Hyde Park’s Roundhead Brewing is turning 1 and ready to party
Roundhead Brewing Co. is celebrating one year of serving Peruvian-inspired food and beer with a series of anniversary events this weekend.
Starting Wednesday, Oct. 25, and running through Sunday, the Hyde Park brewery’s ContigoFest will feature salsa dancing, live performances from local musicians, and the launch of a new members-only beer series.
“We have all different reasons to come together,” says Roundhead cofounder Craig Panzer. “It’s a good sampling of different music genres, from country rock ’n’ roll all the way through to Afro-Cuban music to jazz, by the talented local musicians we have in Boston.”
Since 2022, co-owners Luis Espinoza and Panzer have prided themselves on making Roundhead a part of the local fabric. The brewery motto, “Cerveza que reúne,” translates from Peruvian to “beer that brings people together.” Espinoza is originally from Quantico, Peru, outside Lima. The pair met as soccer dads, standing on the sidelines of their kids’ Jamaica Plain youth league games. Espinoza, who has decades of experience in the culinary industry, was tweaking his homebrew recipes before he ever considered starting a brewery. Panzer has prior experience working at Otter Creek Brewing and Wolaver’s Organic Ales.
“I think you can imagine him bringing me cans on the sidelines,” says Panzer, “and then bringing them home and chatting after that.”
After a buildout in 2021 and much of 2022, Roundhead Brewing opened in a former manufacturing space at Hyde Park’s One Westinghouse Plaza. The beer selection is eclectic, ranging from traditional and double IPAs to a Belgian-inspired farmhouse saison to the “Catharina sour,” brewed with fresh pineapples, mangoes, guava, and passion fruit.
“When people come to experience beer at a brewery, they’re looking for those flavor trips, little experiences to be wowed by flavors coming together in the cup,” says Panzer. “And Luis brings a Latin influence to a lot of your beer styles that people may know.”
Even the house lager has a Peruvian tilt. On a recent trip to Peru, Espinoza took a water sample from the Andes, analyzing the sample in a lab back in Boston and matching the water’s minerality as closely as he could for Roundhead’s Peruvian lager.
Espinoza also shapes the food menu, which features street corn salad, a “smoke belly” pizza topped with sweet potato puree and yellow pepper sauce instead of a tomato sauce, and churros for dessert.
Adding to the momentum of its first year, Roundhead was named Boston magazine’s best Boston brewery for 2023.
“We pride ourselves on being a place for the Hyde Park community to gather, so it was such validation,” says Panzer.
For more details on hours and events for this weekend’s anniversary celebration, go to Roundhead’s special event page.