A Central New York craft brewery is closing. ‘We’ve done everything we wanted to do’

A small craft brewery that started in Syracuse nearly a decade ago before relocating to Liverpool in 2022 is closing next month.
Stout Beard Brewing Co.‘s last day at 715 Old Liverpool Road will be Nov. 24, founding partner Mike LeRoy said.
“It‘s been 10 years and I guess I’d say we‘ve done everything we wanted to do,” LeRoy said. “Plus the industry is changing. We don’t really want to be making (hard) seltzers.”
LeRoy and his then partner Mike Paetow started production of Stout Beard beers in early 2015 in a small shared space at 1153 W. Fayette St. Its taproom debuted there around St. Patrick’s Day 2016.
It relocated the taproom (but not the brewhouse) to a larger space on Dell Street in the Westcott Street business district in 2018. It moved both beer production and the taproom to the former Lakeview Bowling Center on Old Liverpool Road four years later.
In Liverpool, Stout Beard also became known as space for live music, comedy shows and trivia.
As the name implied, the founders were fond of dark beers like stouts and porters, and also sported long heavy beards. The brewing system was fairly small (at one barrel, or 31 gallons per batch), even by craft beer standards. But it could produce higher volumes with additional tanks and fermenters.
LeRoy will remain in the local beer industry, working as a brewer for Meier’s Creek Brewing in Cazenovia.
He posted this message on Stout Beard’s Facebook page Thursday:
“Well, ladies and germs, it’s been a pleasure partying with you. After ten years, we’ll be closing on November 24th. Thanks for getting weird with us,”
Stout Beard is the second brewery in Onondaga County to close this year, and the fourth since the Covid pandemic.
In the other three cases, the closed brewery space transitioned (or will soon transition) to a satellite tasting room for other local breweries:
• IBU Brewing at 3703 Brewerton Road in North Syracuse closed in 2020 amid the pandemic. That location has since reopened as a taproom for the McGraw Box Brewing of Cortland County.
• Full Boar Brewing, at 628 S. Main St. (Route 11) in North Syracuse closed last fall. That space is now a tasting room for Heritage Hill Brewhouse of Pompey.
• Hot House Brewing at 6200 South Bay Road in Cicero closed in August. Willow Rock Brewing of Syracuse announced this month it will add a second tasting room for its beers there later this year.
Don Cazentre writes for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at [email protected], or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.