In the Venn diagram of the beer world, there’s a significant overlap between people with discriminatory palates for microbrews and those who take up the hobby of brewing their own. Once you can taste the differences between varieties of hops, there’s no real turning back, is there?
Happily, it’s one of the founders of a locally based brewery who came up with the plan for Brewmates, a new limited-edition mail-order service that will send a different homebrewing recipe kit, complete with all needed ingredients plus brewing instructions, to your door periodically. Craft beer pioneer Nat Collins – who in 1989 opened the Woodstock Brewing Company, now known as Keegan Ales and run by Tommy Keegan, and later went on to found the Tap New York Craft Beer & Food Festival at Hunter Mountain – has teamed up with his son Nate Collins and Ryan Pointer to establish Brewmates.
The kicker is that each installment of your subscription will not merely enable you to sample a new type of beer; it will share a custom recipe created by a different independent craft brewery. Keegan Ales will be the first partner to provide a kit, with KCBC, Transmitter, Flagship, a Spider Bite/Barrage collaboration and more lined up for subsequent shipments. Each kit features a unique recipe, easy-to-follow instructions, the ingredients needed to brew five gallons of beer and a promotional item from the featured brewery.
To celebrate the launch of the Keegan Ales homebrew kit, which will feature Keegan’s limited-edition California Common beer, Brewmates will be hosting a party at the Keegan Ales Tap Room, located at 20 Saint James St. in Kingston, on Saturday, March 24 from 5 to 10 p.m. Admission is free, and guests aged 21+ can sample a free pint of California Common. There will also be drawings to win Brewmates recipe kits, tickets to the Tap NY Festival and other prizes.
To find out more about Brewmates, including video tours of partnering microbreweries, visit www.brewmates.com, or search on “Brewmates” on YouTube.
Join the family! 
