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Crafting Community: Brendan Murnane’s Journey from Baseball to Beer
31 Plays1 month ago
In this episode of Valiant Talks, Frank Furbacher reconnects with longtime friend and teammate Brendan Murnane—brewery owner, town board member, and master of college antics. Brendan shares his path from ski racing and launching cinnamon buns across dorm rooms to navigating politics and building a craft beer destination in Bolton Landing, NY. It’s a story of unexpected turns, entrepreneurial grit, and the power of saying “yes.” Whether you're into baseball, beer, or just good banter, this one’s got something for everyone.
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Transcript
Introduction to Brendan Murnane
00:00:26
Frank Furbacher
Today I'm joined by a very special guest. His name is Brendan Murnane, a classmate of mine, a teammate of mine. Brendan, thank you so much for joining us.
00:00:35
Brendan
So happy be here, Frank. Glad to be on the show.
00:00:38
Frank Furbacher
So Brendan, tell us what you're up to today.
00:00:41
Brendan
Uh, today, I am the president, uh, co-owner of the Bolton Landing Brewing Company. Um, I live in Bolton Landing, New York, which is in upstate New York. We're in the Lake George Adirondack Park, uh, area.
00:00:54
Brendan
Um, I am currently on the, uh, town board here, uh, chamber of commerce as well. And, uh, couple other advisory boards, but you know, mostly my job is to run and operate the the brewery up here.
00:01:10
Frank Furbacher
That's amazing. Can't wait to get into it.
00:01:12
Brendan
Yep.
00:01:13
Frank Furbacher
So, Brendan, let's ah let's chat about from the
Brendan's Early Life and Education
00:01:16
Frank Furbacher
beginning. um Want to hear about, you know, where did you grow up? What was it like? um And let's start there before we dig into the Manhattanville stuff.
00:01:24
Brendan
Sure. ah So i was born in Queens, but we moved out of there. um My family moved out of there before I hit first grade. So I Grew up in Westchester, in Millwood, in Newcastle, going to the Chappacall school system.
00:01:38
Brendan
um Was raised there. And ah before Trinity Pauling, I mean, before Manhattanville, I went to Trinity Pauling for like a year and a half um to do a post-grad year, ah plus some. And yeah, then I and ended up going to Manhattanville.
00:01:56
Frank Furbacher
So what was Trinity Pauling like?
00:01:58
Brendan
I thought Trey Paul was pretty great experience because it had actually helped me get ready for college. I was, I was like young in the class, you know, I was, I was a September baby. Uh, so for me, I was also at a time I was like the shortest kid in class. And then going into my, uh, senior year, I, at Horace Greeley, I hit like a huge growth s spurt.
00:02:20
Brendan
And finally I was actually able to be good at sports and, you know, we played baseball together and, and stuff. Um, I ski raced in high school and all throughout l middle school.
00:02:32
Brendan
um Played a little football and, you know, it was finally nice to be, you know, not the smallest kid in school and actually, you know, the growth spurt helped out with sports quite a bit. So that was good.
00:02:44
Brendan
um And that kind of led me to sports. is actually what led me to Manhattanville. um So that was kind of an interesting experience too ah for for me. But yeah, it was,
00:02:55
Brendan
we didn't have a home field at Trinity polling, which was one of the big reasons why I i really liked Manhattanville. They had a beautiful field and you know, their facilities were really nice, but we didn't have a home field. So we had to play a lot of schools in Connecticut, constantly traveling all over the place. And, um, I looked at a couple other colleges and one of them, I worked at St. Rose, which is not even a college anymore. They, they closed down, but they didn't have a home field. And, um,
00:03:22
Brendan
I was like, nah, as much as I wanted to be in upstate New York, I said, I can't do that. That's not, that's not for me. So, but yeah, training polling was great because it actually helped me learn how to learn, which is like a weird thing, I guess, but like you're on your own for the first time, you know, you're, you're living on campus and, um, you know, it kind of made you more responsible to get things done, you know, hit deadlines and, you know, you you weren't at your parents' house.
College Experience and Friendships
00:03:50
Brendan
So you had to,
00:03:51
Brendan
figure out a lot of things on your own. But that's really for me, what I thought I got the most out of Trinity Pauline.
00:03:58
Frank Furbacher
And you were a sports kid growing up?
00:04:01
Brendan
Yeah. Uh, you know, football, baseball, um, I ski raced from middle school on, um, which is one of the reasons why, you know, I ended up moving up here. Cause we used to race at Gore mountain, which is like, uh, 35 minutes from here.
00:04:17
Brendan
Um, And, uh, so I, I loved that. I love doing that, but mostly I love baseball, but we play, know, I played fall season and, uh, spring obviously. And, and, you know, in summer leagues. So I just, you know, still do if I can.
00:04:34
Brendan
So,
00:04:35
Frank Furbacher
How'd you hear about Manhattanville?
00:04:38
Brendan
uh, my mom went on one, you know, the breast cancer walk they do. Yeah. And they still do that. Right. I'm pretty sure. So the breast cancer walk, um,
00:04:44
Frank Furbacher
Yeah.
00:04:47
Brendan
She said, you know, she came back, she said, Oh my God, it's the most beautiful campus. It's in the fall when all the leaves are, you know, changing and it's the perfect time of year there. And, um, she was blown away by the campus. She said, you gotta check it out. You know, I saw facilities and she talked to a couple people there. And then I said, right, you know, I didn't plan on, ah grew up my entire life in Westchester. I was on going to college somewhere else.
00:05:08
Brendan
And, um, but I, I went to the campus and and I met Caulfield, um, and, uh, I love the campus. It was beautiful, you know, so um and it seemed like a good sized school for me.
00:05:23
Frank Furbacher
So you go, ah you get on campus, um we show up with, I felt like 15 freshman baseball players, maybe more.
00:05:26
Brendan
yeah
00:05:32
Frank Furbacher
I don't even know. We had a lot. um
00:05:34
Brendan
Yeah.
00:05:35
Frank Furbacher
So tell me what it was like. You you get to college. You said that you already had like a little bit of a being a by you know on your own ah Trinity Pauling. But um what was that like? What do you remember about that transition?
00:05:47
Brendan
It was really funny. ah Moving in day was actually kind of hilarious. So I moved in. um Moose was my roommate, ah Matt. And um we my mom and I and my dad and I had already done the moving in thing like twice before. you know And my mom already got her her cries in. And you know my dad was like, he he'll be fine. you know ah We did that at Trinity Pauling already.
00:06:08
Brendan
um so when, when I get to college, when I get to college, it's my mom's like shows up, you know, cause we have her, her truck or whatever. And, um, she what helps me bring all this stuff to the dorm. It's like, all right, see you later.
00:06:24
Brendan
And just like leaves and Moose and his parents, from what I remember, we're just kind of looking like, does she have a, does she have a care like that? You know, she's leaving to somewhere. Everyone's like having like an emotional moment and she's like, nah, I'll see you later. And I'm like, okay, you know, we've, we've done it before. So, um,
00:06:40
Brendan
But what the cool moment was, you know, that whole hallway in Spellman. You know, it was we're we're still really good friends with like everyone from the team, from, you know, um Kate and, you know, and the the female soccer players and stuff like we we're still close with everyone. I think that's kind of one of the coolest things about it that we've known each other since.
00:07:04
Brendan
was 2005. Uh, you know, that's, that was crazy. So, um, still good friends this day is pretty, it's pretty impressive.
00:07:12
Frank Furbacher
So you get on campus, um you know, we go through the whole fall ball thing and ah meeting teammates and getting acclimated. Did you have any idea what it was that you wanted to study or like pursue while you were at school?
00:07:28
Brendan
Um, I always loved history.
Academic Interests and Debates
00:07:30
Brendan
I had no idea how I was going to apply that. Um, But I knew that also I wasn't like the best student. So I knew that I was going to do a lot of history classes because I knew ah at least I do well and then I would try to branch off into other things.
00:07:46
Brendan
um And I ended up studying communications, um a history major and a minor communications, but I finished like my history major in my junior year. So halfway through my junior year. now it's like, well, I need to do something else. um And I tried some business classes.
00:08:02
Frank Furbacher
Thank
00:08:04
Brendan
I think we took a business class together. um forget forget the professor's name, but I took a lot of history classes um and communication classes while i was there.
00:08:14
Brendan
um And I just thought communication would help me do something else, but I had no idea what I wanted to do once I graduated. So it was kind of, I thought maybe be a teacher, you know, maybe get into that. And I did, before I graduated, I did have,
00:08:32
Brendan
a couple interviews with some, you know, ah private schools for for teaching. But I guess i'm maybe I'm happy i that didn't work out because, you know, my life would have been completely different than it is now.
00:08:44
Brendan
But yeah, it was history and communications for me, a lot of bowling classes, and a lot of lot of Ashkenazi classes, for sure.
00:08:53
Frank Furbacher
Do you have any favorite classes that stand out to you?
00:08:56
Brendan
Um, hmm.
00:08:59
Brendan
I think the classes I had, well mean, the bowling classes were, were, were interesting. um And I, he's actually just got into the hall of fame. I think, did they just announce that?
00:09:07
Frank Furbacher
Yeah, the the athletic hall of fame.
00:09:07
Brendan
I think. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. um And, ah but I thought the Ashkenazi classes for me were a really cool thing because he and I didn't agree on a lot of things, just like worldview and, and how things transpired, but.
00:09:27
Brendan
we always had a great dialogue. We always had a great, and I always looked forward to, you know, he knew where I was coming from and I knew where he was coming from, but we always had a really good dialogue about like the back and forth. And I really respected that. And I thought, you know, not a lot of professors did that. And a lot of professors, you know, kind of, these are my views this the highway, you know, it's my way the highway kind of thing. And he wasn't like that at all. And I, and I really, that's one thing I really remember about his classes.
00:09:53
Frank Furbacher
He was like an entertainer. Like he was on stage when he was teaching and it was quite an art ah to watch him at work.
00:09:56
Brendan
Yeah.
00:10:00
Brendan
Yeah. yeah well Let's say linear. Let's say, you know, no, he was great. um He was very animated and very passionate about what he was teaching. And he's all over the classroom. And, you know but he he got you engaged and he got you thinking about history as, you know, you know, they say history repeats itself. He got you thinking about, you know, not, ah not as much history, but as people in history and and why they did what they did, which is, you know, a really great way to to think, cause you don't want to look at history in a vacuum. You want to look at it as in this moment at this time, what would you do?
00:10:36
Brendan
And that's, that's what I really enjoyed about his class. He brought that to life.
00:10:40
Frank Furbacher
So tell me what um what are some of your fondest memories of college?
College Pranks and Baseball Team
00:10:48
Brendan
Um, our first red madness was pretty awesome. It really, that was, uh, we brought, we busted out the three man water balloon launcher and launched t-shirts. Um,
00:10:59
Brendan
The three-man warble launcher for for me was, that was pretty, that was a lot of fun. A lot of fun memories in the dorm with that.
00:11:08
Brendan
Obviously, you know, the games. um And i think college kind of started off as like a like ah ah dream when when we our freshman year we got there and we hung out with the seniors after after the school was over and we were just, you know, were like,
00:11:28
Brendan
we hung out on the quad the entire time we were, I guess we were supposed to be there for, for baseball, but it w it just felt like and another world, you know? Um, and it kind of just, I don't know from there, it was just one great memory after another, you know, it was one, we had a great special class, I think, you know, how tight we, how tight we got. And, uh, I attribute a lot of that to, uh,
00:11:54
Brendan
like Ted, you know, our first team captain and Ted Radeski and, you know, and Mark, you know, they were just great guys to look up to. And I think we created a pretty good bond after that. So my favorite memories were just the antics, you know, a lot of antics, a lot of stupid stuff that we did, but yeah, just a lot of the memories with the team.
00:12:16
Frank Furbacher
Now this water balloon launcher um ah had quite the run on campus, I would say, um from uses within the dorms, out of the dorms, out of the windows, onto the quad.
00:12:27
Brendan
Yeah.
00:12:29
Frank Furbacher
um Was there anything that was launched that you would say, you look back and say that was probably the greatest launch?
00:12:36
Brendan
I mean, I guess the statute of limitations is over now, right? I mean, I mean, what are we going to do?
00:12:39
Frank Furbacher
Yeah.
00:12:41
Brendan
um
00:12:41
Frank Furbacher
Yeah.
00:12:42
Brendan
I mean, the cinnamon bun through the through the window was pretty was pretty impressive. um
00:12:49
Brendan
Launching the oranges at the smokers outside was it was good. Um, the chicken fried rice that exploded in the container in the dorm was not the best.
00:13:03
Brendan
You know, we we probably should have just stuck to fruit and citrus fruit that we stole from, uh, from the kitchen. Um, the socks filled with baby powder into Weber's room were always good.
00:13:17
Brendan
That was always a good prank. Um, lot of citrus, a lot of citrus from it from the dining hall.
00:13:23
Frank Furbacher
Yeah.
00:13:23
Brendan
You know? Yeah.
00:13:24
Frank Furbacher
Yeah. The round fruits were good and provided a good, you know, the aftermath was always good too.
00:13:26
Brendan
Yeah.
00:13:29
Brendan
Always good.
00:13:30
Frank Furbacher
Yeah.
00:13:30
Brendan
Yeah.
00:13:31
Frank Furbacher
yeah
00:13:31
Brendan
Yeah. Yeah. Those little Yoplait containers are good too. You know, they, uh, but, um, yeah, citrus is always, you know, oranges, you know, lemons. Those were always really good.
00:13:42
Brendan
Yeah.
00:13:43
Frank Furbacher
So there was a, I'll say that within the group, um you know, we had a lot of characters that were part of our our team and and all that.
00:13:49
Brendan
Yeah.
00:13:52
Frank Furbacher
um I'd say you were certainly ah one of the few who led the charge when, whether it came to pranks and comedy. um So random question for you, but because you have that side to you, was comedy ever something that you thought of pursuing?
00:14:04
Brendan
Sure.
00:14:12
Brendan
I mean, probably not, but, um, I always enjoyed it. I was, you know, I don't know. My my brother, my younger brother got into acting and, um, he's so He's a really funny guy. He got into acting for a little bit.
00:14:25
Brendan
um and I mean, guess I thought about it, but but not really. um Maybe I should have gone down that road. Who knows? Who knows how things have changed?
00:14:34
Frank Furbacher
I mean, you were essentially ah creating, ah you know, whether it was Instagram or TikTok content before it was a thing, essentially.
00:14:44
Brendan
Yeah. Well, thank God. I mean, i don't know. I don't know if I'd be on the town board if, if we had a lot of videos of that stuff and not that we did anything like nefarious or like that. It was just, just constant stupid stuff.
00:14:58
Brendan
I mean, well, on the bus with the cell phone, um, this is before iPhones, you know, we're really dating ourselves, but people would send the texts and I'd read them over the loudspeaker on the bus down to Florida and on the way back up, you know, definitely the things that I was reading, you know, they were sent to me. So I was just the megaphone, but, uh, you know,
00:15:19
Brendan
they were, we went after each other pretty hard on those text messages. That was, yeah, all in good fun. You know, I think everyone, you know, all in good fun.
00:15:29
Frank Furbacher
at At the end of the day, it was ah a way to pass time and a way, ultimately, I think, to bond. That's really what we were doing.
00:15:38
Brendan
We were, and i that I see that thing where it's like the friends that, you know, make fun of each other or give each other hard times. They're they're the ones that stay good. closest the longest you know like and obviously that's the case because you know we still have a group chat that you know we we talk in and i haven't been a couple just group chats that we all talk in and and you know we're at each other's weddings and stuff and you know it's we're still close i don't really keep in touch with many people from high school but you know our group i think is much different so
00:16:08
Frank Furbacher
Yeah, yeah, it's a strong bond. um So we're getting, you know, in college, you're getting close to ah graduating, that's coming up. Do you have any idea what you're going to do?
00:16:20
Frank Furbacher
After graduating?
Unexpected Political Career
00:16:21
Frank Furbacher
Do you have a plan? Do you know where your life is going to be taken?
00:16:24
Brendan
So going into the senior year of baseball season, we're doing our, our spring, you know, like our spring training stuff and we're at a frozen ropes or wherever it was. um And I'm pitching on the mound and um I tear my labor, and my bicep tendon right before the season.
00:16:43
Brendan
um And I get the cortisone shot, it's still, you know, whatever. And now I'm thinking, well, I have no idea, like, not that I was going to go play, you know, after college anything like that, but I, it just kind of made the real decision. Like, wow, you're graduating now. You got figure it out.
00:17:00
Brendan
Um, and I know a couple people have talked about it, but when we graduated, that was, you know, the housing market and, you know, it was, uh, the recession and jobs were, you know, hard to come by.
00:17:14
Brendan
um and I was, I actually had lined up, um, a couple interviews at one of the private schools and I was going to be like an administrator there.
00:17:25
Brendan
And I did a phone interview. i went to campus. I tore. They were like, we got a position for you. You're all set. I'm like, we'll call you next week. And was like, okay, great. Um, I figured that would be like a job that would, I would do while I was trying to figure out what else I was going to do again, not the best student, which really kind of hurt you going into a recession, but you know, whatever.
00:17:47
Brendan
um And then they don't call and I call them back. It's been like a couple of weeks and I call them back and they're like, yeah, just enrollments down. ah So we can't hire you. I'm like, okay, great. um So I graduate and I'm like, I have, and I got to figure this out. I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm trying to find jobs. And a local politician guy running for County executive, um he was going around asking people for money. He asked my dad for money.
00:18:17
Brendan
And my dad's like, I really don't have much, but my son, ah just graduated and he's free labor for your, you know, as an intern. And he's like, great, we'll take them. And, uh, so when I graduate, I ended up working for him.
00:18:32
Brendan
Um, and he ends up winning, which is kind of crazy. He ends up winning, uh, Rob Astorino.
00:18:37
Frank Furbacher
And what was his name?
00:18:39
Brendan
So he ends up winning, which is, uh, it was a big upset. Uh, it was part of that red wave right after, um, in political terms is right after Obamacare hit and the Westchester was dealing with a ah couple issues from affordable housing to um high taxes and stuff like that. So there was kind of a big wave that hit back um across the country.
00:19:02
Brendan
You saw some pretty unprecedented elections, um but he was.
00:19:06
Frank Furbacher
And what was he running for?
00:19:07
Brendan
He was right for county executive.
00:19:09
Frank Furbacher
Okay.
00:19:10
Brendan
Yeah, so he ran and he won and he brought me on to the team and I stayed with him for like seven, eight years um doing that.
00:19:22
Brendan
And it was, that was kind of crazy. Like I fell back into that. Like that wasn't like a ah plan of mine. You know, i did communications at history, which kind of, I guess led into politics, but I wasn't expecting that at all. When I, when I was in college, if you told me at any point during those four years that I'd be working in politics when graduated, I'd be like, no, absolutely not.
00:19:43
Brendan
But yeah, and then that ended up you know happening. I was there for a long time. I really liked him. He's a great guy. He was a lot of fun to work for, um learned a lot from him. a And he ended up running for governor. So I got to do that with him.
00:19:57
Brendan
i was kind of like his body guy. kept him on schedule, you know made sure he had everything for events and whatever. So we traveled the entire state together. um will went to meetings in like New Orleans and all it was, it was a whirlwind kind of trip for me. Um, again, never expected things to get into politics, but, uh, yeah, there, there I was.
00:20:21
Frank Furbacher
So you you mentioned what you were doing for him when he was running for governor. Tell me about like some of the things you were doing for him, you know, from the beginning. Like what what were the tasks or, you know, what were your responsibilities?
00:20:34
Brendan
First, they had me constituent services. So when you call up like you know the county and you want to speak to someone and you want to yell at them about you know the airport being too loud or the you know my road is damaged, something like that, I was the guy answering the phone.
00:20:47
Brendan
And Rob and I developed ah a really good bond, I think, um over the years. And he needed someone with him to make sure that you know his schedule is pretty hectic. He was very big on getting out into the community and going to like every event that you could.
00:21:04
Brendan
And it's, you know, in Westchester County politics, like News 12 doesn't really cover everything. So you got to go out there and meet everyone all the time.
00:21:16
Brendan
And he wanted someone with him. So eventually there was a team of people doing it. And then it ended up just being essentially my responsibility. My responsibility be like, we got to go here, meet these people, talk to these people.
00:21:28
Brendan
um This is what you need to bring up. This is what you have to talk about. And he was great. He did it all. you know I was just like the fallback guy in case he didn't have something. He was he handled it. And then know i gave him a little, hey, we got to go to the next meeting. And you know it's like getting gum out of a hair out of your hair. It's like you had a everyone wants to talk, so you got to pull them out. And then you go to another meeting and you spend all day together. And um when he ran for governor, that was essentially my job just on a kind of a bigger scale. But originally, I was just constituent services and just helping out doing whatever they needed. I was just, you know, the little man on the totem pole. Everyone else had been working in politics for years. They've been part of, you know, committees and whatnot. And this is what they went to school for. And I was just like, I'll i'll do whatever you you need me to do.
00:22:13
Brendan
So.
00:22:14
Frank Furbacher
so So many people, ah you know, I would say there are way more people with complaints than there are people who want to help get involved to make the change real when it comes to politics.
00:22:25
Brendan
Right.
00:22:27
Frank Furbacher
um What are some of the things that you learned that you took away from that time with, um you know, Bob Astorino that you would look back and say, yeah I can, I learned this and I utilize it today.
00:22:41
Brendan
I think the biggest thing that I, that I got, and it wasn't like one specific moment where it hit me, but it was just kind of years of of being involved in this. um And I, and I think I applied today still with, like I said, I'm the town board and before the time, like I'll get to that, but like, if you have the time and if you have the opportunity and if you have the means, then you should just get involved.
00:23:04
Brendan
Like it's easy to say no, but, it's very, very rewarding to say yes and just get involved. If you can, then you should. If if it's donated, if you not politically, just like to a charitable cause, you know, if you have the means to do it, there are a lot of people out there that need help.
00:23:23
Brendan
And a lot of people out there that are less fortunate. And if you have the means the opportunity to do something, start saying yes, you know, because you'll be really surprised where it goes.
00:23:35
Brendan
um I guess on that, on that point, Uh, I moved up here when I left Rob and they heard that I, the town is very small. So it's a really tiny town. Like the school's got like 200 people in a total.
00:23:52
Brendan
Um, there's like 1500 people a year round. Um, and they heard that I was in politics before, and there was a committee that was put together right when I moved up here to redesign one of the parks.
00:24:07
Brendan
And they said, do you want on And I said, sure. ah you know, I like that park and and obviously it needs a lot of improvements. It's like a hundred years old. So let's see what I can do. And I got very involved in that. And then they said, well, we saw that you're really involved in that. Do you want to be on the zoning board?
00:24:21
Brendan
And I was like, it's, it's, it's an hour a month, you know, meeting, you know, you, you go review some documents when you go home, but you look over stuff. And if you have any questions, you just ask them the planning board or the zoning, you know, the the planning people in the in the town and that they'll guide you in the direction.
00:24:37
Brendan
And i did that and they said, oh, that's great. And then people heard I was on that. So then they asked me to be on the Chamber of Commerce. And again, it's another one hour meeting a month. And then the Lake Georgia Land Conservancy wanted to do stuff. And meanwhile, I'm like, I'm still running the the brewery, but you know, if you just take some time and like the Land Conservancy, I do what I can there, but it's it's hard. It's like, I'm already stretched pretty thin. And then then they say, hey, you know, the park's going well.
00:25:06
Brendan
you're interested in the zoning board, do you want to run for town board? And at first, it was an uncontested election. So i was like, sure. And then some other guy jumped in. And I was like, now I'm in this, you know, but now your competitive spirit from like college, you know, from sports gets in now you're I don't want to lose.
00:25:23
Brendan
So um and I was on the town board for, for four years, my fourth year now doing that. But it's just like, if you have the time, the means, you know, people got families and they and they got kids and you know, you may not have all of that time. And I completely get that. But if you have any time to do something to give back to show interest, do that, you know, that's kind of the big thing I got from working in politics.
Venturing into the Brewery Business
00:25:48
Frank Furbacher
That's great. So tell us, how does Brendan wind up as the owner of a brewery?
00:25:57
Brendan
Um, so when I was working for Rob, as I said, I kind of felt backwards and into into the political world. And even though I'm on the town board, I'm not like I'm interested in politics, but I especially nowadays, it's it's it's not really place I really wanted to be.
00:26:15
Brendan
um And I wanted I knew i had to I was I was hired at the pleasure of Rob. So if he lost an election, if he or if he just didn't want me there anymore, I would I'd be out of a job, you know, so not a lot of job security when every four years you can just lose your job.
00:26:33
Brendan
Um, and I, knew I needed to do something else and I wanted to do something else. I've always wanted to live up here in upstate New York.
00:26:44
Brendan
Um, this is always kind of felt like home for me. So i thought, well, what would be a cool thing that this town and this community could, could use? And this is like, right when craft beer and Westchester was really taken off, like, uh, captain Lawrence, um,
00:27:00
Brendan
was big and uh uh yonkers brewing i got to know those guys a little bit from um events actually with rob and i got to talk to them um and pick their brains on how they both got started and they both got started in very different ways uh yonkers brewing they hired a brewer that that came in um and they you know and then captain lawrence they were guys i believe they left syria nevada and then they opened their own spot Um, so I was picking their brains on like, how, how do you get involved in the craft brewery industry? Cause I, I generally just like, you know, it's, it's a fun time. It's, it's great.
00:27:35
Brendan
And. Uh, I thought maybe that would work in upstate New York. You know, I thought maybe that would be a cool thing in a town that like does a lot of tourist attractions and you know, the lake is a vacation. So people come here, it's a destination, right?
00:27:49
Brendan
I thought maybe the brewery would be a cool spot, like another destination to add. So. putting together business plans and stuff like that. And, uh, I had scheduled meetings with investors and my dad, he's like, let me see your plan.
00:28:03
Brendan
And I showed it to him and he's like, you know, impressed. Like this is actually pretty well thought out way to go, Brendan. You know, um, I may, maybe maybe we took him by surprise with that one. And he, he, he was like, this is cool.
00:28:12
Frank Furbacher
Thank you.
00:28:14
Brendan
So, um, he and I decided that we would go in on this together, you know, uh, 50, 50. And, uh, and open a brewery up here and we opened, I moved up here full time and ah Memorial Day weekend of 2017. And we opened our doors in December of 2017. You know, it was up here for the construction and everything and managing that. I, so pretty much ever since I moved up here, I've been handling the day-to-day operations of what goes on up here.
00:28:45
Brendan
And we hired a brewer. I went more the Yonkers ah situation, hired a brewer, brought him in, you know, and, uh, we worked together on making and, you know, the, the, the profile of the beers and what, and whatnot. So,
00:29:02
Frank Furbacher
So how many beers do you have?
00:29:04
Brendan
uh, we've made well over 50 different kinds of beers. We have our flagships, but we always like to, you know, spice things up a bit. And, you know, we, we try a beer here and there and it's like, nah, that, that wasn't it.
00:29:16
Brendan
Um, but we've also done things like a series like it was called up in the air where we would try different hops and try different things and so each brand would be a little different um or each version would be a little different and then people like oh i really like number five well then we would make number five into a different beer that would you know be something that we would use year-round or people be like i i hated number six well then we don't use that again and we try different hops there so uh we did a lot of experimenting with that um we're really big with our sours
00:29:48
Brendan
Um, and obviously the IPAs are, you know, big, but, uh, Pinnacle sunrise is like, it's like an American light lager. a lot of the beers are named after the area.
00:29:58
Brendan
Um, and Pinnacle is a little mountain in town. Uh, it's a nice hike that people like to do. Um, so that beer, um, is on year round. That's like a, you know, like a fan favorite. Cause lot of people come up here and they, what, you know, they, they come here like, well, what do you have? That's light. You know i don't really like craft beer. I just want to,
00:30:18
Brendan
go to the brewery and say I had something so we do that. But uh, yeah.
00:30:23
Frank Furbacher
That's great. um And it's, you know, I mean, the perfect place to like find and scout out to be like, What does everyone say when they're up on vacation?
00:30:36
Frank Furbacher
Where are we going to go to eat? What are we going to go to drink? What can we do with our time? um And I tell everyone who is going to Lake George, who's going to Bolton Landing, hey, you got to stop by the brewery.
00:30:45
Brendan
Yeah.
00:30:50
Frank Furbacher
um So my hope is that you've seen at least a few people mention, oh, Frank frank sent me here.
00:30:53
Brendan
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's actually one of the fun things. Like, you know, our friend group is like, Oh, I'm friends with so-and-so I'm friends with Frank. I'm friends with Damon. You know, like they said, you got to come up here. And i'm like, yeah, yeah, come on up.
00:31:05
Brendan
You know? And, um, uh, that's kind of a fun thing. Part of our, you know, our friend group or, or networking, you know, or people who said, you know, I'm, I'm friends with so-and-so, so-and-so. And they said, my friend owns a brewery up there and you know, it's, it's good.
00:31:20
Brendan
it's it's fun. So like I said, it's like a destination kind of thing. You know, it's a people travel a lot, and they do like a lot of brew tours. So they'll go to one brewery, and they'll just kind of bounce around. And there's a few in the area. So we we do that a lot.
00:31:33
Frank Furbacher
So you've now, we talked about it before, but you've got some plans to expand the operation a little bit. Can you tell us about that?
Expansion Plans for Bolton Landing Brewing
00:31:43
Brendan
Yeah, so one thing that we've noticed is, is we put a brewery in a house, and it's a really tiny space. um And the original idea was that, you know, in the wintertime, there's a lot less people up here, so it's not a big problem for us.
00:32:01
Brendan
But we're still, turning we have to turn people away, even in the summertime in the wintertime, because it's just, it's too small. So what we're doing now is we're, I'm meeting with architects and we're designing to remove the tanks not all of them, but, you know, keep some stuff, but remove stuff and open up a lot more seating and more dining.
00:32:21
Brendan
Our biggest struggle, I mean, our, our grade is kind of, you know, leaving college through, you know, into a recession and then just like less than 10 years later, global pandemic. And then, you know, inflation, it's been, you know, we've been, we've, we've seen quite a bit.
00:32:39
Brendan
and I think that, you know makes us better for it, but, Um, our biggest problem is just costs, you know, so we we try to, in terms of business and I guess I should have done more business school when I was at Manhattanville, but I didn't think I'd be here. So, um,
00:32:58
Brendan
our biggest problem is that pricing fluctuates a lot in our industry, you know, grain, you know, uh, hops and yeast and things, mostly grain fluctuates a lot. And, you know, if there's,
00:33:14
Brendan
Uh, you know, um, we get a lot of from Europe. Uh, so some from here. um so we have to kind of deal with the pricing of how things move and I can't really raise the cost or, you know, the price of a beer.
00:33:31
Brendan
So we have to find other ways to increase the capacity of what we're selling because the fluctuation is just on our end. It's pretty, it's pretty.
00:33:42
Brendan
all over the place and a lot of the breweries are seeing it, too. And we talk quite a bit. There's a lot of forums where we discuss, you know, how are you going to do this? how are you going to that? And. um Trade, you know, trade rules with the White House or whatever, it's it constantly fluctuates. So we're always watching, yeah you know, you know, cost of aluminum.
00:34:00
Brendan
You know, you got to when you put, you know, these cans, that the the pricing is constantly changing for how much aluminum is or the packaging or the labels or whatever. And
00:34:11
Brendan
You know, where the tariffs are, you know, we we have to constantly keep an eye on all those things because it's a constant flow for us. So we figured the best way to combat all that is to just increase our seating capacity because we have people here. we just don't want to be turning them away.
00:34:28
Brendan
So.
00:34:29
Frank Furbacher
Yeah. I mean, you mentioned like, I wish I took more business classes. At this point, it sounds like you could be the one teaching the business class.
00:34:36
Brendan
It's a lot of baptism by fire. It really is. And
00:34:41
Brendan
not like, yeah I'm trying to like talk about without like getting like too in the weeds. Cause it's so people will be listening to this be like, I have no idea what you're referencing. And some people would completely get it, but I want to try to keep this broad to all your audiences.
00:34:55
Brendan
But you know, It's a lot of baptism by fire doing this this way. And every day is like an audition. As my my dad always said, every day is an audition. Every day is you have no idea what you're going to deal with.
00:35:08
Brendan
um And just keeping, you know, just got to be here and and do the best you can. That's it.
00:35:17
Frank Furbacher
Yeah. Yeah. um So let me ask you this. There's ah you wind up ah now you're the you're owning and operating ah a brewery. You've guys got a ah kitchen there that you're looking to expand.
00:35:32
Brendan
yeah
00:35:32
Frank Furbacher
um You know. This I would imagine your hope is that this is all ready to go for summer 2026.
Reflections and Alumni Connections
00:35:41
Frank Furbacher
that the plan?
00:35:43
Brendan
Fingers crossed. We'll see.
00:35:44
Frank Furbacher
yeah
00:35:44
Brendan
you know With construction, you never know. um but yeah Hopefully. that's That's the goal.
00:35:51
Frank Furbacher
So as as we round this down a little bit, I want to hear like, um you know, we talked about memories a bit, but what um if you could like look back at your time at Manhattanville, um what did you take away from that experience? how how How does that help you today or what memory, what what's what's left with you um from that time there?
00:36:17
Brendan
Um, you know, I think the big thing is, um, that's a good question. What, what lasting impact it, I guess, um,
00:36:31
Brendan
never take it, never take like a day for granted kind of thing. You know, you kind of get into the OSIS college and you can, you know, you can you can you're figuring yourself out, right? You're you're trying to figure out what you want to do and whatever.
00:36:46
Brendan
You don't close any doors. Try to keep exploring, just keep saying yes to things. um I wish I did a better job at that when I was in college. I wish I, you know, we had a lot of fun and I wish, you know, maybe a little less fun, but I guess is what I'm alluding to.
00:37:05
Brendan
ah try to try to you know, and think everything happens for a reason, but at the same time, um I really do wish, uh, for people to say yes to a lot more things and, you know, get out there and experience things because you don't know where life's going to take you. You have no idea what, what's going to happen. And the more you say, yes, I think the more prepared you are for, for a life when things do, you know, kind of hit the fan and, um,
00:37:37
Brendan
Manhattanville kind of, you know, it taught me in a lot of ways that like.
00:37:43
Brendan
Seize like kind of like seize that day and like just I wish I did a better job because I look back at college as like as a learning experience that like I wish I did a little bit more, you know, and not that Manhattanville deprived me like I wish I did more. I wish I took it you know, the bull by the horns for whatever, let you know, stupid expression you want to use for that. But like and.
00:38:04
Brendan
You know, this is you get to make the trip what you want it to be. So, you know, that's what I would take away from it. If the handle offered a lot of great things and, um you know, don't be intimidated to say yes, just, you know, give it a shot.
00:38:21
Frank Furbacher
What experience have you had when it comes to the Manhattanville alumni network?
00:38:28
Brendan
I mean, we stay close. I, I, I, the alumni games for us, you know, um, I'm, and ah I'm in upstate New York. So for me to get down there and they, I'm still busy this time of year. Um, so I don't get to go down to too many things, uh, as a business owner, I'm tired here a lot more than, you know, I thought I would be.
00:38:47
Brendan
um but there's a ton of opportunities to, to do things. And I, when I was living in Westchester, we would do, you know, um those nights out in White Plains that would like ah the giving, you know, around Thanksgiving time and, you know, the Christmas parties and they'd have a lot of events there for charity and stuff like that. And I would do a lot of those and I would still do more of them.
00:39:11
Brendan
um But um actually fun story. I completely forgot about this. And this was brought up to me yesterday by last week by someone. We ended up doing a collaboration with a donut company in Vermont.
00:39:27
Brendan
I had no idea that the people who started that donut company are Manhattanville graduates. So like, those brought up to me like, oh, I thought you did it because that i was like, no, my brewer was friends with them and we had no idea. So will be donuts in Vermont.
00:39:42
Brendan
We've made a beer, a collaboration with them and they're Manhattanville. So, um I was that I was maybe think of that. What made me think about that was I was going to say, like, if they were up here, I would do more alumni stuff. But There's not a lot of alumni from Manhattanville here really from many know up here. It's like Siena and Albany and things like you know Buffalo, but yeah not a lot of ah downstate schools. so But I would do a lot more. you know Take advantage of them. There's a lot of great opportunities for people to meet and to network because, again, you don't know where it's going to where life's going to lead you. So any connection you can make.
00:40:18
Frank Furbacher
Would you say you're running into Manhattanville alumni on a weekly basis up there in the summer?
00:40:23
Brendan
Only because Damon's right down the road. um
00:40:28
Brendan
Uh, no. So Damon live, Damon lives, um, like 35 minutes from me right now.
00:40:34
Frank Furbacher
Mm-hmm.
00:40:34
Brendan
Um, So I get to go hang out with him or he comes up here, ah which is awesome. We get to hang out ah quite a bit and we talk, you know, um pretty much every day. um And his wife also went to Manhattanville.
00:40:47
Brendan
So Lauren's here and um every now and then they'll have friends up, you know, and they'll come up. And the good thing for me is people want to come to the lake in the summertime and they want to hang out and visit.
00:40:58
Brendan
um But Neelman comes up like every year. Kane comes up.
00:41:07
Brendan
Murray comes up. um Frank Albano was just up here. We get, you know, it's cool because it is a little bit of like a destination place for people in. So they do come through and they do stop by the brewery. and Sometimes they get the I get a heads up. Other times I just turn around and, you know, they're in the bar and I'm like, Oh my God, you know, this is awesome.
00:41:24
Brendan
And we get to catch up for a little while. So
00:41:27
Frank Furbacher
That's good. Well, hopefully somebody watches this and says, hey, I saw your podcast and had to stop in.
00:41:33
Brendan
Please do. Please do. Yes. And if you went to Manhattanville College and you are in the Lake George area, please stop by and say hello. um I'd love to meet up. And, you know, even if we didn't know each other, you know, we could still, you know, talk like this about, you know, our memories and, you know, what made Manhattanville so special.
00:41:54
Frank Furbacher
Was there anything I missed, Brendan?
00:41:56
Brendan
I think you got it all, man. I think you're this. What number of podcasts is for you?
00:42:00
Frank Furbacher
This will be number eight, I think.
00:42:03
Brendan
Yeah, you got a pretty well-run well-run machine right now, man. you're You're hitting all the points. You're doing a good job.
00:42:09
Frank Furbacher
Good, good. Well, Brendan, thank you so much for joining. Really appreciate it.
00:42:12
Brendan
My play.
00:42:12
Frank Furbacher
It was great to catch up.
00:42:13
Brendan
Great to catch up, Frank.