On Tuesday, July 30th, Peekskill Brewing Company‘s brewmaster Jeff O’Neil will be at Jimmy’s No. 43, pairing great Peekskill brews with a five-course menu curated by guest chef Marc Giroux (get your tickets here). We recently sat down with Peekskill Brewing’s owner, Keith Berardi, to talk about the expansion of Peekskill, how he met Jeff, his principle of “Tank to Face” beer distribution, and everything cool about brewing in the Hudson Valley.
You recently opened the new brewery/brewpub. How has that changed the way you’re doing business?
The old location at 55 Hudson Aveue was fantastically successful, but the building itself limited us greatly in a lot of ways. The new location at 47-53 South Water Street gives us the opportunity to fully realize our vision of a brewpub where we can make fantastic beer, fantastic food, and pair it with impecable service and a view of the Hudson River that is also great.
Where/how did you meet Jeff? What does he bring as a brewer that makes him special?
The craft brewing industry in New York is quite a tight-knit community. Jeff and I knew each other through a long-time mutual friend. We were planning our expansion and wanted to go in a different direction in the brewhouse. After speaking at length about the project we came the realization that our goals, values and ideals were alined.
What makes Jeff special is his ability to source the best quality ingredients, artfully combine them, use thoughtful precise techniques, and let the beer and ingredients shine.
You are obviously closely tied to the Peekskill community, yet you’re widely available in NYC. How do you balance between the country-brew/city-brew worlds? How are you different from other brewpubs that exist primarily to serve great craft beer in their own backyards?
Most of the beer we make is consumed on premise at the pub. Our first commitment is to offer the finest dining and drinking experience to our community in the same place that we make our beer. Drinking beer straight out of our serving tanks, “Tank to Face,” is the optimal way to enjoy our beer. That being said, we consider NYC our backyard and have been showed tons of love by a lot of amazing restaurants and bars. For us its like a collaboration with the wonderful establishments that put us on draft.
Are there any beers that are only available at the brewpub? What makes Peekskill a destination for NYC residents looking to get away for the day?
Our goal is to provide the absolutly freshest beer possible to our accounts. Currently the beers available in NYC are Simple Sour, Hop Common and Eastern Standard. If you hop on the Metro North Hudson Line from Grand Central you can be at our door step in less than an hour (faster than it takes to go from downtown to midtown some days). If the city dwellers are adventurous enough to come up to the country they will find 10-12 brewpub exclusive beers including the TAP NY Governors Cup (Best Beer in NY State) Higher Standard.
What are the future plans for Peekskill? New brews? New territories?
Future plans consist of continuing to create delicious beer and deliver it to our customers the freshest possible way in the best environments possible.
What’s your favorite beer that isn’t Peekskill? What other brewers/breweries do you admire (and why)?
When I am not drinking our beer, I am most likely drinking Captain Lawrence. Beyond being great guys and good friends, they often come up to our bar with presents of beer… and who doesn’t love super fresh, amazing quality beer delivered?
We’ll be featuring a menu of “proteins” for the 7/30 dinner (we’ll have a clam dish, a shrimp dish, duck and pork. Any idea which beers you’ll be bringing to pair (we’ll also have a dessert with a beer pairing)?
Here’s the pairings we’ve planned:
- ‘Share the Rainbow’ – Paired with a clam dish. (“Belgian-style white brewed with blood oranges, cara cara oranges, navels, pink peppercorns – all pressed with our feet – and fermented with both belgian yeast and brettanomyces!”)
- ‘Simple Sour’ – Shrimp dish TBA. (“Light, tart, crisp, clean sour ale fermented with Brettanomyces.”)
- ‘Higher Standard’ – Paired with a duck dish. (“Governors Cup winner – triple ipa, juicy.”)
- ‘Eastern Standard’ – Paired with pork. (“A bright, fruity ipa, dry-hopped with simcoe and citra hops.”)
- ‘Vaporizer’ – dessert (American imperial stout, rich, inky, black velvet)