Other Half-Young Lion update: OH hopes to open new Canandaigua taproom in April

OH will renovate and rebrand the Young Lion taproom, as well as update some of the production facility.

Other Half Brewing plans to open an OH-branded taproom at the Pinnacle North Complex in Canandaigua, current home of Young Lion Brewing.

Both breweries announced the sale of the taproom and production brewery at 24 Lakeshore Drive, back in November, stating they expected it to close by early January. Yet weeks later, the deal remains pending. At this point, the breweries are at the mercy of the state and federal regulators.

Other Half COO/co-founder Andrew Burman said they hope to open both the tasting room and the brewery in April. The hope is that they receive proper approvals and licenses, both from the state and federal levels, in the coming weeks. Burman anticipates that it will be ironed out in the next month.

In the interim, OH is working through design possibilities for its next taproom and deciding on a name for the property. It could be as simple as “Other Half Lakeshore.” The name probably won’t include “Canandaigua,” Burman said. “You got an idea for us?” he jokingly asked me. Other Half officially opened its neighboring FLX location in East Bloomfield in April 2019.

Once the OH deal is done, Young Lion CEO Jennifer Newman said her brewery will complete the sale of its brand and recipes to K2 Brothers Brewing, a longtime contract brewing partner.

When considering questions about growth and the future, Burman said Other Half was considering a number of different options, especially as it expands its distribution footprint and supplies more beer to retail partners like Wegmans.

“We’ve been friends with Jen (for years),” Burman said. “We used to contract out of there. She was in a position where she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do next. We talked to her a bunch. And to be honest, we were trying to figure out where we could put capacity in our current footprint, to make sure that we could grow and have some sort of plan for the next several years. Do we put more tanks in D.C. or more stuff in Brooklyn? How could we do this?

“Jen approached us, and we were like, ‘Oh, this is interesting.’ We know that we can make good beer on the system. We knew a lot of stuff about the place already. So we just continued the conversation.”

“It’s definitely bittersweet but all the pieces fell into place,” Newman said. “And there are going to be some changes in the beer landscape over the next couple of years. This was just the right offer at the right time. It was the right thing for the location, the right thing for the brand.”

Before brewing commences in Canandaigua, Burman said OH will “need to change some systems there.” That will probably include moving some of the East Bloomfield tanks to Canandaigua.

Some other lingering questions:

What will Other Half do to the Young Lion taproom?

Glow up.

It will be another OH-branded taproom. “We just got design work back and we’re trying to figure out where we can get our team involved,” Burman said.

He envisions adding more infrastructure to fully take advantage of the second floor and the incredible view of Canandaigua Lake. “More furniture, more decor, just more,” Burman said.

OH will also add a kitchen to the Young Lion property. The goal, obviously, is to keep people in the taproom for a longer time and food is a key component of that.

Why was Other Half interested in Young Lion’s brewery?

Capacity.

Young Lion features a 35-barrel three-vessel brewhouse with five 90-barrel fermenters, making it one of the largest craft breweries in the Finger Lakes and also one of the biggest in the Rochester region (right up there with Three Heads). In East Bloomfield, OH utilizes a 10-barrel brewhouse. And due to limitations of the space (ceiling heights particularly), there are 30-barrel fermenters.

So the Young Lion acquisition allows OH to ramp up production big time in this region.

The future of the East Bloomfield brewery remains up in the air. The taproom, along with the eight acres of outdoor space, continue to be one of the best spots in the region to have a beer outside and let a surly 2-year-old roam around.

“It’s actually really, really expensive for us to make beer out of Bloomfield,” Burman said. “With the waste water, water is expensive there. It’s a much different beast with that 10-barrel system. What we’re really trying to do is create some efficiency by having Young Lion in the mix. Right now we brew 15 times a week and that will turn into five times a week. And it gives us room to grow. The 90s at Young Lion were our major sticking point in our own minds.”

Burman said a 30-barrel batch is OH’s “sweet spot” and the new system will allow the brewery to diversify the offerings produced in Ontario County. OH can produce as much as 15,000 barrels per year at Young Lion.

There are ongoing discussions taking place about how production schedules and deliveries will be impacted by the recent acquisition.

What will happen to the East Bloomfield property?

That’s still up in the air.

The taproom, of course, will remain open. The future of the brewery, however, is still under consideration. OH could shift its wild ale production, specifically barrel storage, to the former Nedloh property. (It is currently housed at a warehouse in Victor, which OH also uses for cold storage and distribution.)

Is OH worried about having two taprooms within 10 minutes of each other?

Nope.

“We’ve been trying to think about how to brand them together, in a way,” Burman said. People want “their mountain house and their lake house,” Burman added. “That’s how we’re looking at it — one is for a certain audience and one is for another audience. We’re trying to separate that out and still make it the core of Other Half. One is more family friendly, one is more open to bigger parties. No matter what happens, we still have eight acres of land in Bloomfield.”

This will be Other Half’s ninth location. And all of the growth has happened in the last five years. OH FLX was the first.

“I am terrible at looking back and taking stock of what we’ve accomplished,” Burman admitted. “I don’t think we ever set out to have 10 locations in 10 years. We missed it by one location. We’ve been incredibly fortunate to weather the storm, a pandemic, and ups and downs. We’ve always been able to focus on what we do well, which is make beer and try to get in peoples’ hands who care about it.”