Bowling alley and brewery: Okay Beer Co. in Honeoye Falls opens
The combo bowling alley/brewery marries the passions of its quirky co-founders.
Note: This newsletter is supported by Donnelly’s Public House, a wonderful canal-side establishment in the village of Fairport.
Seth Wile and Megan Phillips are so close to completing something that’s so wildly cool.
The couple, engaged to be married, renovated a historic bowling alley in the village of Honeoye Falls. West Main Lanes, 126 W. Main St., opened last September. (The property has continued to host weekly horseshoe leagues.)
And then next month, they’ll officially open an on-site craft brewery, Okay Beer Company, marrying two of their passions: Bowling and beer. With a full kitchen and liquor/cocktail menu, Okay Beer Co. at West Main Lanes opens Friday, June 10. Until then, the Okay Beer is softly opened, giving folks a chance to sample the opening seven beers — more on those later.
(For more on the history of Okay Beer Co., check out my summer 2021 profile of the project from the Democrat and Chronicle.)
When I visited a few Saturdays ago, I was shook with how much the space was transformed. It was the former home of Brongo Bowl and then Miller Lanes. My first visit last summer (was my last assignment before paternity leave) with Seth and Megan felt like one of those rare times where you meet people and then instantly click, like you’ve known each other for years.
And that’s really the vibe at Okay Beer Company at West Main Lanes (the project’s official name). It’s comfortable and quirky. There are at least five different murals and numerous spots where Megan and Seth bootstrapped something themselves. The broken-glass backsplash behind the bar? That’s because they ran out of tiles and needed something to fill it. So Megan thought it might be fun to smash an old mirror and then mosaic the glass shards into place. (It looks awesome btw.)
“Our whole goal was just to brighten and lighten this place up,” said Megan, a Honeoye Falls-Lima High School and RIT graduate. That was accomplished through recessed lighting, painting the walls lighter colors, and inviting local artists to add art to the space.
Almost three years after the pioneering CB Craft Brewers (Custom Brewcrafters) closed, Honeoye Falls will soon have a brewery again.
“It feels like we can finally take a breath, in some sense,” Phillips said. “There is still a lot to do. But it’s just nice to know that these decisions that felt so monumental worked out. Like the color of the wall. At that time, it felt like the biggest decision. Now we’re past making all those choices on a daily basis and we can be in the space.”
“We’re ready to move on from renovation and planning mode,” Wile added. “It’s been a certain type of stress that I don’t want any more. I just have every-day work problems. I’d rather be running around because something went wrong in the kitchen. I am just done with this planning stress. Bring on the day-to-day, regular stress.”
They licensed the entire property, so patrons will be able to enjoy a beer in the front yard. And they plan to add a beer garden next year. West Main Lanes is still a great spot for kids’ birthday parties and other social gatherings.
The beer
Seth has one of the best brewing resumes in this region. He was head brewer at Magnolia Brewing in San Francisco, a legendary West Coast spot and worked under brewing icons like Dave McLean and Dick Cantwell. (If you don’t know those names, I encourage you to google them.)
And after learning about his experience, my expectations for the beer were insanely high. Based on the first batches alone, Okay Beer is already one of the best breweries in Monroe County.
Okay Beer features a locally made 5-barrel brewhouse system right behind the automatic pin-changing machines. (It’s really cool to see the inner-workings or guts of the bowling alley alongside the brewhouse.) Initially, there are seven beers on draft and they run the gamut:
Gutterball Cream Ale: Okay’s house beer. It’s a traditional take on a cream ale, flaked maize and all. It’s 4.6 percent alcohol. It’s really a perfect bowling alley beer, especially if it’s served in a mug. “Clean, easy-drinking, simple,” Phillips said. “But it’s hard to do the simple ones well, not much to hide behind.”
Okay Pils: A traditional Czech Pilsner lagered for “as long as it needed” and made with traditional ingredients like Saaz hops. It ticks all the boxes. “These first rounds, I’m really just doing what I’m comfortable with to make good beer with fewer question marks,” Wile said. “As we get going, get used to a schedule, I’ll be able to buy more local ingredients, just kind of figure it out.”
Frisco Kid West Coast IPA: Juiced out? Like your beers with light malt backbones and clean, firm bitterness on the finish? This is for you.
Jump Into the Fire American IPA: I’d call this hazy-adjacent IPA a modern take on the style. It’s a marriage of New England-style IPA and something a little more traditional, because it features a pleasant amount of lingering bitterness on the finish. “I like making my hazies with a little bitterness and a little punch,” Wile said. “I make beers that I want to drink and I don’t like the super soft hazy beers.” This one is all pithy grapefruit.
Rice Crispi Boy toasted rice Kolsch: Wile adds a touch of complexity to this Kolsch with the addition of toasted rice in the malt bill. Like the name implies, it adds a touch of lightly toasted flavor to the beer. And with the use of modern hops, it adds a bit of fruitiness. He intends to always have a Kolsch, or a variation of it, on draft.
Spring Porter: This was my favorite beer on draft. It featured the malt complexity of a porter with the sessionability (I think I made that word up) of an English dark mild or another beer that clocks in at 4 percent alcohol. “I dialed back on chocolate and black malt, and didn’t add any roast malt, because I didn’t want that heaviness,” Wile said. “It’s got the body, it’s got the flavors. It lacks the roast and smoke. It goes down super easy.”
All Thumbs Pale Ale: Clocking in at 5.5 percent alcohol, Wile said he’s going to continue to make pale ales, because he wants to and there aren’t enough of them around. He’s right. Wile said this is his base pale ale recipe with the expectation that he can change the hop bill in future batches.
Expect a hazy double IPA and dry-hopped guava kettle sour to follow in the coming weeks. During our chat, Wile was quick to outline the changes and tweaks he already planned for future batches. There’s little doubt that critical eye will serve us all well.
“These are his first brews on a new system, so it’s only going to get better from here,” Phillips said. “We’re excited.”
“I am just excited to hand beers to customers across the bar and then have people give us money for it,” Wile added with a wry smirk.
And a special shoutout: I brought my 9-month-old son Audie to this interview. It was the first time he’s ever accompanied me on “assignment.” Quotes feel necessary here, because this newsletter is clearly a passion project, not a full-time gig. But it’s something I’ve really enjoyed nonetheless. Megan and Seth instantly lit up when I wheeled Audie in. And over the next two hours, we passed Audie around as we chatted about anything and everything.
Encounters like this make the 40-minute drive from Summerville totally worth it and will encourage us to come back. If there’s anything I’ve learned, people make breweries special.
I bring this up to point out how much we enjoyed this experience and to show what kind of people are running OK Beer Co. It’s gonna be a place for families, because Megan and Seth are so welcoming. I think you’re really gonna dig this place.
Hooray, New York!
City Newspaper reporter Gino Fanelli unearthed an incredible nugget Friday when guest-hosting the Connections with Evan Dawson radio program, New York now boasts more than 500 breweries, according to Paul Leone, executive director of the New York State Brewers Association. California still far outpaces New York, but the growth here is pretty remarkable, when you consider we had just 103 breweries in 2012. Leone said New York now has the second most breweries in the country. California now boasts more than 1,100 breweries. Since 2019, 85 more breweries have opened in New York, he added. Pretty cool stuff.
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Sometimes I swing through Honeoye Falls on the way back to Rochester after a trip to the Finger Lakes. It's great to know this place is here, as it it would make a perfect final stop! Also, has anyone ever taken over the old CB building, or is it still vacant?
Great place to visit with Auden in the future. Also nice piece of work again.