The Art of Business>Business Profile

On Tap: Keegan Ales in Kingston
By Mala Hoffman . Photos by Roy Gumpel

The key to the success of Keegan Ales in Kingston can probably be summed up in one word—chemistry. A mysterious melding of malt, hops, yeast, and water to create the perfect beverage, or, as founder and brewer Tommy Keegan puts it: “We throw it together and hope for the best. We were lucky, it came out great.”

Of course, as he says brewers do, Keegan is simplifying things. Both the process of developing Keegan Ales’ three offerings and the setting up of the business in the first place were more complicated than that. But after getting everything up and running in early September, Keegan Ales’ signature beer Old Capital is available in nearly a dozen local establishments. Hurricane Kitty, named for Keegan’s grandmother and already on tap at his father’s brew pub on Long Island, and Mother’s Milk, a creamy-smooth milk stout, will soon follow.

Keegan had been working as head brewer at the Blue Point Brewing Company on Long Island for two years when he was just about ready to leave the business. “I have a degree in biochemistry and could make more money doing that,” he explains. “My wife was pregnant with our second child; I had a mortgage.” Instead, he found himself in Kingston, purchasing the building that housed the now-defunct Woodstock Brewing Company and all of its equipment. “I didn’t buy the name. That’s still in litigation,” Keegan notes.

It was Keegan’s aunt, one of three of his father’s sisters who live in the area (“It’s like our second home,” he adds), who led him to the brewery’s availability. “Now, here we are,” he smiles.

Keegan has been interested in brewing beer since he was in college, when he bought a home brew kit as a gift for his father—and purchased one for himself in the process. “People always say that I’m following in my father’s footsteps, but he’s following in mine,” Keegan notes, referring to the establishment his father owns along with several other investors. “He never had time to use his [kit], and I really liked it.”

At the time, Keegan was attending San Francisco State University after a stint in the Coast Guard. Once he completed that degree, he went on to graduate school for brewing at uc Davis before returning east. Though he now enjoys the chemical process, Keegan acknowledges that he wasn’t much of a student when he was a child. “When I started taking chemistry, I was 25 years old. I had to take algebra over again, and all these other courses I never really followed,” he recalls. “I wish I had. It would have saved me a lot of time and trouble later in life.”

According to Keegan, the process of brewing ale involves several steps and variations. It begins with the grinding of the malt, which is generally a golden malt but can be supplemented by a darker, more roasted variety for flavor. The malt is mixed with water and placed in the mash tun, where it sits for about an hour and turns into the consistency of oatmeal. The liquid, which now contains the simple sugars left by the breaking down of the starch in the grain, is drained off and boiled in the brew kettle. “That’s where we add the hops to give it bitterness,” Keegan points out.

After it cools, the mixture is combined with yeast and placed in a fermentor, where it sits for about a week. “The yeast eats the sugars, the by-products of which are alcohol and CO2,” says Keegan. Then, another two weeks in a back tank until it’s chilled and filtered. “We adjust the CO2 if we need to, and then put it right into kegs,” he adds.

Though eventually Keegan hopes to produce 3,000 to 4,000 kegs a year, he doesn’t want to expand too far beyond the Hudson Valley or to overextend himself. “I don’t want to spread myself too thin,” he notes. “A lot of breweries have made that mistake. Just the kegs alone cost $100 a piece, so that’s a big investment right there.” (Any operation brewing less than 30,000 kegs a year is considered a microbrewery.) For now, he’s happy to keep it local, his staff small—he has four employees, including himself—and to enjoy the intangible pleasure of his product. “I like the fact that you make something and in a month, people will be sitting here drinking it,” Keegan adds. “It’s like being a cook. You get an immediate return on your investment.”

Keegan Ales is located at 20 St. James Street in Kingston and has tap hours on Thursdays and Fridays from 3 to 7pm, and on Saturdays from noon to 7pm for tasting. Half-gallon growlers are also available for $8; refills are $7. The ales are served in several local establishment, including Bacchus in New Paltz, Kingston’s Hickory Smoke House and Rondout Bistro, Phoenicia’s The Sportsman’s and Al’s, and Melino’s Pub in Hudson. A tasting will be held at Joe’s Restaurant in Hudson on Friday, October 3, and the brewery will also participate in the Bellayre Ski Center Octoberfest celebration. For more information, please call (845) 331-BREW.

sidebar: HOME BREW
Keegan Ales offers three different beverages, each with its own distinctive taste. Old Capital, which is so far the most popular, is “light and refreshing,” says Keegan, while Mother’s Milk, prepared with a little bit of lacto-sugar, has a creamy, smooth body to it. But it is Hurricane Kitty, named for Keegan’s grandmother, that has the longest legacy.

“My father has a brew pub on Long Island, and they make Hurricane Kitty there,” Keegan explains. “We’re immortalizing Nana in beer. We have pictures of her standing there pulling the tap.”

Once Keegan opened his own brewery, he got the recipe so he could recreate it in Kingston. “I’ve been around Hurricane Kitty for a while,” he adds. And, interestingly enough, it’s his own former employer who provided it to him. “Where I was working was four or five blocks from the brew pub,” Keegan recalls. “They were a micro-brew and weren’t connected with it then, but they’ve since taken over brewing for the brew pub.”

Though Kitty “didn’t like beer” and probably wouldn’t have liked her namesake anyway because it’s “more hoppy” than a typical brew, Keegan says the rest of the family loves it. “Whether they really do or do because of family loyalty, I can’t say,” he smiles. —mh