Henrietta brewery Mountain Roads sets opening date

Mountain Roads Brewing will open next month at a sparse spot inside the Genesee Valley Regional Market

Henrietta’s first craft brewery in over 25 years finally has an opening date. Mountain Roads Brewing will open its doors on Saturday, March 1.

Initially, it hoped to open last fall, but shipping delays for the 1-barrel brewing system pushed the date back to spring. Either way, it’ll be worth the wait.

Owner/brewer Jacob Parlett has an affinity and a singular focus on hazy or New England-style IPAs. In fact, it’ll be pretty much all Mountain Roads will brew and then can. When the 2,400-square-foot space opens, it’ll become Monroe County’s smallest brewery (capacity-wise). It won’t have a tasting room or restaurant inside. Think of it as a can depository. Parlett wants people to come grab a sample and then scoop up some cans to enjoy at home.

Photo: A four pack of Mountain Roads’ flagship Green Ambition hazy DIPA.

It’s a simple plan. And with plenty of space inside the brewery, Parlett has options if he chooses to grow, renovate, or expand in the future. But for now, expect the present to be hazy. Specifically, expect a lot of hazy double IPAs. The reason? It’s simple. It’s what Parlett enjoys most, what he’s been homebrewing the longest, and what he feels like he has perfected.

Parlett plans to use the month of February to load up on inventory, so when the brewery does open to the public, he’ll offer a solid variety of canned offerings.

Photo: Mountain Roads Brewing, 900 Jefferson Road Suite 1603 in Henrietta.

I was fortunate enough to attend a friends-and-family soft opening Saturday. (Let’s be honest, Parlett probably just invited me, because I kept pestering him on Instagram. The anticipation was killing me.) And from the first sip Saturday, I could see the skill, passion, and execution present in Mountain Roads beers.

Parlett was offering three DIPAs — his flagship Green Ambition (brewed with Citra, Simcoe, and Sabro hops) and two beers from his Haze Horizons series (which will be a rotating series featuring different, lesser known hops). The two Haze Horizons featured Krush (formerly known as HBC 586) and Alora hops, two newer varietals from the Pacific Northwest.

I was super impressed with the first three offerings. They all featured the requisite body you want in a hazy IPA and were bursting with pungent hop aromas. I was particularly pleased that none of the beers drank sweet.

From my earlier newsletter:

Some fun history: Calling Mountain Roads “Henrietta’s first brewery” is a bit misleading and incorrect. (But it’s truly semantics at this point.) The Rochester Brewpub opened in 1988 at the former Quality Inn, 900 Jefferson Road. It was open until 1997 and featured a very distinct atmosphere, where patrons could enjoy peanuts and discard the shells on the floor. So when I say Mountain Roads is Henrietta’s first brewery, it’s the town’s first brewery in at least 25 years. (And before you ask, the old Flour City Brewing Co., which was located across from Monroe Community College, was in Brighton. It was open from 2004 to 2005.) You can read the Rochester Brewpub preview story at the link below: https://x.com/WillCleveland13/status/1828199133284573673.

For more on Parlett’s story, check out my newsletter below.

A final note: It’s pretty wild to think I’ve been working on this independent publication for nearly three years now. In that time, I’ve published 250 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.