Paul Leone, New York State Brewers Association

Interview By Maria Buteux Reade

Some people have all the luck. Paul Leone has spent most of his life immersed in baseball, television and beer. However, this upstate New York native is no couch potato. Paul serves as executive director of the New York State Brewers Association, where he and his team work tirelessly to support craft brewers and promote their products throughout the state and beyond. Read on to learn more about one of New York State’s top industries!

Maria Buteux Reade: Let’s start with a definition of a craft brewery.

Paul Leone: A craft brewery produces two million barrels or less. That’s a lot of beer. Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada fall in the upper levels of that category. However, the vast majority of craft brewers in the U.S. produce under 1,000 barrels annually.

MBR: How does the New York brewing scene compare with the rest of the country?

PL: In 2003, New York State had 52 breweries, 95 in 2012, and this year, we have close to 500. New York is second behind California, which has 1,100 craft breweries. Our brewers have more than doubled production from 2011 to 2021.

MBR: What accounts for the explosive growth in craft brewing in the last decade?

PL: It’s almost hard to fathom, but eight years ago, brewers in New York State couldn’t sell a pint of beer in their taproom. The New York State Craft Act of 2014 changed the entire industry and cut through red tape. When those laws started to change, the industry exploded. All four craft beverage sectors in New York— beer, cider, wine and distilled spirits—are now within the top five in the nation.

But let’s back up. From 2017 until the pandemic hit, one new brewery opened every eight days, so 50-plus came on each year. That’s slowed a bit during the pandemic. We lost 12 breweries in 2020, which is tough, but we also gained 26 more by the end of that year.

MBR: So either people are drinking more, or breweries are good business!

PL: Breweries lend themselves to economic growth, which is why they can flourish in small towns. Other businesses pop up around them, and that generates an energetic, upward trend. I get calls once a week from city planners who want to know how they can get a brewery in their town. Or they have a great building that would be a perfect place to set up a brewery and could we help them find a brewer?

The unique thing is you can open 10 or 15 breweries in an area, and suddenly that becomes a destination. They aren’t competitors; they’re helping one another to succeed. Craft beer drinkers are adventuresome and not loyal to just one brewery. If they can go to a region and hit five or six breweries in a day, so much the better.

New York is such a diverse state, and each region produces unique beer that flows from their own attitudes and philosophies. The Albany Dutch in the 1600s played a considerable role in the early brewing industry, and the Capital region really embraces that rich heritage today.

MBR: How has the pandemic impacted the industry?

PL: When the pandemic hit, we had to throw out everything we were doing, such as the festivals, and figure out how to stay alive as an association. And breweries, like every other business, had to get creative and find ways to keep people employed and going forward. Fortunately, breweries were declared essential businesses and could keep functioning. As such, they were given temporary privilege for shipping, curbside pickup and home delivery. Brewers knew they had to change their business models and market to their local community, and our job was to help keep them alive and to see them to the other side by making sure they had the proper rules and regulations to operate.

MBR: And that’s where the New York State Brewers Association comes in.

PL: That’s right. The original association was founded in 1830 as the New York—New Jersey Brewers Association, the first we know of historically. This version of the board-run nonprofit association began in 2003. I was hired in 2013 as its first executive director, and we now have five employees.

MBR: Explain what the association does.

PL: Our job is to protect and promote New York State craft beer. We’re an advocacy group, an insurance policy of sorts, for our 350 licensed brewery members. We have a strong lobbying effort to ensure laws are beer friendly.

MBR: What’s your responsibility as director?

PL: My job is to oversee an incredibly talented staff of people who run different aspects of this organization on behalf of the brewers in New York State.

MBR: Coolest parts of the job?

PL: I get to hang out and talk beer and business with the greatest group of brewers! And consumers! I changed my career path because of the passion behind the folks in this industry.

MBR: It sounds like you have an amazing job. How did you get so lucky?

PL: I have a strange connection to brewing. I started out at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum in Cooperstown. Then I was a TV producer, editor and videographer for 20 years. As I traveled the country, I fell in love with craft beer and decided I was going to create the first-ever craft beer television program. My series pitches were never picked up, but I fell in love with the people and the industry so much that in 2012 my wife and I moved from Texas back to New York State where we both had grown up. I decided to look for a job in a local brewery because I wanted to be happy. The person I met with said he didn’t have a job, but the Brewers Association was looking for an executive director and that I should apply. I feel that fate hit me at that moment, and this was the best opportunity in the world. The timing was right, and I feel so fortunate to land this position, of all positions, in craft beer.

MBR: What’s Think New York, Drink New York?

PL: Think New York, Drink New York is the consumer side of our association. It’s a deep dive into the craft beer scene across the state. You can locate breweries, find festivals and events, read stories about the producers, buy beer gear.

MBR: Tell us about these festivals!

PL: Festivals are a great way to connect directly with the people making your favorite beers. The actual brewers and owners work the taps, not volunteers. We host five annual brewers’ festivals throughout the year spread across the state: Albany, Long Island, Syracuse and Buffalo. We also have the BriteVibes Craft Beer and Music Festival. Last year, Brewery Ommegang hosted the event in Cooperstown. This summer, we’re staging BriteVibes on July 9 at Heritage Hill Brewing Company in Syracuse. We’ll have live music, artisans, food trucks and more than 60 breweries. People can camp on the grounds. It’s an immersive, experiential event. Check out britevibes.com for more information.

MBR: And the New York Craft Beer App?

PL: Millennials drive craft beer growth, and they live on their phones. With that in mind, we developed an app that allows you to locate every brewery or find the closest breweries to where you’re standing with just two clicks. And to incentivize people to use the virtual passport app and visit breweries, we give out rewards. Easy access and free gear! By midwinter, we had more than 40,000 downloads and a 92% user rate. Every app download supports the association, which in turn protects our breweries.

MBR: Farm brewing—what determines that classification?

PL: The Farm Brewing license was established in 2013 to support local agriculture. Before Prohibition, New York had been the hop-growing capital of the U.S. That has since shifted to the Pacific Northwest. This farm brewery license has brought the hops and malt industry back, and we now have 13 malt houses in the state. To receive a farm brewery license, you have to ensure that at least 60% of the hops and 60% of the malt or other ingredients come from New York State. Half of our 500 breweries have farm brewing licenses. Brewers have done a great job capturing the terroir of New York State in their beer.

MBR: Exciting trends on the forefront?

PL: There’s no limit to what craft breweries can do! People are making sours thick as slushies, with tons of fruit. IPAs are still the main style sold, but more people are shifting to lower alcohol, lower calorie, lighter pilsners and lagers, sours and sessionable ales. Non-alcoholic beer is another fast-emerging trend.

MBR: Are you seeing more women entering the field?

PL: For sure! Women are playing a prominent role in New York and across the U.S., as owners and as brewers. We’re also pushing hard for more diversity, equity and inclusion eff orts. We want to get more people of color and members of the LGBTQ community involved in craft beer.

MBR: Any advice to serious aspiring brewers?

PL: It’s a great industry to enter, but don’t go into it for the money. Enter the field because you are passionate about beer and the craft of brewing. Gain some experience and work in breweries if you can. It’s a tough business and highly regulated. These people aren’t drinking beer all day and hanging out with customers. They spend most of their time cleaning and tending to other aspects of the business away from the actual brewing. A lot of people who open breweries are doing it as a second job, as a career change or as a retirement project.

MBR: Parting thoughts for our readers?

PL: Most of the craft breweries in New York are small, high-quality, family-run businesses that produce under 500 barrels a year. Consumers often think, wow, breweries are charging $20 for a four-pack, they must be printing money. They’re not. The pandemic isn’t over, and these places need our support. So drink local and keep the money in your own community!

Thinknydrinkny.com
Britevibes.com
Newyorkcraftbeer.com

FIVE RAPID FIRE

Breakfast today?

Frosted Mini-Wheats and a banana.

Favorite childhood meal?

Kraft mac and cheese. The orange stuff that came in the blue box.

Cake, pie or cookies?

Key lime pie.

Guilty pleasure in food or drink?

Dark chocolate.

Late-night snack?

In Rochester, we have something called a “Garbage Plate,” a plate piled with macaroni salad, home fries, two cheeseburgers with onions, meat sauce, mustard and fresh bread. It’s a late-night Rochester thing. And, of course, favorite style of beer? I’m spoiled. I get to drink the greatest New York State pilsners I can find.