DeWolf Brewing, following a four-year journey, nears opening in Victor

This post is one in a partnership between the Rochester Beacon and veteran reporter Will Cleveland, featuring articles published on his Substack site.

“It does what it’s supposed to do” has become one of my favorite beer compliments lately—I use it to say if the beer is supposed to be representative of a traditional style, then it fits that niche perfectly. The beer, in both flavor and execution, is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.

That’s really the nicest, most apt thing I can say about DeWolf Brewing. The soon-to-open spot is filling a niche within the village of Victor and it is aiming to do so in a solidly understated, comfortable way. (Keeping in mind that the renovation and rejuvenation of the historic railroad-adjacent building is nothing short of remarkable.)

DeWolf is slated to open next month (pay attention to the brewery’s social media pages for an exact date). At the start, you can expect beverages and some snacks. The full kitchen should follow a few weeks later.

These projects, particularly in a historic space, are never easy and never come as quickly as you’d want. And when this project kicked off years ago, the local beer market was a much different place. Openings seemingly happened every month. At this point, closings (and consolidations) are easily outpacing openings. (A reminder: 2024 was the first time brewery closings outpaced openings in nearly 20 years, according to the Colorado-based Brewers Association.) So, yes, brewery co-founder Justin DeWolf is scared. But he doesn’t have a choice. He has to push forward.

“We’ve been working on this project for four years,” DeWolf says. “We put together a business plan. We looked at our numbers. But then we looked at what the market is now and you can’t help but (question) your plan. What holds us is that we have a great location. I think we’re in a relatively underserved location. It’s a growing village. But then you have to have faith in your plan and your concept. I think we’re building something really cool here. It will hold up.”

I admire that determination. You can accomplish a lot by remaining stubborn.

By the time you wander down Maple Avenue in Victor—just a short hop from downtown Rochester and the Finger Lakes—you’ll notice something shifting in the air. Not just the autumn leaves turning gold, but the scent of something new: a brewery in transformation. DeWolf Brewing Co., at 60 Maple Ave., is quietly staking its claim, a European-influenced brewery rooted in hometown sensibility.

Brewery co-founder DeWolf is a Phelps native with a twist. In his earlier days, he was homebrewing in Barcelona, Spain—a decade or so ago—when the city’s craft-beer scene was still in its infancy. Over there, he organized one of the first homebrewing clubs and soaked in the European approach to beer: clean lagers, approachable ales, and that “drag your stool up to the bar for a pint” sort of vibe that never goes out of style. (DeWolf’s business partner, a fellow American, is still in Barcelona.)

The DeWolf property is a well-known landmark in Victor. It was built in 1890 and has undergone a few expansions since. The rail-side building sits on Maple Avenue and is visible from Main Street. The building has agricultural roots, DeWolf says. At one point, it was a feed store. At another, it sold farm supplies. When the partners closed on the building, they found antique grain-crushing equipment.

So, while it certainly would’ve been cheaper to tear down the building and start fresh, DeWolf says it didn’t fit the character of the project and certainly wouldn’t have reflected the desires of the community. Structural steel was added to reinforce the building, while a sprinkler system installation was necessary due to the addition of a kitchen.

The property straddles both sides of the railroad tracks and additional work could be done to connect the small green space to the larger brewery property, including the potential of removing the nearly dormant tracks (which DeWolf said is owned by Ontario County).

In total, the building is 8,500 square feet and it features multiple different seating areas and large bar (DeWolf wanted the bar to be the centerpiece of the space as it forces people to talk, potentially turning strangers into friends). The biggest portion of the space resembles a gabled beer garden that’ll host large, communal tables and can be used to host private events. There is also room for outdoor seating.

When DeWolf came back home around 2015, he didn’t open a brewery right away. Instead, he tried his hand at hop farming. It didn’t last long, but it taught him something he couldn’t have learned any other way—how scale, risk, and soil all conspire to make a business either thrive or collapse. “Economy of scale” is how he might sum up the reason that venture didn’t last. It’s a lesson that has clearly informed how he approaches DeWolf Brewing today: a mix of ambition and realism, equal parts passion project and business plan.

Fast-forward to now, and the blueprint is taking shape: a 10-barrel brewhouse, a robust lager program (there are six! horizontal lagering tanks—no other craft brewery in the region has this much lager capacity), and a tap list that aims to offer something for everyone.

“I want these lager tanks to be full all the time,” DeWolf says. (For reference, the lagering tanks are a big deal, because they’re traditionally used to ferment lagers. They take longer to condition and require up to three times the length of time to fully ferment compared to ales. Breweries don’t often focus on lager production, because it takes longer and it ties up tank space longer. You can make three or four batches of an India pale ale in the amount of time it might take you to ferment a lager. This is just one major example of what makes DeWolf different.)

You won’t find him chasing fads or trying to pack as many adjuncts as possible into a stout. The vision is simple: modern beer styles, brewed with care, that taste like something you’d want to order again. The brewery will also have a full liquor license, as well as a farm brewery license, allowing it to showcase other New York beers, spirits (expect a carefully curated cocktail menu and maybe even sangria on draft), and ciders.

That outlook tells you plenty about his philosophy. DeWolf Brewing will be European-inspired, but not slavishly old-world. Think crisp lagers, balanced ales, and styles that lean toward drinkability over spectacle. The setting in Victor is just right for that sort of thing. The village has two personalities—the quaint, walkable downtown where the brewery will live, and the busier commercial hub near Eastview Mall. DeWolf’s goal is to create a space that bridges both: elevated but not pretentious, local but not provincial, the kind of place where you could bring your parents one night and your beer-nerd friend the next.

Inside, the space is being designed to feel cozy and unpretentious, but with just enough polish to make it feel like something special. The food program will play off those same European influences that shaped DeWolf’s brewing journey.

Consultant Chris Lindstrom, who is also the co-founder of the Lunchador Podcast Network, describes it as “modern, elevated fusion”—Spanish and European flavors reimagined in dishes that still feel familiar. There will still be chicken sandwiches and burgers for those who aren’t as adventurous, Lindstrom adds. (Just wait to see the actual menu. I am a beer writer, not a food writer, so I don’t think my words will do justice to the vision here.)

“Every person who came up to us at the Victor Food and Music Festival (in August) told us that they were excited to be excited about something,” Lindstrom says. “(It) seems like there is almost this desperation to be excited about something. The more people came, we heard that more and more. People told us they’re excited to walk here. That reaffirmed this whole project. People want to be positive about Victor. They want to have something they can bring their friends to. This is gonna be their spot.”

There’ll also be a wine program that blends Finger Lakes bottles with Spanish selections, a nod to both home and away. The idea is to create a bar and restaurant that welcomes everyone—whether you’re there for a lager, a Rioja, or just a well-made plate of food (probably with a shareable tapas-centric approach).

“There’s some trepidation over whether people will connect with it,” DeWolf says. But the brewpub is so small that it can remain nimble and pivot if necessary.

The project has been in the works for more than four years, slowly evolving from idea to blueprint to build-out. The hope had been to open in late 2024, but these projects never take shape as quickly as you want them to. As it stands, the brewery is more than nine months behind schedule (for a number of different reasons). That’s fine. If there’s one thing you learn from European brewing, it’s patience.

When asked how you remain steadfast in the face of all these starts, stops, and delays, DeWolf offered, “You don’t have a choice at a certain point. I am a DIYer, I’m a doer. So, I just say, OK, and then I get in and start doing it. This entire brewery, all these glycol lines, we did all this installation ourselves. What we can do on our own, we’ll try it until we find we can’t do it. At that point, it becomes, ‘OK, we can bring someone else in.’”

With the vertical space available to them, DeWolf took full advantage by stacking tanks. That gives them 100 barrels capacity right off the bat. (For reference, a barrel of beer is equal to 31 gallons.)

One of my favorite pieces of beer/business wisdom came from Joe McBane, co-founder of the late, great Tap and Mallet and now the Sheffield pub in Brighton. McBane said a business should be what it wants to be when it opens. This means you can’t focus your energy on adding gear or capacity or whatever in waves. Instead, a brewery (or a restaurant) should have all of this stuff figured out when it opens its doors. DeWolf embodies this.

“We’re opening at our full capacity,” DeWolf says. “The only thing we need to adjust to is our demand.”

What makes this story stand out isn’t just that another brewery is opening in the Finger Lakes orbit—it’s the way it’s rooted in lived experience. DeWolf isn’t chasing hype; he’s chasing balance. He hired an experienced brewer in Zack Haggerty, whose experience spans both coasts. He started his journey in Oregon at the legendary Pelican Brewing and ended up back on the East Coast in Vermont.

DeWolf’s beer philosophy, mirrored in what Haggerty has created so far, is informed by years spent abroad, tempered by lessons learned at home, and guided by a simple mantra: quality over everything. It’s a refreshing approach in a region full of breweries that sometimes feel the need to shout. Along with Haggerty, the brewery has hired some industry veterans like Tony Jarvis, a longtime beer nerd (if you’ve been involved with local beer, you know Tony) who managed food and drink operations at Finger Lakes Gaming and Racetrack and spent almost 20 years there.

In a market that’s increasingly noisy, DeWolf Brewing’s quiet confidence might just be its secret weapon. In a sentence, you could call it European grace meets Finger Lakes grit.

When I visited, the brewery’s serving tanks and draft lines weren’t yet installed. (Aside: I love the idea of using serving tanks to send beer to the draft lines, because it really is an old-school brewpub approach—something straight out of the late 1990s/early 2000s.) So, I got to sample some of Haggerty’s first beers direct from the tanks. I started with an eminently quaffable hazy IPA that finished surprisingly dry and featured a really nice touch of clean bitterness. That was followed by a textbook Munich-style festbier lager (fun to be drinking that style toward the end of October). And then I finished off with an inventive Kentucky common ale, a historical style you don’t often find in modern craft beer. It doesn’t hurt to think of the style as a “dark cream ale,” an ale that is fermented cold like a lager and features that same type of crisp finish with a touch of roasted malt character. I was impressed and I am excited to try more.

The brewery will have 20 draft lines when it opens. DeWolf thinks 15 of those will be devoted to the brewery’s own beers, while the others could be a mix of local ciders and what he referred to as a “tap share.” In his estimation, that tap share would be a way to showcase three or four beers from another New York brewery, preferably one from a different region. It’s a way to build some camaraderie and a means through which to be collaborative.

So, when the doors finally open—and you’ll want to mark that day—pull up a stool, order a crisp lager, ask about the Spanish-inspired entrée, soak in the Victor-village energy, and raise a glass to what happens when a brewer lets his travels inform his FLX dream. The finished product won’t need flash or gimmicks. It’ll just need to be good. Like a beer should be.

Will Cleveland is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer. A former Democrat and Chronicle reporter, he writes about beer in the Finger Lakes region and Western New York on Substack.

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