Penn Yan outdoor beer festival celebrates winter and the Finger Lakes
Relative Risk Brewing and Laurentide Beer will host the 9 Mile Glacier Fest on Saturday, Feb. 15.
Note: This content is made possible through a partnership between the Cleveland Prost and Relative Risk Brewing and Laurentide Beer Company.
The nine miles separating Laurentide Beer Co. and Relative Risk Brewing represents the best and most idyllic parts of the Finger Lakes.
One brewery sits in the heart of a quaint village, while the other resides on a sprawling plot of land overlooking Seneca Lake. Both Yates County spots, however, feature some of the best beer produced in this region. (This isn’t hyperbole. And it’s not because I’m getting paid to say this. It’s the objective truth, supported by a boatload of medals between them to prove it.)
The couples behind each brewery are also great friends and have worked collaboratively on a number of projects. A winter event, one they hope will become a cold-weather tradition, is unquestionably the most unique and the most fun. The second edition of the free, collaborative 9 Mile Glacier Fest kicks off at noon on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025, at each spot – Laurentide’s central village location at 12 Maiden Lane and Relative Risk’s 12-acre farm at 1166 Earls Hill Road.
A free shuttle will run all day between the two breweries, encouraging festival-goers to safely and smartly experience all the Fingers Lakes has to offer, even in the heart of winter. To commemorate the friendship and the newest edition of Glacier Fest, Laurentide and Relative Risk will release a collaborative Czech dark lager (tmavé pivo). And this roasty lager, which really showcases what both breweries do well – restraint and drinkability, will be a perfect complement to the crisp winter weather. In the past, they’ve made a Baltic porter and a cold IPA.
No entry fee or ticket is required for the event. And festival attendees will receive a free commemorative Glacier Fest glass while supplies last. Heated tents will be set up at each location and will include fire pits and the requisite brewery games (ice cornhole, etc.). There will also be a lineup of live music at each location throughout the day, and plenty of food from Laurentide’s kitchen and Cousins Maine Lobster at Relative Risk. Discounted room rates are available for the event at neighboring hotels, including Microtel, Best Western, and of course, the Laurentide Inn, using code “Glacier Fest.”
“The Penn Yan community is really based on personal connections,” Laurentide general manager Meghan Humphrey said. “I came out here for college and never left. It was so easy to fall into this community and this town. Laurentide and Relative Risk really do a good job of making connections with the people that live here year-round and the tourists that keep coming back every year.”
“The main drivers of our collaborative events are not only to bring our amazing local community together, but also bring dozens of new people into Yates County, especially during the off-season,” Relative Risk co-founder AJ Silvent added. “The Finger Lakes might possibly be even more beautiful covered in snow, and I have yet to meet a person who doesn’t like to warm up with great beer, food, and friendship.”
Laurentide Beer
Twenty years ago, while living in Boston, Marla Hedworth met her now husband Tracey, a Phelps native. Marla had never visited nor even heard of the Finger Lakes, though instantly fell in love with the region upon her first visit. They both shared a long history in the hospitality industry and wanted to find an opportunity they could mold into a business to run together. After frequent trips to a family lake house on Seneca Lake, they began pondering the possibilities of a Finger Lakes venture.
In 2018, they found that opportunity. The Hedworths purchased one of the signature properties in the village of Penn Yan, a stunning mansion along Main Street. It was built in 1820 by William Morrison Oliver, a former U.S. congressman and lieutenant governor of New York.
“I feel like we were really drawn to Penn Yan,” Marla said. “We loved its proximity to both Seneca and Keuka lakes, and the property itself had so much potential. We especially fell in love with the carriage house and all the things we could do to it.”
After the Fox family lived in the home for more than a century, the building was converted into a bed and breakfast and utilized as such for more than 25 years. The five-room property, now known as The Laurentide Inn, is in the heart of Penn Yan's historic downtown corridor. After two years of exhaustive renovation and reimagining, the Hedworths opened a sparkling new version of the bed and breakfast in 2019 and the carriage house brewery in June 2020.
“We truly wanted to create an environment we wanted to hang out in,” Marla said.
The carriage house was taken down to its studs and all the wood was repurposed and reused in the brewery. It now features a 3.5-barrel brewhouse and a cozy tasting room (along with a room above the taproom that can be rented out through Airbnb).
“Knowing that it’s a 204-year-old property now, we wanted to make sure it still felt like a 204-year-old property when you visit,” Tracey said. “We tried to use as much of the wood as we took down. The bar and the back bar are all made from the tongue and groove flooring we took from a couple of different places. We reused and reclaimed a lot of the wood, and we feel like the building still has that historic feel when you come in.”
Brett Driscoll, a Clifton Springs native and a nearly life-long friend of Tracey, leads brewing operations. Tracey assists in production. Brett, a mechanical engineer by trade, brings that nerdiness and attention to detail to his beers. He really excels with traditional styles.
"Producing something that can bring the community together is pretty satisfying," Brett told me in an earlier interview.
(The Hedworths also bought a restaurant adjacent to the brewery and bed and breakfast. That space will reopen in 2025 with a focus on private events, beer-pairing dinners, and a sit-down dining experience.)
The property and brewery name are a reflection of the region’s history. They are both distinctive and reflective of its Finger Lakes home. The Hedworths thought Laurentide represented a perfect identity for the project. The Laurentide ice sheet was responsible for forming all the largest freshwater lakes in North America, including Lake Ontario and the Finger Lakes.
The brewery has really fostered community through its support of live music and embrace of the Buffalo Bills. (It hosts weekly viewing parties for the QKA Bills Backers.)
And like the slow-moving glacier, progress has been incremental for Laurentide. “We’re hoping to grow in 2025,” Marla said.
Relative Risk
Relative Risk’s name really says it all. Sure, it’s risky to open a brewery, particularly in the current craft beer climate and even more so during the middle of a global pandemic. But AJ and Jenn Silvent, the married couple behind the two-year-old Yates County brewery, located at 1166 Earls Hill Road in the town of Benton (though with a Penn Yan mailing address), decided to take the leap after putting down roots in the Finger Lakes. They left northwest New Jersey intending to join the growing FLX beer scene.
And in a really short period of time, they’ve managed to differentiate themselves on two fronts: 1. A sprawling 12-acre property that overlooks Seneca Lake and provides the perfect family-friendly venue to enjoy a beer outside, regardless of the season; 2. AJ’s beers. While his beers span the gamut, from lagers to IPAs, he’s really focused on listening to his customers and producing the beers they want. That led to a whole series of fruited wheat beers, one of which is made with strawberry and rhubarb and medaled at the 2023 Great American Beer Fest, the country’s most prestigious beer competition. Keeping in line with his drinking preferences, Relative Risk almost always has a lager on draft. (Try AJ’s Munich Dunkel and I promise you won’t regret it. The next batch should be released just in time for Glacier Fest.)
Relative Risk beers often feature ingredients grown right on the Silvent property, such as the rhubarb for example, and fresh sage for their Sage and Citrus IPA. And many are made with 100 percent New York-grown/processed ingredients. In that regard, the brewery really does mirror the wineries that surround it with an emphasis on local and terroir.
Jenn makes a career in the healthcare field, particularly clinical studies. “It was relatively risky to open a brewery in a flooded market,” she said. “So relative risk represents the likelihood of something happening. A lot of our beer names are built on the field I work in, like Double Blind, Hazard Ratio, and Confidence Interval.”
AJ homebrewed for a decade before making the leap into the pro brewing world. But Jenn told him he needed to bring some homebrewing competition medals to demonstrate his skill and serve as a proof of concept. “I am sure this is everyone’s pipe dream when they start homebrewing,” Jenn said. “He said, ‘Why don’t we open a brewery?’ And I was like, ‘That sounds great! But why don’t you start winning awards first?’ Then we can really talk about it.” AJ gladly accepted that challenge and soon started picking up medals left and right, including a national-level win for his Irish red ale.
“We used to visit the Finger Lakes a lot, probably for 10 years,” AJ said. “We were vacationing here a lot and just fell in love with the area.” (Aside: I am pretty sure, least unscientifically, that everyone who moves to the Finger Lakes does so after “falling in love” with the region. It’s a really loveable place.)
“We started researching laws once we got serious about opening up a brewery. And New York, with the Farm Brewery Law, really fit what we wanted to do.”
Fast forward to 2020. COVID struck. Being in the NY metro area, where the devastation and impact was immediate and extreme, the Silvents knew it was time to move, plant roots in Yates County, and begin work on actualizing their shared dream.
While the beer is obviously paramount to the Relative Risk experience, the atmosphere is equally important. AJ and Jenn are parents and wanted to create a place where other families could come spend the day.
“The brewery is on our property,” Jenn said. “We live there. We have a 4-year-old. So we built a place that we would like to go to as a family. We have a fenced-in acre dog park and a playground for the kids, and love to do a lot of events for the community." (They just held a Christmas toy drive and often collaborate with other local businesses and organizations.)
Laurentide maintains a similar standing within the Yates County community.
“AJ’s beers are awesome. (Aside: I will gladly and wholeheartedly back up this claim.) And that’s how we connected with Laurentide,” Jenn said. “Brett and Tracey have a very similar brewing style. We think a lot alike. They’re just awesome people. I don’t even remember how we met them.”
Like lots of life’s best connections, especially the ones forged in the brewing industry, the serendipitous first encounter probably happened over a beer (or three).
“They’ve been great friends, great partners, great resources,” Jenn said. “We pick each other’s brains on everything, beer, people, events we can do together, ways we can bring the community together. It has been really great.”
“We’re a small brewery,” AJ added. “I like to say ‘small but mighty.’ The brewhouse is tiny. We’re at full capacity right now. We just upgraded our fermentation capacity this year, which is cool. We’re going to try to can beers in 2025. Our taproom space is on the smaller side, but we have a huge outdoor space.
And that highlights the genius of Glacier Fest.
“We want to give people something to do when it’s cold out, instead of just hibernating,” AJ said. “Last year’s event was a huge success — bringing hundreds of people into Yates County from across the state and beyond. We hope this year’s festival is equally fun and can’t wait to welcome everyone back.”
Note: The Laurentide/Relative Risk 9 Mile Glacier Fest kicks off at noon on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025. For more info, check out the event page here.