- During the 20th century,
small breweries
nearly disappeared
across New York state.
And that decline was
mirrored by the disappearance
of the small family farm.
But in the 21st century,
as demand for local produce
has increased, a new generation
of brewers and farmers
has emerged to meet demand.
And in the small
hamlet of Keeseville
on the banks of Lake Champlain,
two brothers have tapped
into this growing movement.
(light music)
- I'm Dan Badger.
I'm co-owner of
Ausable Brewing Company
with my brother Dylan.
We've been on the property
for about six years now.
We took an old barn and
rebuilt it from the ground up.
We built this pavilion so
that we had more public space,
We built this pavilion so
that we had more public space,
keep people dry on bad days.
And now we're finally
putting an expansion
off the back of the building
that's just production space.
There were a lot of people
that thought we were crazy
to start a brewery where we did.
There have been a few
businesses that have gone
into this old barn,
didn't really do much.
I think a lot of people
thought it was neat
that we were doing it,
but didn't really
expect it to make it.
- We were in Vermont and Vermont
has this huge beer culture,
a huge local agriculture
movement going already.
We saw the potential on
this side of the lake.
There's a lot of good farmland,
a lot of young farmers
starting new operations.
We're all kind of
working together
to help create a movement here.
- You even see it in our logo,
we have both a shovel
and the mash paddle.
We do grow some of our own hops
and we grow some fruits.
We grow elderberries,
we grow black currants,
and some other
things that we use,
especially in our Belgian
lambics that we do.
It's been amazing to do this
with my younger brother.
We know that we can
depend on each other.
We might get annoyed
with each other,
but at the end of
the day it's blood.
- There's no one I
trust more than him.
We've kind of just divided it
so that he's got certain
things he does weekly
and I've got certain
things I do weekly.
- We switch off, one
week is my week to brew,
the next week's my
brother's week to brew.
- We're very cautious to even
have another employee come in
and start working
in the brew house
because we're both so anal
about how we like
to run the brewery.
And we definitely
disagree on stuff,
but there's love there
and we come back to it
at the end of the day
with no hard feelings,
for the most part.
- So we opened
August 30th, 2014.
We built a parking lot, it was
enough room for about 12 cars
and we were pretty proud
of it, built it ourselves.
- The first parking lot
we built was too small
by week three.
- We were just
overrun with people.
We had people parking along
the roads in both directions.
And then that whole next summer,
we were just seeing bigger
and bigger crowds each week.
- Today's Thursday, which
is the first day of our week
being open to the public.
We're open Thursday,
Friday, Saturday.
It's also our busiest day.
Mace Chasm Farm, they
have a food truck
and they were doing Taco
Thursdays just at their farm.
And so as soon as we
opened the brewery,
it just seemed obvious
that Taco Thursday
should move to the brewery.
And so it just became
thing right away
and we now had food
every day of the week.
Friday's barbecue night,
Saturday we have a crepe truck,
and everybody kind of shows
up at once, like 6:00, 7:00.
It's insane.
- We try to have live
music every night.
You'll see 20 kids
running around,
families laying down on
blankets, a bunch of dogs.
Everyone from 25 year old
kids to 75 year old people
that have been living
here their whole lives.
And it's really
exciting for us to see
just all those different people
coming out to our brewery
and see our lawn just filled
with 200 people sometimes.
That's what Dan and I
wanted from the beginning
and it really came
to fruition here.
- We're only producing about
ten kegs at most a week
and so obviously
that's not sustainable.
So the way that we make it work
is to get ahead in the winter.
- We're closed to the
public from January
through the end of April.
But that whole time, we're
still brewing in the back
and a lot of that time is also
spent doing barrel age series
and that's when we
do more of our sours
and brettanomyces beers.
We're both really psyched
about the Wayne Legitzky
that came out last year.
Just a really flavorful, juicy,
mosaic dry hopped pale ale.
It's one of those beers
that IPA drinkers love
and non-IPA drinkers love.
It's got a ton of that
hops flavor and aroma
without much bitterness at all.
- Next week we're
gonna roll one out,
it's a strawberry rhubarb
lambic, that's a fun one.
- We're happy with
where our business is
and where it's going
and we definitely see it
being a profitable
thing for ourselves
as long as we grow organically
and don't get in over our heads.
When you don't owe that much
and you're paying it
off without a problem,
you might be working hard but
it keeps the stress levels low
which keeps us happy.
- We're not trying
to get our product
onto shelves in supermarkets,
we're not trying to
take over taps in bars.
We're really focused on
getting people to come here
and seek out our
beer in our scene.
And it's our atmosphere
as well as the quality
of our product that's
really led to our success.
