The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Hometown brewing takes the next step
2017 is bringing big things Good Nature Brewing.
At the end of January, the Hamilton-based brewery owned by Carrie Blackmore and Matt Whalen was able to move its operations from an old, cramped facility on Milford Street to a mammoth new 6,400 square foot facility located at 1727 State Route 12 B, close to the heart of Colgate University, in a $6 million expansion.
With the new facility also comes new equipment which is key in expanding Good Nature’s output.
At the old facility, the brewery had a seven barrel system. At the new building, Good Nature more than doubled its production arsenal, installing a carefully planned 17 barrel system. Additionally, Blackmore explained that one of the biggest benefits of the new system is the speed in which a batch is brewed.
At the former location, it took the Good Nature team roughly 8 hours to finish a batch, whereas the new system makes it possible to complete a batch in just a few hours.
“We could brew almost 12 times a day,” Blackmore said. Being able to brew different batches much more rapidly has made it possible for Good Nature to exceed its monthly production average from 2016 – 94 barrels – in “a matter of hours.”
“It’s quite the transition,” Blackmore said, explaining that making a larger batch includes more than just multiplying old recipes. “We’re entering a whole new world. We have to scale up gradually.”
In fact, Blackmore admitted there was a little trepidation when Good Nature first started producing some of its favorites at the new site, but those fears were for naught.
“The Blonde tasted like Blonde. The Annie tasted like Annie,” Blackmore said with a grin.
Because some of barrels are so massive, Good Nature also ordered a specialized “hop cannon” in order to fire hops into a batch a specific, timed intervals. Previously, a ladder was all that was required to add hops to a batch.
The new facility is also more efficient, utilizing a mash filter for grain that allows Good Nature to press more liquid out of the grain. Used grain is then sent to local farmers. The new system will decrease overall grain usage by 10-20 percent, decrease the water usage per batch of brewing by 30 percent, and decrease the overall energy use by 10 percent.
With the new space, Good Nature will be able to take craft brew aficionados or the casual fan on tours of the new facility, giving visitors a behind the scenes peak at the operations of New York State’s first farm brewery. Blackmore said the brewery used to give tours at the former Milford Street location in the Village of Hamilton, but the former facility’s lack of space limited the scope of the tour, causing Good Nature to shut the tours down.
In addition to brew tours, the Hamilton-based brewery also has a loft space overlooking operations at the new location that can be rented out for birthday parties, televised sporting events, or corporate meetings.
Another new facet the brewery plans to roll out as a result of the multimillion dollar expansion is a pilot system where Good Nature brewers can try something new or different.
“We’ l l be able to play with experimental batches,” Blackmore said, adding that the pilot system also provides the brewery an opportunity to test out recipe idea submissions and in keeping true to its farm brewery status, “play with ingredients grown in the Colgate Garden.”
The final aspect of the new facility is the tasting room. (Don’t worry Hamiltonians, the Tap Room will remain open as well.) Blackmore says Good Nature is still searching for a head chef and may even open without one and instead use food trucks to feed patrons. The tasting room is a bit of mystery at this point as construction wraps up, but Blackmore hopes for a mid-April grand opening. In the grand scheme of things, the tasting room will offer brick-fired oven eats as well as gourmet grilled cheese, cut fries, and handmade sauces. There will also be a walk-in cooler for bottle sales.
“We’ll keep it pretty simple,” Blackmore said.
The décor and layout of the tasting room is a derivation of aspects Black- more has seen in her travels, including garage door bays that open to an expansive beer garden and metal piping used to create beer taps on a bar constructed of pallets.
The site of the new location is currently, and will continue to be, the site of Colgate University’s Community Garden which Good Nature will lease the greenhouse back to Colgate at the cost of $1 a year.
She said that the new brewery will be used as classroom space for Morrisville State students interested in a brewing ca- reer, and Whalen will be teaching courses through the university. Good Nature is also hoping to develop programming with Colgate University, expanding their current relationship with the neighboring college.
The new location re- quired significant communication and collaboration with the Village of Hamilton as the existing water supply and infrastructure need to be extended to the Route 12B location. It even required the village annexing the site of the new facility in order to legally ex- tend the infrastructure.
In addition to extending infrastructure, the expansion also brings several new jobs to the area with 16-20 part time jobs created, andmore than 10 new full-time jobs. The expansion has been in the works since 2014.