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garden patches to grow fresh, organic food used in recipes for both the restaurant and the beer. To satisfy the demand for his brews from New York City until he can make larger batches, Butler contracts with Kelso Brewery in Brooklyn. Kelso’s brewers use his recipes and distribute to taps in restaurants and bars around the city. In addition, Butler was one of only five New York brewers invited to an exclusive dinner at the renowned Blue Hill Farm restaurant in NYC in January. Dan Barber, executive chef, assigned each brewer one ingredient to create a beer that would complement a dish on the menu. He assigned wheat, to pair with the sausage main course, to Butler, who brewed a wheat wine. Butler loves pairing food with beers, pulling from his previous experience as a chef. “I dig the culinary aspect of life,” Butler says. “I translated that love for flavor and creation into the brewing business.” Butler attributes the start of his brewing career to his wife, Lisa, who demanded he find a new hobby. Butler started brewing the Christmas of 1997 when Lisa bought him a $100 homebrew kit. He brewed his first pale ale on top of their old electric stove. While Lisa said the ale wasn’t perfect, to their surprise, it came out infection-free. Difficult to clean, homebrew kits are likely to input chemical impurities in the beer. “You can taste infections instantly,” Lisa says. “It tastes like moldy, musky bread, but his first batch had none of that.” Perhaps a good omen. Shortly after, Butler started bottling at The Towpath Brewing Co. in Syracuse and moved up to assistant brewer before the brewhouse closed. Fast forward 10 years and Butler oversees Empire’s brewing operations, where he brews beer recipes made from local ingredients. On Butler’s workbench rests a Dell laptop, a gray sweatshirt, a paintbrush, a can of WD-40, allspice, a brewing calendar, and Empire’s holy grail: five 6-inch binders containing records of every batch of beer Bulter has ever brewed. “It’s hard to know what people like because taste is so particular, so I brew for myself,” Butler says. “I know that whatever I produce will be drinkable and customers tend to like it. If not, I listen.” He brews Deep Purple with Concord grapes from the Finger Lakes Organic Growers Cooperative. He picks, hand-mashes, and roasts local
SALT CITY
photograph submitted
photo by Carolyn Clark
photo by Carolyn Clark
photograph submitted
pumpkins for his Autumn Pumpkin Ale, and spices the White Afro Belgian with ginger and lavender, drawing inspiration from fruits, spices, and vegetables he finds at regional farmers markets. Most of all, craft beer caters to customers’ increasing demand for unique flavor. “Craft beer was pioneered by people who said, 'Hey, I like this beer, so there must be other people who will like it too. I’m going to make the kind of beer I like and find other people who like it, too,’” says Ray Daniels, president of the Craft Beer Institute.
On Friday night, Butler stands at the corner of Empire’s long mahogany bar, arms crossed. Bartenders manipulate taps of flowing beer, playing their own sort of musical instrument in unison with the blaring rock music. They pass the beer across the bar. Customers sip and smile — Butler’s favorite part about the whole brewing process. “The look on their faces is what it comes down to,” Butler says. “It means something when people spend their hard-earned money on something you create.”