Nominate Us Best Beer Store!
Jim Morrill’s first day as owner of Delmar Beverage Center was May 18, 2018. “Fortunately, it was a Friday, so we had a pretty good day,” he remembers. “It was a nice way to start., and it’s worked out well. This was a family business built from nothing over 30 years --he says. “I believe the father started out the old way, selling beer out of station wagons before the distributor concept developed.”
Morrill’s job in corporate HR had demanded three or four nights a week in the city. When his son John told him the beverage center he managed was for sale, he saw a chance to ditch the exhausting commute. “We bought it from the second generation, Mike Vinci and his sister,” he says. “It turned out to be a great time to get out of big-city human resources and into Capital Region beverages.” The father and son replaced old shelving, added three new coolers, and set about surfing the wave of the craft beverage revolution
Today, Delmar carries almost 1,000 different beers. “About half of the store is craft beverages now,” says Morrill. “People ask me how I keep up with what’s new when there’s so much happening and the answer is, I don’t. But I have John, our craft beer brain, and he’s completely tuned in; if it wasn’t for him we’d never keep up. He helps people find things they’ll love; he knows what our regulars like, and when something new comes in that fits that zone, he makes sure they know about it.” Along with the vast array of beer, Delmar’s craft selection includes a wide variety of cider, hard seltzer, NA beer, soda, water and ice.
Non-alcoholic craft beer, Morrill says, has experienced a boom since somewhere around mid-pandemic. “People wanted the option of enjoying beer without intoxication, so a bunch of craft brewers are coming up with non-alcoholic beers. We have around 30 non-alcoholic choices, many of them just as uniquely crafty and flavorful as the brewery’s regular selections,” he says. “Some of them nearly all have 0.5% alcohol but some of them are 0.0%. The old-school mass market non-alcoholic choices are 0.5%. So that’s great for people who love the taste of good beer but have to stay clear of alcohol entirely for whatever reasons. Other people like to enjoy those options during the week and save regular beer for the weekend.”
During the pandemic, Morrill says, many brewers who’d been offering kegs of draft switched to package cans for safety reason, and growlers haven’t made a comeback yet, “Keg parties vanished almost completely in 2020 and were just starting to come back a little in 2021 -- we donated a couple of kegs to a parish picnic -- and then Delta hit and they dried up again. But we can still order you a keg and send along an employee to set it up for you -- no need to get sprayed with beer. Hopefully, by the time the weather breaks, graduation parties and summer fun will be back again. And kids’ sports -- we support Tri-valley Little League and Bethlehem Softball, and you’ll find donation cans for good causes at the register. Being part of the things that weave community is what running a family business is all about.”
242 Delaware Avenue, Delmar, NY 12054 518-439-7275 | delmarbeverage.com