GENEVA — After leaving a 25-year career behind, George Adams traded in his life savings, his retirement fund, and a bank loan in pursuit of his dream — opening up and running a brewery.

“It was the dream, and layoffs woke me up a little bit — the chances of me being an engineer until retirement were dwindling,” Adams says. “It was either do it now or not have a chance to do it in this life.”

Adams’ dream materialized when he opened GAËL Brewing Company in June 2015.  The microbrewery operates from a 2,500-square-foot facility on Rt. 14 near Seneca Lake in the town of Geneva. The front one-third of the facility serves as a tasting room, while the back two-thirds is designated for production space.

Adams, 49, left his job at Alstom, a multi-national rail transportation company, in January 2014 to pursue his part-time hobby — brewing — on a full-time scale. He and his wife, Beth Lauzon, took on the task of running the business together, though Adams is the sole owner.

At any given time, GAËL Brewing usually has seven beers on tap, and each pint sells for $5. The most popular, Adams says, are Rye Bread Ale and Templederry Irish Stout — known for their classic and authentic Irish flavors. Depending on his mood, Adams says his favorites can be the Sherlock Blonde Ale or Liam’s Irish Red Ale, characterized by their sweet, smooth tastes.

To maintain its microbrewery status, a brewery is limited to producing 60,000 barrels a year or less. GAËL won’t cross this threshold anytime soon — Adams says he brews anywhere from 90-120 barrels each year. The whole process — from milling the grains to fermenting to kegging and beyond — takes about a month, and Adams can only produce about 250 gallons at a time.

While the microbrewery gets its grains primarily from farmers in the Midwest, one of its hops suppliers is located less than 10 miles away.

Area hops farm
Pedersen Farms, a 1,500-acre, family-owned farm in Seneca Castle, grows more than 15 different varieties of hops. Rick Pedersen founded the farm with his wife, 

Laura, on just a few acres in 1983. The duo established the first farm east of the Rockies to start farming hops in 1999, Pedersen contends.

“The first couple of years, it was like no one understood what a New York hop was,” he says. “I gave out a lot of free samples for a while.”

After about a decade of coming to understand each hop variety’s prime harvesting schedule — and of giving out free samples — Ithaca Beer Company became the farm’s first customer. 

The New York State Farm Brewery Law, which provides tax incentives for both brewers and farmers involved in the production of alcoholic beverages, also helped drive up business between New York growers and brewers, Pedersen says. 

Pedersen Farms now sells to more than 25 different breweries in New York and along the east coast, including GAËL.

Pedersen’s hops are of the aroma variety, specifically, and not considered bittering hops. Hops act as a natural preservative in beer, and each kind offers a different taste when used in the brewing process. Cascade, Centennial, and Nugget are three of Pedersen’s most sought-after varieties, he says.

In terms of gross income, hops bring in about the same revenue as any of his other crops, Pedersen says. It’s the work that goes into growing them that he loves.

“It’s a fun crop — it gets in your blood,” he quips. “It’s just, you learn how to do it and there’s a passion and a romance to it.”

The perennial plants are a time-sensitive crop, Pedersen explains. Once they’re harvested, hops have to be used by the brewer in much less than 24 hours to preserve their quality. 

They’re also a rare commodity on the East Coast — all of Pedersen’s hops were spoken for as of last September. Brewers have to buy in advance and schedule a pickup or delivery weeks ahead of time, Pedersen says.

Being a new brewer, Adams reached out to Pedersen well before GAËL actually opened up. Since then, GAËL has ordered two shipments of hops from Pedersen Farms and begun to expand its reach beyond the Finger Lakes. 

Aside from attracting customers following the Seneca Lake Wine Trail, GAËL distributes its craft beer to area restaurants and bars like Kitty Hoynes at 301 W. Fayette St. in Syracuse and stores such as AJ’s Beer Warehouse at 175 Clay Road in Rochester. 

The winter season is slower for business, Adams says, but he’s looking to pick up speed this summer and take advantage of being the “odd ball” on the wine trail. 

“We’re on a fairly popular trail, and the town has been more than hospitable to us,” Adams says. “This place is predictably unpredictable.”

EVANS MILLS — Paul Kilgore started home brewing beer in 1994. More than 20 years later, he’s working to open his own brewery.

Kilgore is the owner and head brewer of WAORGANY Brewing, LLC, (pronounced WAR-guh-nee). He plans to start operations in Evans Mills (northeast of Watertown) later this year.

“It’s quite a long process,” says Kilgore, who spoke with CNYBJ on Feb. 25.

WAORGANY Brewing, LLC is a farm brewery, according to its website. The name WAORGANY includes the abbreviations for Washington, Oregon, Georgia, and New York, places where Kilgore has either lived or served in the military.

Kilgore, a veteran of the U.S. Army, cannot conduct commercial brewing activities until the federal TTB and New York grant him a license. TTB is the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which is part of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He’ll need to secure the TTB brewer’s permit before he can apply for the New York farm brewery license. 

Kilgore is taking the steps necessary to secure the TTB license, he says. That process includes securing a location with all the proper equipment.

“Once you have all your equipment in place, then you can apply for your license to brew,” he says. 

The application process takes between three and six months to get approval, he adds. 

His most immediate objective is finding a location.

“I’m in the process of looking at a few properties right now,” says Kilgore.

He plans to buy an existing structure and modify it to meet the needs of a brewery.

“We’ll probably be doing most of the work that we can ourselves,” he says, noting he’s aware of a contractor he’ll work with once he determines what work needs to be done. 

Future operations
WAORGANY Brewing will begin as a manufacturing operation, producing all its beers and ales “in-house.”

“We’re going to be licensed as a New York State farm brewery, so we’ll be able to actually serve our beers directly from a tap room at our facility,” says Kilgore.

With a New York State farm brewery license, he will eventually think about self-distributing the products, he notes.

WAORGANY will be what Kilgore refers to as a nano brewery, meaning it will produce its beer and ales using a three-barrel brew system. 

“All the other breweries are five-barrel breweries or bigger,” says Kilgore, referring to all other breweries in Jefferson County.

Project financing
Financing the project is his “biggest” concern as the project moves forward, he notes.

Kilgore estimates it will cost between $300,000 and $500,000 to launch WAORGANY Brewing. 

He’ll use some of his own cash. A “long- time friend” might partner with Kilgore. “We’re still trying to work out the details on that,” he says. 

Figuring he’ll still need more money, Kilgore plans to seek an angel investor or another partner or pursue additional financing through the U.S. Small Business Administration. 

Kilgore figures he’s accumulated about 20 percent of the financing he needs for the project as of late February. 

His business plan for the company was among the top finishers in a recent competition for veterans.

The Jefferson County veteran won $20,000 as the 2nd place finisher in the 2016 D’Aniello Family Foundation Business Plan Competition in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Kilgore’s plan for WAORGANY Brewing was part of the competition that Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) organized.

The prize money will be “big help,” Kilgore says, noting he will probably use it to get a new computer and software for the brewery. 

“The rest of the money will be used for working capital and whatever kind of equipment we need to get,” says Kilgore.

EBV program
Kilgore served in the U.S. Army for 21 years, including two stints at Fort Drum and a deployment for service in Iraq during 2005 and 2006. He retired from service in 2007. 

Kilgore got involved with the IVMF’s entrepreneurship bootcamp for veterans with disabilities (EBV) through Cornell University in late 2014 because “it was still taking applications.”

The instruction included online work and an on-campus residency that lasted nine days, he says.

Kilgore compares it taking a two-year MBA degree program and “cramming it into a little over six weeks.” 

“It was pretty extensive,” he says.