New Brewing Company
The Hank Hudson Brewing Company officially open
HALFMOON, N.Y. >> Two friends with a shared love for the community, local business and beer have combined all three in a new craft beer brewing company.
Founders and co-brewers Darren Van Heusen and Chris Crounse have taken what was a small-scale brewing operation in the basement of a local golf course and turned it into a fully functioning craft brewpub, called Hank Hudson Brewing Company.
As part of the Fairways of Halfmoon Golf Course, 17 Johnson Rd., the business is owned by golf course owner and area developer Bruce Tanski. Van Heusen is Tanski’s step-son.
With its oversized front and rear windows, huge stone fireplace, rustic post-and-beam framing, barn-height ceiling, and reclaimed wood interior, the tasting room and gathering spot have an inviting appeal.
Having the brewing system and fermenting tanks a few feet away immediately announces to everyone that craft beer is made there and adds to the ambiance.
“Five years ago this was unthinkable, beyond our scope,” Van Heusen said.
Indeed. What began as a hobby for two local high school teachers five years ago is now a potential business to take into retirement.
Van Heusen and Crounse are longtime teachers in the ScotiaGlenville School District. Van Heusen teaches economics and Crounse history.
The idea of brewing beer as a hobby with the potential for expanding into a business began when they spoke to their high school Principal Peter Bednarek.
Bednarek is part-owner in the Wolf Hollow Brewing Company in Glenville. His enthusiasm for the business struck a chord with the two men.
When Tanski offered the duo four beer taps in his golf course clubhouse bar they took up the challenge of brewing craft beer for the public.
The two men started brewing different varieties of beer in the club’s basement and selling it from the taps at the bar. Their beers quickly found a receptive public.
“When we started Bruce said, ‘Don’t worry about it, you won’t sell that much anyway’,” Van Heusen said.
The reception to their beers and the sales motivated Van Heusen and Crounse to enroll in courses on brewing beer at Schenectady County Community College. The men went back to school at night after teaching all day while continuing to hone their craft in the basement of the clubhouse.
“By the summer of 2016 Bruce saw that this might be something bigger, something that might offer him a way to extend the golf season and make the course a year around destination,” Van Heusen said.
Neither man had any background in brewing beer when they started. Crounse’s family owns and operates Glenville Beverage and that gave him knowledge of the market. Van Heusen could sense the demand for craft brewpubs.
“My gut told me that in a growing area like southern Saratoga County with the population it has, there’s a demand for craft beer. But if someone wanted to get it, they had to
drive 20 minutes at best,” he said. “We looked around Clifton Park for a location and then Bruce said it was in the best interest of the golf course to keep it here.
“People have been asking us about opening this for three years.”
The company’s brewing system has the capacity to brew 10 barrels of beer in a single brewing cycle. Once brewed it must ferment and carbonate for a period of anywhere from two weeks to 30 days depending on the type of beer that’s been brewed.
“We’re hoping to foster that discussion that takes place when craft beer lovers get together,” Van Heusen said. “To have someone ask me about brewing, I’d be honored. I’m not a master brewer by any means.
“I learn as much as anyone from those conversations.”
“I’d love it,” chimed in Crounse. “What we’re building here is a craft beer community. I love the idea that people will come in and may want to know about the equipment or the brewing side or the fermentation side.”
As they stood in the middle of the large room and discussed its architectural aspects, like how the interior wood came from two barns in town, the men expanded on how they got to this point and what they want the business to be.
Van Heusen acknowledged the duo learned on the cheap using mostly sweat equity. He made clear also, that what he and Crounse have created is a business with a special type of character.
“I don’t view us as a bar,” he said. “It’s a distinction for sure, but I see this as a tasting room, a brewpub, a tap room. It’s deliberately different, it’s unique. Having the brewing system and fermenting tanks right here is visually appealing. It’s a conversation piece, eye candy if you will.
“It’s lets people know what we have here. Spaces impact people. People behave differently in different environments.”
The brewpub, he said, is an added amenity to an already busy golf course.
“If people are open to trying new beer I welcome them,” Van Heusen said. “If they just want a familiar beer and a meal, the golf course has kept its full service restaurant and bar.
“They can still order in there and bring it right in here.”
As their basement brewing hobby slowly transformed into a 1,600-squarefoot business with 16 taps and the ability to makes thousands of gallons of beer, Van Heusen and Crounse began to view it as a good post-teaching retirement opportunity.
“We’re fortunate. Our wives and families support us in this,” Van Heusen said. “This gives the two of us something to do that we really like, that we’re good at, that doesn’t feel like work.”
The Hank Hudson Brewing Company is currently open Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Recently, the company celebrated Oktoberfest by unveiling its fall lager, Hanktoberfest, at a celebration of the same name.
Part of the taps’ proceeds will go to CAPTAIN Community Human Services.