To gather for a business talk, the founders of Three Heads Brewing don't have far to commute. Partners Geoff Dale, Todd Dirrigl and Dan Nothnagle live in the same Brighton neighborhood, and Dale and Dirrigl are brothers-in-law.
The three — beer fans who started home brewing and then began hatching an idea to make their hobby into a business — officially launched Three Heads earlier this month. Their beer is starting to appear on a few taps and in a handful of retail sites around the Rochester area.
Within a few days, Nothnagle said, they sold close to 20 kegs to such establishments as the Owl House, Tap & Mallet, J.B. Quimby's Public House and Hogan's Hideaway. The official rollout of the beer is to happen Jan. 7 with a tasting at Lovin' Cup in Henrietta.
"I was pretty blown away by their ambition and how much they believe in it," said Leslie Zinck, one of Lovin' Cup's owners. "I really like the concept with the brewery — they're trying to do something locally. They want to make Rochester a beer town. And the beer is fantastic as well."
And the keg of Three Heads' The Kind India Pale Ale sold out quickly, she said. "(Three Heads) has been very well received by our customers," she said. "They are beer snobs, looking for something new."
The beer is contract-brewed by Custom Brewcrafters in Honeoye Falls, though the three have a cold storage facility on Lyell Avenue for the kegs and 22-ounce bottles. They declined to say what kind of costs have been involved in starting the beer business, though Nothnagle called them "mildly significant."
And the company hopes to up production to 2,000 kegs in 2011 and expand its distribution into the Buffalo and Syracuse areas by working with a distributor, Nothnagle said.
Three Heads is pouring into the Rochester marketplace as craft brewing — typically meaning small, independent beer brewers — is a booming industry. According to craft brewing industry group the Brewers Association, craft brewing was up 9 percent by volume nationwide in the first half of 2010 and 12 percent by sales at the same time that overall U.S. beer sales were down nearly 3 percent.
Roc Brewing Co. LLC, a startup craft brewery, expects to start operation in Rochester in 2011. And Naked Dove Brewing Co. in Canandaigua started operation in November.
Three Heads started with four beer lines — the Kind, the Skunk Black IPA, the Java Sutra Coffee Porter and the Blimey English-Style Pale Ale. Nothnagle said they plan to do a seasonal beer, a Belgian-style IPA, in June.
"We're learning a little bit on the fly," said Dale. "We have an idea of what people like. But demand, that will tell us what they really like."
MDANEMAN@DemocratandChronicle.com
