Remembering Steve Hodos, a Rochester beer community original

Hodos, one of the founding members of the Upstate New York Homebrewers Association, passed away on April 5 at the age of 78

Steve Hodos was an original. You’d be hard-pressed to attend a beer event, brewery opening, or social function in the Rochester region without running into Steve.

But that was his super power, Steve was everywhere, all at once. Hodos, one of the pillars of the Rochester region beer community and one of the founders of the Upstate New York Homebrewers Association, passed away on April 5 at age 78.

Steve’s passing is a huge loss for this entire community, particularly among the legions of friends he made and beer nerds he inspired over the past 50 years.

If you ever attended a UNYHA meeting, you knew Steve. And when I first started attending around 2009, he was one of the first people who came up and said hello. Truthfully, it was a bit intimidating, because here was this gentleman with the bushy beard and the unkempt hair who looked like a college professor. And with his encyclopedic knowledge and willingness to share, he practically was a college professor.

So for those who weren’t lucky enough to cross paths with Steve, I thought it would be nice to introduce y’all to him and show why he was such a vital member of this beer community.

Photo: Steve Hodos (photo courtesy of UNYHA)

In a post announcing Steve’s passing, UNYHA, which was founded in 1979 and is one of the oldest homebrewing clubs in the country, stated, “It’s hard to summarize in a short Facebook post someone who has done so much for our club, the AHA and homebrewing in general.” Hodos was a 12-time president of the club and a 2023 UNYHA Hall of Fame inductee. As it was noted, Steve “always made sure things were taken care of when help seemed thin. He never let things hit the ground, even thought it would have been easy for him to let it go.”

But that’s not the kind of guy Steve was. He cared so, so deeply and wanted to make sure the people, organizations, and businesses he cared about were always at the forefront and always put first.

He joined UNYHA at the beginning when there were only 10 members, according to his Hall of Fame biography. (I just love that by researching for this remembrance, I have learned so much cool stuff about Rochester beer history that I wasn’t aware of and I know Steve woulda loved that.) Originally, the club met at the Hof Brau Haus on Lyell Ave. in the city of Rochester. That place was famous for its Oktoberfest celebrations and ultimately closed down in 1990.

I met Steve when UNYHA meetings were held on the second floor of the Merchants Grill in Rochester. And then we moved around a bit, including a stint at the old Bathtub Billy’s. Monthly meetings are now held at the Sager-Stoneyard Pub.

I loved this bit from his bio:

Steve estimates he has made between 200-300 batches of beer in his homebrewing career. The best beer he made was a beer called Fin McKool. It was a beer made with rye that had a split fermentation and was blended back together. His worst beer being an American Amber that had ALL OF THE FAULTS in it. A true BJCP training specimen.

Steve was also instrumental in the American Homebrewers Association and its national competition, even hosting some of the regional qualifiers at his home where he would welcome judges from across the region. He held BJCP ID number E0037, which means there were only 36 people in the eastern region who earned that certification before him. That alone shows he was a pioneer and he helped so many others gain that honor. (That reminds me, I should probably pick up my studies and work toward that certification myself.)

If you’ve spent any time around the Rochester beer scene, then you know Steve could most often be found at The Old Toad in Rochester’s East End. Steve was the pub’s first customer when it opened in 1990 and often held court there. The business shared on social media:

Just about a week ago, we lost a very dear customer and friend of The Old Toad. Steve Hodos was our very first customer when we opened on May 8th, 1990 and remained a customer and friend to this day. We have a lot of fond memories of Steve. Please raise a glass to Steve’s life. We will miss you, Steve.

He was also the first customer at Rohrbach’s Buffalo Road brewpub location in Ogden, bought the first beer at Tap and Mallet (I still miss that place every day), and was the first customer at AJ’s Beer Warehouse in Henrietta.

Over the years, we spent a lot of time there together for various UNYHA functions, including BJCP training sessions. It wouldn’t be out of line to call Steve the “mayor of Rochester beer,” because he was both its biggest ambassador and its biggest cheerleader.

Reflecting on Steve’s legacy over the past day or so, it’s pretty wild to see all of the remembrances and memories being shared all over social media. It really does speak to the amount of people Steve interacted with and those he impacted. His family shared some wonderful memories of him in its obituary:

• Steve worked for the New York State Department of Transportation for almost 40 years, where “he designed traffic intersections, planned route and hazard signage, counted traffic flows, stamped permits, found ways to frustrate community members, denied special requests, played jokes on his colleagues, and, famously, delivered 20 dozen Donuts Delite hot cross donuts to his co-workers every Ash Wednesday.”

• Steve was an award-winning homebrewer, certified beer judge, and foundational to the longevity of UNYA. He was also a past president of the Canadian Amateur Brewers Association, which is crazy, because, you know, he wasn’t Canadian.

• “He was a notorious man-about-town, never happier than when he was making the rounds of breweries and pubs from Boston to Buffalo, asking about their new recipes and business plans. He was the proud holder of mug #1 at the Old Toad.”

• His many loves in life included maps, Peeps, his family, buses and trains, music, bad jokes (can confirm this one, lol), guinea pigs, and the most boring TV shows he could find, according to his obit.

• Steve’s power of recall was just nutty. He knew the most obscure bits of trivia you could ever imagine. It was truly amazing.

So this weekend, please join me in raising a glass of something (Steve wouldn’t care what you wanted to drink, alcohol or otherwise, as long as you shared it with those you cared about) and toast Steve’s incredible legacy. He was a true Rochester beer original and he will be sorely missed.