Four years ago, Gilboa resident Mark VanGlad decided to start brewing beer. In December, he served up his "Tundra" brand at a tasting event in Stamford, more than a year after introducing it to the beverage market.
VanGlad, a businessman and farmer, is the first and only grower/producer so far to be approved for selling beer at the GreenMarkets in New York City because he grows the ingredients, makes the beer and bottles it himself.
He keeps his connection to the GreenMarkets with a weekly drive to sell his product, but he is working on expanding distribution locally.
Tundra Beer is produced on the VanGlad farm on Cornell Road in Gilboa, where there is a production/brewery room. The VanGlad family also processes their field-grown sorghum and maple syrup from the farm's sugarbush.
Early on, his beer creations had the name '`Tundra" because the experimental batches were made in the chilly northern town of Potsdam where Mark was finishing a business degree from Clarkson University. He founded Tundra Brewery in 2010.
Recently, Tundra beer was presented at a tasting and ribbon-cutting event at the Stamford train depot. The historic setting seemed an appropriate site to tap into the region's rich legacy of hops production and early pioneers who included beer-making in their farm activities. The late 1700s holds reports of no shortages of beer and taverns in the area, and by the mid-1800s this region was leading the nation in hops production to supply the growing country.
Michael Rama and Melissa Schlobohm agreed the Tundra beers were excellent but couldn't agree on which variety was their favorite.
"The brown ale is strong and the flavor grabs you and lingers, the flavor stays with you from start to finish," he said during the Dec. 19 event.
She said, "I like the red best, it's lighter and it tastes great."
Stamford Chamber of Commerce Board member Joyce Barber made chocolate cupcakes with Tundra Pale Ale.
"This was something that I wanted to do to help celebrate," she said at the event. "We want to help promote local businesses as much as possible. The chamber provided the train depot as an official ribbon cutting location."
Tundra beer labels feature art by Donna Wessel, VanGlad's girlfriend. The beer is available at the VanGlad farm and seasonally at the Pakatakan Farmers Market on Saturdays beginning in May. The price locally for a six-pack is about $11, VanGlad said, and he is working on arranging distribution at local stores.
VanGlad grows two varieties of hops and also barley on the family farm, but this past year he had to purchase some barley from other growers because of extensive flood damage at the farm.
He also uses syrup from his family's maple-syrup business, local honey and Catskill Mountains water. His business features artisan beer labels and on-site bottling, he said, and the near future promises a "Tundra Maple Porter," a gluten-free brew and an India Pale Ale variety.
VanGlad attributed Tundra Brewery's rapid success to help from his family, especially his parents, Tony and Mary.
He bought a bottler that has factored in some of the most-recent changes in his brewery business.
"Production time for bottling and capping has completely changed, and I can make a batch every two hours," he said. "That's 60 cases of bottled beer where it use to take about triple that amount of time."
Business
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