BREWING
customers were looking for more locally – and that is his true passion. Kent Falls brews a wide varieties of beers but produces mostly IPAs and ‘farm- house ales,’ a term that in southern New England has veered more into the mixed fermentation and barrel-aging route. Petals, a barrel-aged farmhouse ale, uses dandelions foraged from the prop- erty and a barley variety called Synergy, which grows well in Connecticut. I have heard of ‘hopheads’ but Labendz may be the rst ‘barleyhead’ I’ve ever met as he talks about the adaptability of grains throughout history as we walk down the dirt road of the property. Labendz also cares about the farm’s water, which is from a well with a lot of temporary hardness. He carries out some treatment with salts but also likes to brew with the water unadulterated. The water is heated by a solar thermal array system. Recently Kent Falls celebrated its fourth anniversary with a birthday celebra- tion that included the pouring of a beer called Everything is Everywhere, a Gueuze style beer (the coolship is an old milk chiller, an ode to the farm past) poured from ‘baskets’ – old wooden boxes with reclaimed metal handles, a fun take on the lambic baskets of Belgium. In good weather, the brewery doesn’t just offer a simple brewery walk-through but a complete farm tour where the all six staff can espouse their return to the land and have people make the connection of where their beer comes from. It is also hoping to offer outdoor seating for the tasting room this year, enabling people to sit and admire the Litch eld Hills that surround the farm. From tasting room to distribution to farming, I ask Labendz how it juggles the farm life. “Finding a pace that operates in un- ion is my biggest thing,” says Labendz.
normal harvest and one with late har- vest hops. This kind of experimentation is something Kent Falls is known for. The brewery has also tried to stay true to the farming aspect of its land. It raised chickens and pigs in the past and did 100 dozen eggs at local farm- ers market last summer but is currently taking a break from typical farm ani- mals. It is are trying its hand at bees this spring with the arrival of 20,000 honey- bees and two hives. Suscovich handles the agriculture side of the business. Labendz’s passion isn’t just trying to grow local himself, but also trying to ensure his beers are made from locally grown grain and hops. Having connec- tions to the local maltsters like Spencer Thrall of Thrall Family Malt in Windsor Locks, CT or Doug Weber of Pioneer Hops in Morris, CT (whose CONNcade hop variety Labendz feels is more deli- cate than the traditional Washington or Oregon grown Cascade) pleases him to no end. Last year, Kent Falls made the leap to 100% locally malted grains. “It didn’t change our price and we didn’t miss a beat,” says Labendz. He has a fervent, even nerdy ob- session with adapting the Connecticut soil and trusting that the weather shifts and rocky outcrops can produce viable beer-making materials. He recalls a story where James Shepherd, owner of Smokedown Farm in Sharon, CT, brought a bag of his hops to the tasting room. The aroma overtook the room: a heavy dankness reminiscent of marijuana lled the air. When Labendz arrived, all he could smell was weed. “I thought I was going to have to throw someone out of the tasting room,” Labendz chuckled. But the fact that that ‘dank’ quality that is found in many Paci c Northwest varieties meant Labendz could nd the avours his
The land Barry Labendz is the owner of Kent Falls Brewing in Kent, a picturesque rural town in Eastern Connecticut that’s been a haven for New York City residents for generations. Kent is also a stop on the vast Appalachian hiking trail that spans thousands of miles from Maine to Georgia. In 2012, Labendz, who has a back- ground in credit union banking, and his business partner John Suscovich bought the old 50-acre Camps Road Farm (with one acre of good land, jokes Labendz) off a rural road surrounded by new growth maple trees and, by early 2015, they were brewing and self-distributing their beers. The Camps Road Farm did everything back in the day from livestock to logging – it even had an ice house. The property has the old farmhouse, currently undergoing renovations, a brewery building that houses a 18hL Prospero brewing system, a 1200sq. ft. barrel barn, a tasting room and a few outbuildings. They grow one acre of hops including varieties of Chinook, Cas- cade, Bitter Gold and Michigan Copper. 36-year-old Labendz stares at the empty strings tied to trellises and waxes about an idea he has for brewing three beers: one with early harvest, one with
Kent Falls Brewery, including solar water-heating panels on a sunny March morning
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