07/24/2003

Western Massachusetts affords visitors and residents a number of opportunities to literally drink in the local flavor, and the variety is intoxicating.

Since 1987, the Pioneer Valley has been home to brew pubs, specialty restaurants which serve beer made on the premises. For some of these bars' owners, it's the next logical step from home brewing, an art found, in the words of one beermaker, somewhere between making bread and making soup. Some take the next step, serving bread and soup as well.

Customers have responded. Several of the brew pubs have expanded or are in the midst of expanding, and a new one is being planned by a popular Deerfield microbrewery.

"A brew pub is unique," said Jessica Burkett of Hadley, a bartender at the Amherst Brewing Company. While many bars and establishments calling themselves pubs can see their character change with their stock, a brew pub, because it often only sells its own beer, really puts its reputation on the line, she said.

"You want to see what they do with the product," she said. "They are creating the entire palette."

"The more brew pubs and microbreweries makes it much healthier," said Christopher O'Connor, head brewer at the Northampton Brewery, one of the first brew pubs on the East Coast. In some ways, this brewery set the bench mark which others choose to follow or reject: they now brew some 35 types of beer, dispensing about a dozen at a time.

With the boom in brew pubs in the early 1990s, owners Janet and Peter Egelston expanded their beer kingdom to include the Portsmouth Brewery and the Smuttynose Brewing Co., both in Portsmouth, N.H. In recent years, the siblings split the business, with Peter Egelston taking over the northern breweries.

Producing about 900 barrels a year, the Northampton establishment has attracted enough of an audience to warrant more than one expansion, the last being an outdoor rooftop beer garden erected in 1995.

While such a brew pub has made it in tourist-rich Northampton, a less likely success has occurred to the north in the comparatively struggling town of Greenfield, home to the locally adored People's Pint.

"People were skeptical about whether we would make it in Greenfield," said Daniel Young, co-owner of the 7-year-old establishment. But they were packed to overflowing the first night - Young had to turn his own family away and they haven't seen that interest abate, bad economy or not.

The People's Pint has a definite Franklin County feel, with a diverse audience, ranging from lawyers to students to farmers to teachers, he said. A local group advocating bicycle travel meets here, as do adherents of the local Green Party. Many converge on the pub for a glimpse of the local folk music scene including a popular Irish music jam on Sundays and a sample of the nine beers, five on tap at a time.

Being in a smaller community makes for a regular appearance of a "family" of regulars, said patrons.

"You never have trouble in here," said Tristan Redgrave of Northfield. An expatriate from England since 1978, and a resident of Franklin County for three years, Redgrave particularly relishes the presence of a dart board there.

"There's not many places where you can play darts and don't have smoking," he said, stopping to take a draught from his British-style pint glass. Several of the Pint's regulars have their own glasses on hand.

"I love this place: it's great," said Paul Maiewski, a farmer from Whately, among a number of local growers providing ingredients for the pub's kitchen. "They buy a lot of potatoes from me and serve them, and that's great."

The pub last year expanded its brewery operation, moving manufacturing into an old factory building at 76 Hope St.

"We've got the potential for four times more beer, but we're not going to do that right away," Young said. People's Pint is a relatively small operation, dispensing about 350 barrels per year. They don't plan to sell beer off-site, he said.

Amherst, where the supply of college students provides plenty of traffic for bar owners, is home to two brew pubs which aim for a more diverse crowd than simply the fraternities.

"The beer is good, but I come mainly for the music," said Edward Rehor of Goshen, enjoying a rich porter at the Amherst Brewing Company. He and some of the bar's other older patrons this night have come to see the Amherst Jazz Orchestra, a 17-piece band which has been playing at the pub for the past five years.

"There's no place that has a 17-piece band that plays on a regular basis," boasted David D. Sporny of Amherst, a music instructor at the University of Massachusetts, and musical director of the band. "A lot of places just have karaoke and recorded music."

The North Pleasant Street brew pub opened in 1997, and now produces about 600 barrels a year, and has proposed a second major expansion upstairs, where the owners have already put in a pool room and second bar.

Maplewood Farm, long the site of a family farmstand, has over the years grown into a restaurant, and for the past three years boasts a brew pub. Unlike many of the smaller breweries, they brew a number of lagers, which require colder preparation, in German copper-clad tanks. They have nine beers on tap, and produce a number of seasonal brews as well.

Despite a location that some would consider well off the beaten path, anticipation has been feverish among the beer set for a planned brew pub at the Berkshire Brewing Company in Deerfield. Unlike the rest, they have an operation at hand selling much more beer for distribution.

"It's been part of the dream since the beginning," said co-owner Gary A. Bogoff. The company has been brewing beer at its Railroad Street location since 1994, and plans an expansion which would double the existing 10,000-square-foot space.

A restaurant would occupy the second floor in the building first constructed in 1948 for Consolidated Cigar. This would be the company's second expansion: they added 3,000 square feet in 1999. They expect to be able to brew 20,000 barrels next year, up from the current 10,000 barrels a year.

Bogoff said plans have been approved for a larger space for manufacturing, but the company still needs to satisfy town officials about parking, landscaping, and other issues surrounding the restaurant.

While it doesn't operate a brew pub in strictest sense of the term, Holyoke's Paper City Brewery does offer visitors an opportunity to sit down and sample its brew, said owner Jay Hebert. The brewery has an open house every Friday evening from 6 to 8 p.m.

Western Massachusetts features a pair of brew pubs in Berkshire County as well, in Pittsfield and Great Barrington. The 9-year old Barrington Brewery has eight beers on tap at a time, but makes more, which are celebrated each year at an Oktoberfest party. In Pittsfield, the Brewery, which had stopped making its own beer about five years ago, resumed the brew a few months ago and now has five varieties on tap, as well as a number of other domestic and imported beers. William Sweet can be reached at wsweet@repub.com