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Paul Dlugokencky, Owner and Brewmaster,
Blind Bat Brewery, Centerport, NY
Centerport’s Paul Dlugokencky nearly never became a brewer. His first beer—a Budweiser—is to blame. “I disliked it so much, I didn’t have another beer for ten years,” he claims. Luckily, that second beer was an Anchor Steam, one of America’s great brews.
“That’s when the veil was lifted,” he remembers.
Since then, Dlugokencky has explored many beer styles, drinking according to “the time of year” or “what I might be eating.” In the winter, he favors brown ales, porters, and stouts, and as spring approaches, he’ll move into lighter beers such as Hefeweizen, Weizenbock, and Wit Beer.
Dlugokencky, an editorial supervisor for the American Institute of Physics by day, first became interested in homebrewing in the 1990s, and his dream of starting a microbrewery arose not long after his first batch. He founded Blind Bat Brewery “simply because I love to brew, and I love to create things for folks to enjoy.”
He’s still waiting for his state license, but hopes to open his microbrewery—likely to be New York’s smallest—soon. To start, he’ll only make a single barrel per week.
While he waits, Dlugokencky grows hops and stresses the importance of drinking local. “Beer is, in essence, a food. As such, how it is transported, stored, and how long ago it was brewed can all be factors affecting taste. Think of the difference between buying fresh Long Island corn in season from a farm stand, and buying an otherwise similar ear of corn in the supermarket,” he says.
For more info visit www.blindbatbrewery.com
