Around 2004 or 2005, when we were really struggling as a winery in Brogue, I entertained the idea of adding on a brewery to the winery here in Brogue. At the time, the idea that a winery would have a brewery associated with it was unheard of. We would have been the first in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, things were so tight for us that we didn’t have the funds nor the time to actually put the idea in to motion.
Fast-forward to 2020, and I realized we could pull it off. After purchasing the old Naylor Wine Cellars in Stewartstown, I knew we had the space and capacity to add brewing to our operation. And I knew that adding beer would provide an amazing synergy to our wines in that location. We received our federal and state licenses that year, but due to pandemic and other factors we held off actually starting to make beer.
The last piece of the puzzle was finding a brewer, and it turned out I didn’t have to look far. When people find out that we have kids, they always ask if they’re going to take over the winery at some point. As any of you with kids know, we have never had any idea, nor did we ever want to push them in the winery direction. But Dylan has been working in the vineyard and winery for the past few years, and the more I talked about brewing beer, the more he was interested in it. This is a guy who cut his teeth on Reserve Chardonnay and Cadenzas.
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Cut to today, he knows way more about brewing than I do. The beers that he is brewing for Allegro Brewery are better than any beers I ever made in my day. My heart is still in winemaking, and I don’t have time to be a daily brewer in this lifetime. It’s great to taste each new beer Dylan brews and to share them with everyone who thought that Allegro was only ever going to be about wine.