"The Cheers of Webster:" Knucklehead Craft Brewing celebrates a decade

Webster's original, and still only, craft brewery rings in 10 years Saturday with a big party

(Note: I am gonna apologize in advance, because I’m not gonna be able to give this newsletter the love it deserves. I am certainly gonna try my best, but you also have to consider that this is my third “article” of the day and the surly 3-year-old currently sleeping in the room above me is guaranteed to be up in 5-ish hours.)

I love those interviews where you’re deep in the middle of conversation and the lede immediately becomes clear after the interview subject says something thoughtful and illuminating.

I’ve had that experience often with the Dummers, the family that co-founded Knucklehead Craft Brewing in Webster and now solely owns it. The Dummers took full control of the brewery in late 2018, purchased the building soon after, and undertook an ambitious expansion project thereafter.

So when Jake Dummer, the oldest son and head brewer, pointed out the brewery’s current tap list, I perked up. On the menu currently, Knucklehead has a number of adventurous and unexpected offerings on draft.

When it opened, Knucklehead featured a Belgian IPA (remember those?!), an amber ale, an American stout, and a West Coast IPA among other classic styles.

Photo: Brothers and Knucklehead co-owners Jake, left, and Josh Dummer. They both started as part-time employees and now work full time at their Webster brewery.

Only two beers remain from that original draft list — a Scotch ale and a cream ale.

According to Jake: “We followed the trends. (That’s not to say the brewery got too weird, because it never really has.) But the market dictates what those trends are going to be. Fast forward to now and we have a sour, a cobbler (a fruited blonde ale with cobbler crust ingredients), and we also have a maple vanilla porter that’s not sweet. We have a German export lager that’s been lagering for eight weeks and that’ll be out next week.”

The current tap list is wildly different than that opening one. But it is still rooted in tradition.

The brewery has, however, rolled out a new series of non-alcoholic seltzer waters that are both unexpected and incredibly refreshing and tasty. Jake was particularly excited about the one that’ll be tapped Saturday for the anniversary party. Each of the first four varieties has sold out within two days. Selfishly, Jake started producing these seltzers because he wanted something to enjoy while he was brewing. The first one featured fresh cranberry and lime.

“It keeps it fun,” Jake offered during a recent interview. “We see how the industry has progressed. When we started, we said we would never have a kitchen. We had absolutely zero kitchen. And now food sales are keeping us cranking. It’s crazy how much credit our kitchen deserves for keeping us afloat. A lot of people think of us as a brewery, but we have people that come in just to eat here.”

All of this is worth celebrating. And that’s precisely what the Dummers and the Webster community will do Saturday as Webster’s only craft brewery rings in its 10th anniversary with new beer releases, live music, and food specials. It all kicks off at 1 p.m.

When the brewery opened, Jake Dummer was teaching full time in the Webster school district. But the brewery quickly found a thirsty audience, so Jake left that position and started working solely at the brewery.

“I would finish up my day at school and then I would head here to brew and stuff,” Jake said. “I was obviously here since day one as we built the place out. But we go to a point that we needed to keep up with production, so I left the school district and came here to start making beer in 2015.”

As I noted in a 2015 D&C article, it wasn’t unusual to find multiple members of the Dummer family at the brewery (and it still isn’t). Len and Kathy often worked side-by-side behind the bar. Jake typically joined them when he wasn’t brewing and Josh was most always plugging away in the kitchen.

My 2015 article was headlined “Webster’s Knucklehead keeps it all in the family.” (If we ever cross paths at Knucklehead, make sure you ask me about the first time I visited the brewery with my late father. It’s something that’s too goofy to type out here. But that memory remains one of my favorite local beer stories.)

George Cline and Len Dummer, long-time friends, opened Knucklehead in December 2014. And as I noted in my article for the D&C about the brewery’s first anniversary, it’s always been about camaraderie and family. The Dummers bought out Cline nearly four years into the brewery, but they remain good friends.

Knucklehead Craft Brewing in Webster

The Dummer decision to take it over involved conversations with potential investors before they ultimately decided to keep it all in the family. And now Len and Kathy Dummer are preparing to hand off the entire business to their sons, Jake and Josh. Josh still runs the kitchen and Jake still oversees the brewing (though he gets huge lift and assist from assistant brewer Jesse Steeves, the former head brewer at now shuttered WhichCraft Brews).

The transition included a new beer garden on the north side of the property, an expanded parking with the added retaining wall, a second dining space, new fermenters, and even a slushie machine.

But seriously, if you haven’t been to Knucklehead recently, remedy that ASAP. It is quietly one of the best breweries in Monroe County and features a nearly unbeatable combination of quality beer and quality food. The brewery’s flagship IPA, Tainted Haze, remains my favorite hazy beer in Monroe County. It’s impossible to beat it for quality and consistency. Plus, the food is phenomenal. My wife and I maintain it’s one of the best date spots in this region.

Jake is understandably speechless when asked to consider the entirety of the journey.

“If you’re not willing to change, you’re gonna be stuck in the past,” he said. “And if you don’t change, hopefully it’s gonna work for you. But a lot of the time, it doesn’t. For us, we just listened to what people wanted. When we opened, we didn’t have any TVs. Now we have a few TVs in the back to show whatever sports people are interested in. We have dart boards back there. Being able to see what your customers want and being cognitively aware, that’s the biggest thing. You have to be willing to change.”

I can’t trumpet this enough — if you haven’t been to Knucklehead recently, make sure to get there in the coming weeks and give this newest batch of the brewery’s Maple Vanilla Porter a try. It’s absurdly smooth and doesn't drink nearly as sweet as you expect. I’ll put it this way: This is the type of beer I would envision earning a medal at the New York State Craft Beer Competition. It’s beautifully balanced and perfectly suits the chilly season we now find ourselves in.

There’s no need to write it differently when you wrote it perfectly nearly a decade ago. At the close of my Knuckleheard first anniversary story, I offered, “Many believe that the future of craft beer will be hyper-local (each small town might have their own community brewery). Webster has embraced Knucklehead, because Knucklehead has embraced the community.” And in these goofy times for craft beer, that’s precisely the reason why Knucklehead continues to thrive and remains relevant — it’s a family affair and will continue to be one moving forward.

Lol, of course I said at the beginning this newsletter wouldn’t get the love it deserves, but I still pulled out 1,500 words about what makes Knucklehead special. And that’s why I love this scene and the people within it. I didn’t quite make it there, but I had this beautiful quote from an earlier Knucklehead story where Jake referred to it as the “Cheers of Webster.” And that just felt too perfect not to share again, because it perfectly encapsulates what makes this place special and what makes it a foundational spot for the Rochester scene.

A final note: It’s pretty wild to think I’ve been working on this independent publication for over two years now. In that time, I’ve published 200 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.