Swiftwater Brewing, one of my favorite places on the planet, turns 10
South Wedge brewery will celebrate with four barrel-aged barleywine variants and other one-off goodies.
I got a text a month or so ago from my buddy Jim Rossette. In true Jim style, it was direct
“You made it on the sw 10th anniversary label.”
I quickly responded, “Wait, wut.”
And then he texted two pictures — one of the label and the other, a mock-up of the Swiftwater Brewing anniversary label on a 500-milliliter bottle.
Sure enough, just to the right of the building and the prominent “10 years,” was my face, done in the style of the beer label Swiftwater made with me a few years before. Rossette worked at the brewery for a number of years and still handles all the design work.
That beer, Will Work for Citra, a “single hopped IPA with loads of Citra hops, sparkle, kismet,” was first released on draft in the early days of the brewery and then made a return as a Will-adorned can during the pandemic. (Here’s a plea to bring back Will Work but with a new hop — maybe Krush?!)
Photo by me (the Swiftwater garage door really provides the best natural lighting for photos): Andy Cook, Swiftwater founder/brewer, showing off some of the brewery’s new glassware.
This is really just a long-winded way to tell you how much I love Andy Cook and Swiftwater Brewing. I was there from the beginning and I’ll be there tomorrow when the South Wedge brewery celebrates its 10th anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, Swiftwater, 378 Mt. Hope Ave., will roll out a special beer and food menu, featuring up to eight barrel-aged beers (the 10th anniversary barleywine alone has four distinct variants and in a weird twist of fate, the anni beer was brewed on Jan. 18, 2023, exactly two years before the brewery bday party).
The variants of the barleywine, which clocks in at 15.3 percent alcohol and was also batch 1,000 at the brewery:
Base barleywine aged in A. Smith Bowman bourbon barrels, finished with a touch of maple syrup (which has kinda become Swiftwater’s trademark);
A portion aged in a second whiskey barrel from Finger Lakes Distilling, yielding a double barrel version;
Plum and vanilla;
One that mirrors an old fashioned with orange, cherry, and black walnut bitters.
I am really looking forward to this one, because it promises to be a bit of a Rochester beer family reunion. I will undoubtedly cross paths with many friends, many of whom I met through the brewery during my time as a bartender and many I haven’t seen in recent months. Hope to see many of you there. (And thanks to my spectacularly beautiful and brilliant wife for freeing me up for a few hours to hang with some of my favorite Swifties tomorrow.)
Photo: A pour of Swiftwater’s yummy Czech dark lager. It was consumed rapidly right after this photo.
Cook readily admits that owning a brewery has gotten tougher. (By this point, we’ve all seen the Brewers Association stat that shows 2024 was the first time since 2005 that more breweries closed than opened in this country.)
“Our first five years, it was really easy to grow,” Cook said. “The appetite for fresh, local, delicious beer was essentially unquenchable.”
The last five years have seen beer sales slow (or even decline). That period includes a pandemic and shifting consumer habits, particularly among younger folks.
“In the post-Covid era where it was tougher to get supplies and everything was more expensive, I think that shook a lot of businesses, consumers, everybody,” Cook said. “I think that will take a little while to recover from.”
An aside (to what is already a meandering tribute to a place we love): I made a sappy Instagram post about Will Work for Citra and seeing my face on the Swiftwater 10th anniversary label earlier this week. I talked about how I was there from the beginning and how I chronicled much of it as my beer writing gig took off. I transitioned from an employee to a massive fan. Almost immediately after the post went live, my wife texted me and playfully asked why a post that highlighted so many milestones left off arguably the most important one ever — the site of our first date. Cass and I had our first date at Swiftwater almost 10 years ago. I was working there at the time and she agreed to meet me there toward the end of my shift for a beer. Two kids, two careers, and two houses later, I think it worked out OK. My omission also illustrates how interwoven this place is with my life, particularly this most recent chapter. I’ve experienced so much there that I completely spaced and forgot to list the most important event so far. So apologies to Cass. She rules. She is certainly the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And we have Swiftwater to thank.
Like I said, that Swiftwater garage door provides the best selfie lighting. You should give it a shot.
So the question remains: How do you manage to stay afloat and stay relevant? (Of note, I’ve talked to numerous brewery owners who were excited about sales remaining flat during this time.)
“Somebody told that flat is the new growth,” Cook joked.
He continued, “Nobody gets into our industry hoping to buy a jet. If you’re looking to fund your yacht, you should probably find a different industry. We all get into it for passion. Our hope is that we pay the mortgage, pay the bills, take care of our people. I’m not looking to turn this into the next Budweiser or Southern Tier. If it’s sustainable and I’m taking home the money to pay my bills, then I am pretty happy.
“The way that we’ve been getting there the last few years is just focusing on in-house sales. Really make sure we’re doing as good of a job as humanly possible with the customer service aspect, the food aspect, and just make sure all of that is run incredibly effectively. That’s something we have control over, unlike the shelf placement at a grocery store.”
As I recently highlighted (and as a sure sign of the weird, tenuous nature of the current beer scene), Swiftwater recently partnered with the soon-to-open Colllage Cellars through an alternating proprietorship agreement. (Ostensibly, Collage rents tank space from Swiftwater and brews and packages its beer there while it awaits construction of its own spot in East Bloomfield.) Swiftwater and Collage teamed up for a special anniversary beer — a 4 percent dry-hopped saison (farmhouse ale).
It’s a fruitful partnership for all involved.
“It’s just a really, really easy relationship,” Andy said. “We think the same way about beer. Any relationship like that, I feel like I am going to go out of my way to make sure I’m holding up my end of the bargain and make sure I do everything I can to make everything as easy as possible. Those guys do that, but maybe even more than I do. That’s fantastic.”
I’ve told the Swiftwater story a million times already. So there really isn’t any need to rehash old stuff. By now you know the brewery features an incredible variety of beer that is supported by an equally fantastic kitchen. (Seriously, that stromboli is life-affirming.) Cook was the farm boy who wanted to operate a hop farm before coming to the realization that he’d rather make beer and build a community-gathering space inside the city of Rochester. It was non-negotiable for him — the brewery had to be in the city. Cook is the primary reason Swiftwater is such a special place. (His incredible family is just a bonus.)
“I wanted to lean into the neighborhood,” Cook said. “We had to think: Do we want open a pub in a neighborhood or are we building a factory? We could’ve found somewhere out in the country, thrown up a barn, and started making beer. But it was the first big decision I made, to be in the city, preferably in the South Wedge (where Andy has lived for 20 years).”
There’s definitely a community at Swiftwater. Just consider the huge crowds the brewery attracts for its weekly trivia nights. As I’ve previously written, you can measure the value of a brewery or a business by the friendships formed there.
“I want to foster and support the businesses in the neighborhood I live in,” Cook said. “It’s also a little bit selfish. I can walk to work. It’s all so important in the vibrancy of the neighborhood. It’s a lot of fun when you walk down the street and see someone you know from the bar. Yesterday I was walking my dog and somebody honked at me. It was a couple that comes in all the time.”
When you own a beloved brewery, it probably won’t be an angry honk.
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.
