Mug club members buy Brindle Haus Brewing location in Spencerport, will reopen soon

Two couples who met when the brewery opened in 2017 are taking over very, very soon.

How about a happy ending? And how about it sounding like something straight out of a Hallmark Channel movie?

That’s what the future holds for Spencerport’s Brindle Haus Brewing, which announced its imminent closure Thursday on social media. And it’s all because of the brewery’s loyal mug club members. The brewery, located at 377 S. Union St., will re-open with a new name and new identity, but with the same dog-friendly soul and many of the same beers, very, very soon. (Owners hope it will be late June, but it is all dependent on State Liquor Authority licenses and approvals.)

Brindle Haus will become Bones and Barley Brewing, according to Michele Doud, one of the new owners. She, along with her husband Stephen, and fellow mug club members Chuck and Kim Henderson, purchased Brindle Haus’ assets, including the brewhouse and will license two of the flagship recipes (Brindle Haus IPA and German Pilsner). They also purchased the location. The new owners are retaining Mark Burch, the brewery’s wildly talented head brewer, too.

Update on Friday morning: Brindle Haus owners decided not to sell the business and brand, because it means too much to them. And as they told me, that’s their dog on the original Brindle logo. So there’s still a personal connection to the brand and its story.

Michele said she and her husband are original mug club members and used to live right behind the brewery in the village of Spencerport. (They now reside in Webster.) In the early days, they met Chuck and Kim. None of them have experience in the craft brewing industry. (Stephen used to own a pizzeria, so there is a bit of hospitality and food service experience there.) But they’re not afraid to admit they don’t know what they don’t know and they’re eager to learn and ask questions. Keeping Burch, quietly one of the best brewers in town, on staff is a huge coup. Before coming home to the west side, Burch brewed at the legendary Troegs Brewing in Pennsylvania.

The Douds started visiting the brewery early on with their 6-week-old Newfoundland puppy. It was a win for everyone — the puppy got some socialization and the adults got to enjoy a beer. That spirit has remained at the core of the brewer. And that spirit will live on with the new owners and new dog-centered identity.

It all started simply enough, according to Michele, ‘We love this place and we want to see it live on.’ Brindle Haus originally opened in November 2017. But owners Kristine and John Boothe moved to North Carolina in the last few years, making it difficult to run a business from a distance. So while the brewery continued to do well, they decided the best course of action was to sell.

And that’s where the Hendersons and Douds came in. They each made separate inquiries to buy the brewery

“The one thing about Brindle Haus is that it’s such a family,” Michele said. “Not just Pack (mug club) members, but the whole Spencerport community. We’ve made so many life-long friends here. We both talked to John about purchasing it and when we knew we both wanted to buy it, we thought, ‘Let’s just do this together.’”

Discussions about purchasing the location and assets started in December and quickly gained steam. Michele said they’ll close on the purchase in the coming days and are just awaiting licenses to open. She expects that’ll take about 30 days, but as these things go, you just never know. Either way, people can expect a brewery with the soul of Brindle Haus to open soon in the familiar, family- and dog-friendly space.

“I was just at the brewery tonight and someone was in here with her baby and her dog,” Michele said. “And I just turned to someone and said, ‘That’s the reason why we bought Brindle Haus.’ It’s like the best family place ever.”

As I’ve said and written numerous times, brewery names are increasingly hard to come by. Like band names, it seems like all the best ones are taken. Michele said they narrowed their list down to nine potential names and ran into trademark issues with each one. They really wanted to name the brewery Unleashed Brewing Co. But that name was already trademarked by the Monster Energy Drink folks (and that’s a battle you’re probably not gonna win).

To ultimately pick a name, they spoke to their fellow mug clubbers and presented some possibilities to them. The consensus picked “Bones and Barley,” because it maintains the dog identity of the original name and incorporates something beer-related.

“The brewery space is pretty crowded and breweries with dog names, that’s pretty common, even if there aren’t any here,” Michele said. “We were getting frustrated, but we still had a list of 12 names. One night, we came into Brindle and we passed it around. We asked everybody, ‘What name do you like the best?’ The list was a bunch of names that were actually available. So the brewery actually picked the name.”

Michele said the brewery’s German Pilsner and Cream Ale are her two favorite Brindle Haus beers. Thankfully, the Pils will live on at Barley and Bones.

The brewery is largely turn-key, meaning only small cosmetic changes (probably a fresh coat of paint and some cleaning) are planned between now and re-opening, Michele said. Brindle Haus has offered a small menu of pretzels and flatbreads through its kitchen partner Fetch recently. Bones and Barley will also offer food. Michele said they’ll most likely lease out the kitchen to an existing restaurant or chef and allow that person to run the operation. She said there have been some preliminary discussions with some potential vendors and she is optimistic people will be excited about the new partner.

“We hope to carry the Brindle torch,” Michele. “We’re terrified, don’t get me wrong. But it’s so exciting. This is just a place of love for all of us. We can’t imagine it being closed.”