Suarez Family Brewery: A Mom-and-Pop Production in Livingston, NY
Husband-and-wife duo Dan Suarez and Taylor Cocalis-Suarez admit they took a roundabout path to reach Upstate New York. After meeting in the city in 2007, the couple relocated to Greensboro, Vermont, where Dan cut his teeth working alongside brewmaster Shaun Hill for three years at the acclaimed Hill Farmstead Brewery. With dreams of launching their own small-scale operation one day, it wasn’t long before the couple began researching potential brewery locations, eventually landing on New York for its wealth of small-business incentives and Dan’s brewing contacts. They loved living in pastoral Vermont, but with the region’s small brewing scene already booming, they felt there “was room to contribute to a growing brewing community in New York.” When Dan’s brother, Nick Suarez, put an offer on the space in Germantown that would later become Gaskins, that was when they knew for sure that Columbia County was where they should be.
Initially, what Dan and Taylor had in mind was a “farm-type brewery,” but an industrial-looking building in the small town of Livingston, a 15-minute drive from Germantown, caught their eye. “Every time we drove past it, I’d say, ‘Do you ever think about that place?’ and he’d say no,” recalls Taylor. “Then after two weeks, he was like, ‘We should go look at it.’” Situated among apple orchards, corn fields and small farms, the all-brick warehouse is practically tailor-made for welcoming travelers in search of a cold one. “A lot of people walk in and say it’s almost like it was meant to be a brewery,” says Dan. “And now it is,” adds Taylor.
This year, they are focused on bottling their mixed culture/farmhouse beers, which will hopefully drive traffic to visit their beautiful sun-drenched tasting room. Their output is draft only and can be found in pubs and taverns as far south as Queens and as far north as Troy. “At the end of the day, beer is a very hyped-up industry,” says Dan. “We’re just trying to spend our time producing something simple that tastes good and that we can share with good people.”
Photos by Natalie Chitwood, Words by Jill Krasny