Big Slide Brewery
A New Flavor
Along the back wall of Big Slide Brewery & Public House sits an industrial brewing setup, complete with copper pipes running up to the ceiling and a line of giant metal tanks fermenting away. It is an impressive operation, all on display and housed behind floor-to-ceiling glass panels.
“That’s authentic hockey glass,” Chris Ericson, the brewery co-owner, says of the thick panes encasing the operation. His amusement and fondness are evident as he explains that his two children are hockey enthusiasts. Once you see the sturdy glass in that context, you can instantly imagine geared-up players slamming into the glass from the other side.
That combination of elements—the industrial and the sleek brought together with something so quintessentially Lake Placid in character—is the perfect summation of Big Slide Brewery.
Walking into Big Slide Brewery for the first time can be something of a surprise. It is not what one expects from a Lake Placid eatery, or from the Adirondack region in general. In place of wood panels and mounted skis there are chrome walls and exposed vintage light bulbs. Instead of paintings of mountainscapes and Olympic posters, there is a large silver and black word wall. But look a little closer and you’ll notice that mixed in with the beer-terminology on that wall are the names of the Adirondack 46ers—the 46 four-thousand-foot peaks in the Adirondack Park. Take a step back from the sleek and modern bar area and you’ll see that the dark wood slats adorning the bar’s facade create a silhouette of the Adirondack Great Range.
“We wanted to push outside of our comfort zones with the design,” Chris says of the brewery, which opened in 2016, “but not lose sight of the fact that we are a part of this community that we care about. We used reclaimed materials wherever we could, and brought in local artists for the installation pieces.”
Chris and his wife, Catherine, have been deeply imbedded in the Lake Placid community for more than 20 years, having opened the flagship Lake Placid Pub & Brewery in 1996. The two also own Cake Placid bakery, and Catherine works at the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST)—an organization committed to supporting environmentally sustainable and locally focused tourism in the Adirondack region.
The Lake Placid Pub, a beloved staple of Lake Placid dining, embodies all that one would hope for from an Adirondack eatery, from its cozy interior to its hearty culinary fare to its diverse beer menu. So when demand for beer production outgrew that space and Chris and Catherine decided to expand to a second location, the two wanted to make sure that their new endeavor would bring something different to the table without losing all that they love about their Adirondack home. They also wanted to focus on local and seasonal farm fare, and thought a smaller location would be the perfect place to do so.
The result, Big Slide Brewery & Public House—named for both Big Slide Mountain and the “big slides” of the nearby Olympic ski jumps—sits a mile and a half from Lake Placid’s Main Street in a former warehouse space that adds to its industrial appeal. From the brewery’s immediate success upon opening, it seems that they hit the right tone with their choices. Just as the decor isn’t quite what one expects from an Adirondack establishment, neither are the creative offerings dreamed up by executive chef Greg Sherman, described on the tongue-in-cheek menu as “the guy with the beard in the kitchen. No, the other guy.”
Visitors looking for pub favorites similar to those at the Lake Placid Pub, where Chef Greg also runs the kitchen, will certainly find plenty on the menu to love, from the poutine made with New York cheese curds to the fried chicken and sausage gravy (one of my personal go-tos when I’m looking for pure food comfort). But Big Slide’s more experimental menu has given Chef Greg room to let his ideas, and humor, flow. The Fritter Me Timbers features local goat cheese paired with blueberry ginger dip. The Rise and Swine—one of the many wood-fired pizza selections—is topped with local egg, sausage gravy and Sugarhouse Creamery’s Dutch Knuckle cheese. The 40-Year-Old Vegan pizza and the Cauliflower Power Curry entrée highlight the region’s thriving veggie farms.
“We trust Greg and let him lead the way,” Chris says, explaining that this is his philosophy with staff across the board. “We want to bring in great people who believe in what we’re doing, and then to step back and allow them to use their skills and talents.” The strategy has clearly paid off, as both Chef Greg and director of brewing operations Kevin Litchfield—who also oversees brewing operations at the Lake Placid Pub & Brewery—have been working with Chris and Catherine for more than 20 years.
In addition to serving up a bounty of meat, dairy and produce from local farms, including Atlas Hoofed It Farm, Mace Chasm Farm and Juniper Hill Farm, Big Slide Brewery has worked to connect their operations back to those farms. “The spent grain left over from brewing our beer goes to Mace Chasm to feed their pigs,” Chris explains with a smile. “We love being a part of raising the animals that will come right back to us. That we can help close that loop.”
Brewing Up a Storm
Farm-to-table, Chris Ericson believes, shouldn’t end at the plate. “If people were as cognizant about supporting local breweries as they were about supporting their local sport teams, our community, and New York State, would be stronger for it,” he says, explaining that only about 4% of all beer sold in New York comes from in-state, despite the hundreds of small operations creating innovative brews.
At Big Slide, much of the ever-changing beer selection, overseen by Kevin Litchfield, isn’t just brewed on-site, it is also brewed under a New York State Farm Brewery license. The Farm Brewery license, created and passed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2012, requires that at least 60% of all the hops, malt, grain and all additional ingredients in a beer must be grown in-state. “We’re committed to supporting New York agriculture across the board,” Chris continues. “not just when it comes to food. There are so many farms right here in New York that are growing high-quality grain and hops.”
Many of the beers on the menu also connect to other local resources and organizations, like the Treelixer Pale Ale, which uses both maple sap (in place of water) and maple syrup from nearby Black Rooster Maple operation, or the Bean-to-Coffee Stout, which is brewed with locally roasted coffee beans. Other beers on tap are brewed using Big Slide’s own hyper-local house strains of yeast that are cultivated in their Funk Room—a separate room designed specifically for wild fermented beers. “My favorite beer right now is the BETA Hazy IPA,” Chris says, explaining that a portion of the proceeds from that beer go to help the Barkeater Trail Alliance (BETA), which builds and maintains trails in the Adirondack region.
For Chris, the commitment to small breweries goes beyond his Lake Placid home. As the co-founder and now president of the New York State Brewers Association, the idea of connecting the region and bolstering New York State is a full-time passion. But he doesn’t think that means that anyone should sacrifi ce quality in their purchasing decisions. That commitment to quality was evident in 2017 when Big Slide’s Giant Double IPA took home the gold medal in its category at the New York Craft Beer Competition.
“Catherine and I feel that one of our biggest successes is how many people in this area we are able to employ, and how many farms we are able to give our business,” Chris says, “but we also want to make sure that the first reason people are coming to our breweries is because they love our beer. Catherine always says, ‘Don’t drink it because it’s local. Drink it because it’s good, and be proud of it because it’s local.’”
From the looks of it, Big Slide Brewery isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and that is something both the Lake Placid community and New York State can be proud of.
Big Slide Brewery & Public House | @bigslidebrewery
Lake Placid Pub & Brewery | @lakeplacidpub
Cake Placid bakery | @cakeplacid
Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism
Atlas Hoofed It Farm
Mace Chasm Farm | @macechasmfarm
Juniper Hill Farm | @juniperhillfarm
Black Rooster Maple | @blackroostermaple
Barkeater Trail Alliance | @betatrails
New York State Brewers Association | @newyorkcraftbeer
