Amherst Brewing balances tradition and growth

Date: 4/5/2022

AMHERST – How do you stick to your roots while allowing yourself room to grow?

That’s the question Amherst Brewing Co. head brewer Caleb Hiliadis grapples with on the regular.

Throughout its 25-year history, Amherst Brewing has proven it doesn’t shy away from innovation.

Starting with the original uptown brewery in 1997, the company was ahead of the curve when it came to the craft beer boom in Western Massachusetts and across the country. Their move to University Drive provided them the necessary room to expand capacity and its portfolio. The 2015 merger with another Amherst icon, The Hangar, opened new avenues.

With all this growth and movement, along with the ever-shifting trends in style and the continued expansion of the craft beer industry, Hiliadis said staying true to the company’s foundational philosophies while meeting demands and remaining creative truly is a balancing act.

“People know the name, but I think it is easy to get lost in the mix and you have to pay attention to that. I like finding the balance between the history we have and what’s happening currently in the industry,” he said. “What we’re aiming for is sustainable, organic growth and just trying to be authentic.”

One style that is not going away any time soon, Hiliadis noted, is the New England IPA. For Amherst Brewing, Jess has been far and away the most popular of its New England IPA options.
“That’s the big mover and I don’t see it going away anytime soon,” Hiliadis said. “It’s not gimmicky. It’s a good style that a lot of different people can enjoy. It’s a crowd-pleaser and it’s brought a lot more people into craft beer.”

And while there is always a new style that has grabbed the public’s attention, he said he’s found the lagers never go out of style and are becoming more popular again.

“I am enjoying the trend in lagers that we’re seeing. I think we’re really starting to see it this year,” said Hiliadis, noting he had just recently joined another brewery in Maine to brew an Italian-style pilsner. “For the longest time, the brewers were hyped about the pilsners and lagers being a substantial portion of what we make and now I think the public is getting on board. They’re dependable beers that have a longer shelf life.”

He added, “Our honey pilsner, which we’ve been brewing for 20 years, is still one of our top sellers.”

Having recently ended its contract brewing agreements and moved all its brewing and packaging in-house at 10 University Dr., Hiliadis admitted it has been more difficult to tap into the creative side as much as he would like due to the popularity of some of its high-volume beers like Jess. That is why the company is in the process of building a new production facility in the former Hofbräuhaus restaurant building on Main Street in West Springfield.

“We’re trying to continue to innovate, but we’re also trying to meet the demands of our distributors, which is why we’re building a second location for brewing to handle more of that. We’re pretty much maxed out in this building. We’re able to fit in a bunch of different collabs and things like that, but we are making a lot of Jess,” he said. “I like having everything in-house because I can see everything, I can feel everything and have my hands on it so there’s more control. We’re able to keep everything fresher … But literally every week there’s a new batch of Jess getting packaged and picked up. Which is great, but it ties up tank space.

“In West Springfield, we’ll be building out a brewery that is pretty much designed to produce those bigger distribution brands and then this building will become the innovation hub that it once was early on. For the longevity of this company, I think both are important.”

New locations, of course, are nothing new to Amherst Brewing and The Hangar, which have experienced rapid growth over the past few years and now boast locations in Westfield, Agawam, South Hadley, Greenfield and Pittsfield. Having so many points of sale proved to be especially advantageous when the coronavirus pandemic reached the U.S. and restrictions took hold.

“I think we were as well-positioned as we could have been to handle the complete shift in the way people were allowed to interact with us,” Hiliadis said. “We have a long history of wings, so people knew us for take-out. People were already ordering to-go with us for both beer and wings. The brewery having other restaurants where we could sell cans to-go once the state allowed that, that was big.”

In the long-term, the partnership between The Hangar and the brewery also informs the decision making when it comes to the beer menu. “We do design a lot of our beers to be poured in our restaurant. The beer can’t always be a meal in and of itself,” Hiliadis said.

For examply, among the company’s new offerings is The Range, a 4 percent alcohol by volume lager made with local corn from Valley Malt in Hadley and local hops from Four Star Farms in Northfield.

“It’s perfect in our restaurants because it’s super crisp, super drinkable, pairs with anything we have,” Hiliadis said.

While those restaurant-oriented beers are a significant part of the company’s portfolio, Hiliadis said what he called “impression beers” will always have a place and the public can expect more once the West Springfield facility opens.

“Once we move down to West Springfield, we’ll really be able to up the barrel game and really go after some of those more long-form beers. We have about 18 wild ale barrels that range from one to three years that we’ll be blending and bottling,” he said. “I’ve got a bunch of barrels – sour barrels, stout barrels, barleywine barrels – that will be coming out, maybe this year, maybe not. We’ve had some fun with some of the pretty heavily fruited dessert sours. The wild ales have definitely been popular.”

In the meantime, Jessica, a double version of the famous Jess, will soon be released and fans of the brewery should expect to see that beer, previously brewed just once a year, more often.

“There’s always a shiny new beer and shiny new breweries, but I think we’re doing a good job of finding that balance of our history and what’s worked in the past and being innovative,” Hiliadis said. “That has really helped keep us from getting lost in the market.”

For more information on Amherst Brewing Co., visit http://www.amherstbrewing.com.