Auburn's pioneering Prison City Brewing celebrates 10 years

Cayuga County brewery will celebrate a decade of business with three days of events and releases.

Back in September 2016, I wrote about the long lines of folks outside Cayuga County’s Prison City Brewing. They queued up for hours, hoping to secure a crowler or two of the Auburn brewery’s award-winning Mass Riot hazy IPA.

It was the first time, at least the first during my tenure as a beer writer, where I remember people were lining up for beer. That hand-packaged batch sold out in just 15 minutes.

It was crazy. It showed this 5-barrel brewery was on the national radar, arguably the first spot in central and western New York to garner that kind of attention during the most recent craft beer renaissance.

(And before you get too mad at me, there’s no reason to argue this assertion. I am intimately familiar with upstate beer history and happenings. I only ever saw this type of attention for some of the early wild ale releases at Ithaca Beer, but not in the same way IPAs drove interest and dollars.)

And it was really only the start for owners Dawn and Marc Schulz and Prison City, which celebrates its 10th anniversary Thursday through Saturday with a series of releases, special draft offerings, and happenings at its three taprooms (we’ll chronicle that journey in a bit).

“It seems weird, it seems like we just opened yesterday,” Marc said. “But it also seems like a hundred years ago. Everything is, I wouldn’t say upside down, but everything is so different now.”

Photo: Awwww, would ya look at that? Adorable Prison City owners Dawn and Marc Schulz look like they actually like each other in this provided pic. But seriously, they are two of my favorite people on the planet, beer industry or otherwise. I pretty much like everything about the Schulzes — beside Marc’s New England Patriots fandom and his love of Phish. Woof.

So why were 200 people lined up for a 32-ounce crowler of a hazy IPA? Mass Riot had been named the best IPA in America through a Paste magazine blind taste test of 247 IPAs in August 2016. Because Prison City’s fermentation capacity was so low in those early days, the beer wasn’t on draft when the honor was announced. That meant brewer Ben Maeso had to jam it into his brew schedule and the honor couldn’t be fully celebrated until five weeks later when the brewery had this release,

The initial draft-only batch lasted eight days and was released in July 2016. The new 5-barrel batch lasted less than six hours. And following that madness, Mass Riot became a part of the brewery’s regular rotation and now stands as its flagship IPA.

Of course, the IPA honor followed the brewing earning a silver medal for its Belgian pale at the Great American Beer Festival. More attention followed each successive buzz-worthy release from Maeso, a celebrated homebrewer before turning professional. He left the brewpub in 2022 and now brews at Underground Beer Lab in East Syracuse, Onondaga County.

Maeso’s momentous eight-year run at Prison City directly mirrors the brewery’s ascension into one of the most beloved spots in the region. His tenure included multiple medals at GABF, the country’s largest and most prestigious competition, the Governor’s Cup for the best beer in the state at the New York Craft Beer Competition (for his Wham Whams imperial stout), and recognition for the best IPA in America.

The Maeso-Schulz marriage was quite serendipitous. Schulz, a beer industry veteran from his time with TJ Sheehan Distributors, had another hire lined up. But when it fell through, a friend recommended they reach out to Maeso to gauge his interest. Before that point, Maeso had never brewed commercially. But after considering his mountain of homebrewing medals and the cooler of beers he brought to the interview, hiring him was a no-brainer, the Schulzes said.

As more and more people traveled from outside Cayuga County to visit Prison City’s original State Street brewpub location, it became more and more apparent that something had to give. The Schulzes realized the hype wouldn’t last forever. Line culture would eventually fade. So they plotted various strategies for expansion before closing on a farm-based property just north of downtown Auburn. That 5.5-acre North Street spot eventually became Prison City North, a 14,000-square-foot facility that’ll eventually (probably sooner, rather than later, allow PCB to make 10,000 barrels of beer per year after the recent installation of two 60-barrel fermenters). The North Street spot opened in December 2020, right at the height of the pandemic and came four years after planning for a production facility started in earnest.

The production facility has allowed PCB to expand its distribution statewide, as well as Vermont, Ohio, Massachusetts, and eastern Pennsylvania, which surprisingly stands as the brewery’s second best market right now, Marc said. The focus will remain on the northeast, Marc said.

Prison City’s exceptional brewing team, led by director of brewing operations Sam Sadovnic and lead brewer Tony Cordova, has ensured the brand has remained at the forefront of quality and innovation in this region. Maeso clearly laid a strong foundation. Sadovnic, Cordova, and the current team, have maintained that high level.

And then earlier this year, PCB opened its third taproom, this one in the Adirondacks village of Lake Placid, which is where Dawn and Marc met in 1996. The 710-square-foot Main Street tasting room has allowed Dawn and Marc to spend more time in Lake Placid.

As I wrote in March:

Prison City’s move is part of a larger trend in New York (and really elsewhere). We’re seeing breweries expand their footprints, not through distribution, but through secondary and tertiary locations. It’s an ideal move, especially in New York where licensing makes it possible to operate multiple branch offices, because it allows breweries to completely control the beer they sell. There’s no middleman to appease. The margins are as high as they’ll ever be.

Dawn and Marc both spent a lot of time in the restaurant industry, including a few ownership ventures. So after Marc latched on with a beer distributor, they started thinking about how they could successfully marry these passions and areas of expertise. When they both briefly left the restaurant industry for other opportunities, they realized how much they missed it.

Photo: More adorable-ness, here’s the entire Schulz clan.

“We always wanted to open a brewpub and the timing seemed right,” Marc said, noting how Cayuga County didn’t yet have a craft brewery when planning for Prison City started. (Weedsport-based Lunkenheimer actually opened before Prison City in 2014 and can stake its claim to being the county’s first craft brewery.)

At the time they were considering opening a brewery in Auburn, Marc said they were also thinking about moving to Rochester to follow an opportunity through Marc’s beer distro gig. But their kids declared they wanted to stay in Auburn. So Marc and Dawn listened and the seeds for Prison City were planted.

“Kids will do that to you, Will,” Marc offered with his trademark snark and chuckle.

Sounding like a lyric from his beloved Phish (woof), Marc concluded, “Everything happens for a reason.”

PCB is a special place. We’re lucky to have it in such close proximity to Rochester (and spoiled even more by the ability to scoop up PCB beers whenever we want from local store shelves). It’s wild to see how much the beer landscape has shifted since PCB opened in 2014 and it’s even wilder (perhaps even a bit scary) to think about how it might change. But Prison City is evidence that quality and experience still matter most.

If you head out to Prison City this week, here’s what you’ll encounter:

1. Thursday, PCB will release cans and draft of its anniversary DIPA collab with the legendary Lawson’s Finest Liquids. It’s called Flocking Outside and yes, that’s a Phish reference

2. Wham Whams tasting — the coconut vanilla imperial stout that was named best in the state in 2019 will step for the forefront. Barrel-aged Wham Whams will be available on draft and in bottles, as well as some draft-only variants for a Wham Whams flight (coffee, peanut butter, OG, and wild Thai banana).

3. Call it Throwback Saturday: PCB will drop four sours from its greatest hits collection. Make sure to stay tuned to social media for those exact beers.

Aurora Brewing eyes Syracuse expansion

Another Cayuga County brewery is looking to expand its reach. Aurora Brewing, based in King Ferry (overlooking Cayuga Lake), already opened a second taproom last year in suburban Rochester. And now the FLX producer will open a spot in Syracuse’s Tipperary Hill neighborhood at 620 Ulster St.

Aurora announced Wednesday it would open its third taproom at the former home of Syracuse craft stalwart Now & Later (which itself is shifting focus to a new venture in downtown Syracuse). Owners Marc Grimaldi and Joe Shelton told me they originally intended to open a new spot in Syracuse (and came close at a few spots) before they were presented with the opportunity in Perinton (Bushnell’s Basin) at the former home of Seven Story Brewing, 604 Pittsford-Victor Road (State Route 96)

Grimaldi and Shelton said they approached Now & Later owner Jason Purdy about potentially taking over the Tipp Hill spot.

“Syracuse has always been special for Aurora, as has Now & Later. Ya’ll have been a top consumer, supporter, and champion of our brews since we opened. It only makes sense that we get our beers on draft and in cans a little closer to you,” the brewery said in its social media announcement.

Aurora Cuse, which will include a full range of Aurora draft and can offerings, as well as a full kitchen, hopes to open by Feb. 1.

A final note: It’s pretty wild to think I’ve been working on this independent publication for over two years now. In that time, I’ve published 200 newsletters, highlighted some of my favorite people in the industry, curated two beers festivals (that featured 150 participants and 4,600 attendees), and continued to break all the biggest news in the region (closures, consolidations, openings, etc.).

The Cleveland Prost remains the preeminent source for regional beer news. If you own a brewery, bar, or beer-adjacent business, this is the best place to reach the nerds you wanna be in front of. So I remain open to sponsorships, advertisements, and sponsored content. Feel free to reach out to me at clevelandprost@gmail.com for more. And more than anything, thanks for all the support. None of this would be possible without the devoted (and thirsty) audience.