How Breweries Shape Rural Communities

“The existence of craft brews really is a marker of a town that's on the rise," says James Fallows, co-author of the book Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America. Fallows explains his statement by pointing out all the jobs breweries create: over 135,000 in breweries and pubs alone in 2017. For each of these jobs, adjacent industries, like the restaurants that feed bar-goers and the merchandisers who make breweries’ souvenirs, gain 31 additional jobs. For rural communities, breweries contribute even more deeply, promoting regional agriculture, strengthening the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and providing an amenity that is attractive to visitors and increases the quality of life for residents.

Sign for Dublin Corners Brewery in Linwood, NY.

In New York State, the Farm Brewery Law has been instrumental in getting craft breweries off the ground and increasing the state’s production of hops, barley, and other ingredients used to make beer and cider. Heather and Justin Grant were avid home brewers living on their fifth generation family farm in Linwood and growing their own hops when the state passed the law in 2012. Suddenly, brewers did not need any additional permits to sell their beers or ciders so long as the beers met minimum requirements for featuring local hops, barley, and other ingredients (according to the schedule for this license, the beer must contain a greater proportion of local ingredients as the years go on, until ultimately in 2024 the beer must consist of 90% New York State products). Craft brewers could sell their beer at markets, open restaurants, and avoid paying annual fees to the State Liquor Authority. Sensing a huge opportunity, the Grants got to work and opened a brewery in their barn in 2016, naming it Dublin Corners, the first brewery in Livingston County. With the state making these incentives dependent on the use of local agriculture, there are now an estimated 400 acres of hops in New York State -- up from around zero in 2000. 

Local food on offer at Silver Lake Brewing Project in Perry, NY.

Breweries are, by nature, a very collaborative industry, since visitors to breweries are often expecting more than just beer. Breweries have to source food for their guests, so they bring in local food trucks or call upon nearby restaurants to deliver to their bar. Silver Lake Brewing Project in Perry, for instance, serves meals from the restaurant the Hole in the Wall, offers cheese plates from East Hill Creamery, and sells potato chips from NY Chips -- all food businesses that operate within the brewery’s county. Breweries licensed under the Farm Brewery Law are able to sell New York wines and ciders without any additional red tape, so when Dublin Corners opens its Geneseo taproom at the end of September, the business will be selling the wine and cider of other local companies. 

Other People’s Pints, a festival at Rising Storm Brewing Co. in 2019.

The Livingston County Economic Development Office developed the Brew IN Livingston competition in 2016 in order to create a craft beer trail, providing four contestants with access to $35,000 in grant money, $100,000 in loans, and business help from the Livingston County Area Chamber of Commerce and Tourism and the New York State Brewers Association. This competition ultimately led to the Livingston Libation Loop, creating a community among local breweries, wineries, and cideries. One of the winners, Rising Storm Brewing Co. in Avon, now sell crowlers from OSB cider, a Livingston county cidery, and even hosted an event in July called Other People’s Pints (OPP), featuring 15 local breweries and multiple food trucks. Breweries are not just creating business for themselves, but giving work to everyone from the food truck chef to the musicians that play brewery events to transportation companies that take guests home after their brewery visits.

Community gathering at No BS Brew Company in Livonia, NY.

Breweries make places better destinations for visitors and better communities for residents. The Center on Rural Innovation in Vermont, leaders in rural development, includes breweries in their new mapping tool as one of the key indicators for rural communities with the assets needed to attract new tech jobs. As tourists progressively seek more immersive travel experiences, they look to breweries and restaurants to provide them with the authentic tastes of the places they are visiting. Craft beer trails are popping up all over the country as more and more people become willing to travel to explore new beers. 

Local workers did all the renovation work at Battle Street Brewery in Dansville, NY.

The inhabitants of the Genesee Valley have also rallied around their local craft beer scene. Silver Lake Brewing Project turned to their neighbors for fundraising when building out their brewery in 2015, some of whom became investors and managing partners in the business. When Dennis Boor and Doug Acomb, Brew IN Livingston winners, renovated the Dansville Mt. Morris depot (a stop on the now defunct Dansville & Mount Morris Railroad) to create Battle Street Brewery, they decided to use exclusively local companies and workers. 

Over the past ten years, the number of craft breweries in the United States has grown markedly, and rural communities have not been immune to that growth. The Finger Lakes Beer Trail, for instance, consisted of 24 breweries in 2011 and had grown to 100 in 2017. As the breweries in rural areas multiply, especially in New York where lenient permit regulations are tied to using state produce, the demand for local ingredients increases, benefitting agricultural workers. The breweries reach out to other businesses to provide things to their customers they cannot -- food, music, games, transportation, etc. -- strengthening community ties and the region’s economic ecosystem. Residents gain a neighborhood amenity and an increasing number of tourists come to visit the area to partake in the brewery’s offerings, staying in local hotels, eating local food, and frequenting local attractions on their trips. When breweries set up shop in a town, the benefits ricochet throughout the region.

Food Pioneers of the Genesee Valley

The landscape of food in upstate New York is changing. While the Finger Lakes region is responsible for a quarter of the state’s agricultural output, local residents in Western New York have traditionally felt the need to leave the area to experience new food and beverage trends. However, thanks to the state’s policy initiatives and innovative farmers, chefs, and business owners, there are more opportunities than ever before to enjoy what New York has to offer.

Although the wine industry currently brings tourists to the area, the food scene has lagged behind. The Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council has recognized that consumers want more organic and locally-sourced food. The council has identified $1.3 billion in private investments to improve the entire food value chain, ranging from research to equipment to infrastructure. At the same time, local schools like Monroe Community College, Finger Lakes Community College, and Genesee Community College provide programs in food studies, viticulture, and food processing technology so that a workforce will be available to fill the jobs these investments create. The New York State Division of Agricultural Development, meanwhile, helps support the over 700 farmers’ markets in the state.

Two new local food incubators, FreshLAB in Batavia and the Commissary in Rochester, aim to help new restaurants, beverage companies, and small-batch food producers get started in the area. Created to help keep residents’ dining and entertaining money local, FreshLAB provides to entrepreneurs everything from a commercial kitchen to WiFi to mentorship. In Sibley Square in Rochester, the Commissary, opening later in 2019, will offer hourly kitchen space to aspiring grocery suppliers as well as food-focused workshops and cooking classes to the general public.

The Hole in the Wall Restaurant in Perry lists many local suppliers on their menu.

The relationship between food and agricultural businesses in the region is also evolving. When Jacquie Billings and Travis Barlow joined forces at the Hole in the Wall Restaurant in Perry in 2005, they had to grow their own produce. Now, after years of building relationships with local farmers, creameries, apiaries, and the like, they joke their garden is overgrown with weeds and instead tend to the growing list of producers they promote on their menu. 

Chef Brian Simmons who runs the historic Yard of Ale in Piffard has also been a pioneer in transforming the region’s food scene, making sustainability a key focus of his cuisine and partnering with local food and beverage producers like the Abbey of the Genesee, Deer Run Winery and Pleasant View Farm. 

Executive Chef Sean Wolf, formerly at Farmer’s Creekside Tavern in Leroy, says the choice to focus on farm-to-table dining was obvious to him: “The fewer miles the food has to travel, (the) better for the quality of the food and (the) better for the environment… It also gives us (an opportunity) to create a personal connection with the people growing our food, and opens a dialogue in which we can each understand the other's needs better with the result hopefully being a better product and better supply stream for everyone involved.” Likewise, Jill Marshall Gould, after marrying Steve Gould, a third generation dairy farmer at Har-Go Farms in Pavilion, saw a way to utilize something the region has in abundance: culled dairy cows. Instead of sending these cows to auction, Marshall Gould has started processing them and dry aging the steaks, selling them alongside burgers and dog bones at pop-ups under her Butter Meat Co. label. While still a small operation, she hopes to ultimately have the capacity to expand beyond her own farm’s cows and open a retail space nearby. 

The food scene in Western New York has come a long way, but there is still work to be done, both by policymakers and customers.  Although Marshall Gould understands the intent of regulatory laws, she finds it very expensive and arduous to keep up with all of them, saying, “I have a constant fear I may have missed something…(that) will impact me in 6 months or a couple of years.” Margaret Zdzieszynski and Krystyna Skrzypek of Euro Café, a Polish restaurant in Geneseo, agree, adding that they wish business taxes were lower. Additionally the increasing minimum wage will make restaurants’ already narrow profits even narrower. 

While the market demand for local food and beverage is there - the supply is not. There are a number of issues that contribute to this but two of the main ones are the ability of rural restaurants to attract and retain talent and the highly seasonal nature of the business. According to Nicole Manapol, Letchworth Gateway Villages Director, “it’s a risk that many entrepreneurs in rural areas just can’t take.” 

On the flip side, local customers, not used to the rising quality of restaurants in the area, also face a steep learning curve. Sean Wolf often faces questions from customers about why his homemade bread or local produce from small farms costs more than they are used to spending on inferior products. He wishes people would step outside their comfort zones and trust chefs to make them something new and delicious.

The potential for the food and beverage industry in the Genesee Valley is huge - especially as Buffalo and Rochester up their culinary games and the Finger Lakes wine region continues to attract and grow local talent to fuel their wine industry. The food pioneers featured in this article have gone a long way in defining the Genesee Valley’s culinary identity. To support these efforts, Letchworth Gateway Villages has partnered with the Culinary Tourism Alliance, one of the world's leading experts in food tourism development, to understand how the region can combine its strengths in agriculture with travel and hospitality to drive new market opportunities in the region. The Genesee Valley shares many of the agricultural assets that put New York’s Finger Lakes wine region on the map, but the unique agricultural and culinary heritage of the Genesee Valley means that assets will be leveraged differently. By celebrating these stories and incorporating them into diverse visitor experiences, communities have the potential to attract more visitors, expand the market for local goods and services, and foster business innovation.