USA, NY: Return Brewing getting ready to open in Hudson
After eight years at Sixpoint Brewery in Brooklyn, Mikey Lenane was ready to return to the Hudson Valley.
“I've been thinking about coming back upstate to start a brewery almost since I started at Sixpoint,” said Lenane, who worked in marketing, sales and product development at the brewery until 2020. Now, as he readies the opening of Return Brewing in Hudson, he splits his time between NYC and his parent’s home in New Baltimore while he apartment hunts in the region, the Albany Times Union reported on August 26.
“But it's only been recently that I could actually justify this as a business decision. The market for good beer has just really changed. I remember growing up, craft beer was not something that any of my friends’ dads would drink. It was like hipster or sissy beer [to them]. So it's been really crazy watching the whole region change and people accept craft beer. I'm really excited to be able to come back and do what I always wanted to.”
Two former Sixpoint colleagues, brewer JD Linderman and designer Jack Liakas, and college friend Robert Wise, who will head up finance and operations, join Lenane as co-founders of Return. Its name sounds like a reference to his trip back north, but it’s actually much more Proustian.
“It's about having the perfect beer at the perfect time,” said Lenane. “Let's say you're surrounded by friends at our tap room. You have that perfect experience. You bring the rest of the beers home. And then maybe you're just sitting on your porch by yourself. And you crack open that beer off and through olfactory memory, you're transported, you return to that perfect moment.”
In mid-September, the first cans of Return Brewing beer will appear on shelves at all 12 Beer Worlds in the Hudson Valley, as well as area bars like Governor’s Tavern in Hudson and Underground Coffee and Ales in Highland. The beers, which the brewery will announce on its Instagram in the coming weeks, are currently made at Crossroads Brewing Company in Catskill, not far from where Lenane grew up.
While the new brewery marks a return for Lenane to his home region, the Hudson Valley looks a lot different now, he said.
“If you even look at my hometown of Coxsackie, two of my friends from high school are starting businesses there — a farm and a vintage shop ... I don't remember it being so vibrant and having this community feel where people are all walking down the downtown just looking for something to do.”
The flip side of this growth, both from the influx of NYCers and locals who are maximizing on upstate’s resurgent appeal, is that not everyone has benefited equally — something that Lenane wants to address at the brewery.
“We have a lot of social justice-related goals that go beyond just making beer.”
The brewery is interested in partnering with a hiring program for formerly incarcerated individuals; creating a diversity and inclusion internship modeled after the Open Waters program at Sloop Brewing in East Fishkill; and supporting fundraisers for social justice organizations like the ones he coordinated at Sixpoint.
Lenane will take some other lessons from his former employer, such as a rigorous product visioning process to develop new beers. But it will differ in most other ways, including in size.
“Sixpoint is a regional player, and Return is going to be more of a niche player,” he said, meaning they will not be distributing their beers across the Northeast — at least not yet — nor will they can every beer they serve at their tap room. To try their “exploratory concepts” or their Scandinavian and Farmhouse ale-style beers, you’ll have to taste them in person come 2022.
“We're really trying to set the beers in the Hudson Valley,” said Lenane, particularly those that are re-fermented with fruit grown on local farms. Though he hasn’t decided which ones, Lenane has narrowed down the options to 10 possible growing partners. “I wasn't aware of just how many amazing little farms there are right around Hudson [and] Coxsackie.”
Some, but not all, of the sourced hops will also be locally grown. Lenane points out that New York was once a leading producer of hops in America, “but they developed problems with certain blights and mold that come from the humidity,” so Return will also source hops from growers around the world like Washington state and New Zealand that have longer growing seasons or proprietary strains.
Beyond the barrel-aged beers and blends that will be on the experimental side of their beer list, Return will also offer staples beers including IPAs, a flagship pilsner and a house lager.
“We hope to have a very affordable beer. We hope to have locals’ nights … all this stuff that makes the brewery accessible.”
A beer garden and food program are also planned for the brewery that will open at 726 Columbia Street, not far from Lil’ Deb’s Oasis, off of Warren Street.
And though Lenane won’t commit to an exact opening date beyond next year, he does have some hints at how the brewery will ultimately look and feel: “This is a warehouse space, it's going to be rough, it’s going to be covered in murals, it’s gonna have a nice, big outdoor area filled with plant life. It's going to be hopefully a very relaxing and convivial place.”
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