This weeks’ print column is on Custom Brewcrafters of Honeoye Falls, NY. They’re building a brand new brewhouse from the ground up, which should be finished by April. The place is friggin’ huge.

the new brewhouse rising above the frozen tundra

The brewhouse will feature increased retail space, and lots of room for expansion

Meanwhile, brewing goes on at their current Honeoye Falls location. Custom services a couple hundred accounts, and brews individual beers for many of them.

Brewer Greg Smith gets steamed

Head Brewer Jason Fox and friends

The result of a hard day’s work. Some cows will be lucky tomorrow

Personally, I’m looking forward to more house-branded beers, now that Custom will have the space to make them. I’ve always felt their  business model of brewing house beers for bars and restaurants precluded them from making the best beer they could, since they often seem to have to cater to the input of bar owners and mass-market beer consuming patrons. Now that Custom will be able to readily formulate, produce and sell more beer, I’m hoping the brewers will take this opportunity to really show their chops and give us Rochester beer lovers something to be proud of.

-Mark