Genesee Brew House

Last year, when my a cappella group sang at Ferris Hills in Canandaigua, we met a woman in the audience who said she had been the original Jenny girl. I had no idea what that meant until I recently went to the Genesee Brew House with my friend Marsha from Vermont, who was visiting with her son Zach, a recent college grad. What else to do on the first rainy day in forever but a brew tour and tasting?

Beth, our tour guide

We went to the first tour of the day, at noon, and our guide, Beth, was informative and entertaining. The Genesee Brewery was founded in 1878, but the Brew House only opened four years ago, and is so popular, they are looking to expand (Beth explained that their kitchen is currently so small they can’t make French fries!). She described the four main ingredients in beer – water (theirs, from Hemlock Lake, has the ideal pH and mineral content for brewing), malted barley (over 150 varieties, to provide sweetness and flavor), hops (for bitterness), and yeast (which has something to do with distinguishing between ales and lagers). It was here that Beth started to get technical, talking about mash tuns and heat exchangers, and lost me. My mind wandered to the downpour, and to wondering how anyone figured out this complicated process in the first place (according to Wikipedia, Sumerians were drinking beer 6000 years ago!).

Apparently, the brewing process takes three to four weeks, and the brewery has a tasting panel, which meets every day to make sure the quality is up to standard (otherwise, the beer is dumped). Recipes are developed and tested in the 20-barrel Brew House, and if they prove popular at tastings, they go next door to the 1000-barrel brewery. Their most popular beer is the salted caramel chocolate porter, which was brewed in collaboration with Hedonist Artisan Chocolates. It was originally piloted in the Brew House and was so successful it transferred almost immediately to large-scale production.

The tasting room offers four glasses for $3, and 75% of the proceeds go to charity. So it was our duty to drink to support this quarter’s recipients: the Nature Conservancy of Central & Western NY and Monroe Community College Foundation. I had my first taste of Genesee beer ever: the Cream Ale (nice), Honey Brown (my favorite), 12 Horse Ale (only available on-site), and Brewhouse Alt (towards the bitter side, but nothing like the lilac ale Marsha tasted!). We also played a video game to test our “brew IQ” and learned the name of the original Jenny girl, Daphne Doré, along with a lot of other fun facts (including that their non-alcoholic beer actually has a tiny percent of alcohol…).

After a yummy lunch upstairs (no fries, but thick-cut bacon – as Zach said, “there’s nothing better than bacon and beer”), the sky cleared, so we took a short walk over the Pont de Rennes Bridge for a lovely view of the High Falls and the demolition of RG&E’s Beebee Station, which would be a great location for a river walk lined with cafes, but will apparently continue to be closed to the public.