want to drink, and (isn’t) necessarily the hottest thing on the market.”
The new brewery shipped its first keg May 15.
“I’ve always wanted to open a brewery,” he said. “My wife and I both did an early retirement and decided to chase a dream.”
As far as where the brewery is heading, Rich Pederson said he intends to infuse locally produced fruit and agriculture in the beers, and experiment with hyper-locally produced concoctions.
Tickets to Saturday’s local fermenters festival at Berkshire East in Charlemont off Route 2 are $25 in advance; $30, day of event. For the price of admission, attendees will get six 4-ounce pours, get to compare notes with the beer’s brewers, a souvenir glass, and free music by Dave Houghton and Shokazoba. There will be local food for sale and specials on all of the attractions at Berkshire East.
Order tickets at www.recorder.com.
Parts of this story were excerpted from The Recorder’s OnTap program guide written by David Rainville.