Greenport Harbor Brewing Co. Celebrates 15 Years of Cold Brews

Richard Vandenburgh and John Liegey were the youngest of adults when they met at Ohio Wesleyan University 42 years ago. “We became fast friends,” Vandenburgh remembered on a recent sunny summer day, “and drank a lot of beer.”

Around that time, another formative experience would prove telling.

Vandenburgh lived near a delicatessen that offered imported beers from various locales around the globe. “I would love working my way around the world,” he said, recalling sampling the deli’s diverse offerings. “That really is what inspired me, in terms of a fascination with different flavors and things like that.”

But at Ohio Wesleyan, as many a college student can attest, the budget allowed for “the crappy stuff that was $10, $15 a case.” Sipping mass-produced American beer, the friends mused about a better way.

“A little tongue-in-cheek,” Vandenburgh said, “we’d talk about, ‘If you owned a brewery, you’d never have to buy a beer again.’ Someday …”

The idea was pushed to the recesses of the friends’ minds, but it would not be extinguished.

“I was curious about the science,” Vandenburgh said. He bought a home brewing kit, experimenting in his garage and sharing the results with friends and family. “Not that I was a professional at all,” he recalled. “I probably understood it enough to be dangerous.”

The friends’ paths would diverge after college — though not entirely. Vandenburgh went to law school and became an attorney; Liegey became an art director and creative director at firms including Ogilvy and Time Warner.

They stayed in touch, however. “I was out there” — Long Island’s North Fork — “in the middle of my law school career, rebuilding John’s grandmother’s house, because I used to be builder before I went to law school,” Vandenburgh said, “and met my wife.”

Later, in 2008, “I was practicing out here on the East End and spotted the building in Greenport, and I said, ‘Remember that crazy idea we had?’ It took off from there.”

In 2009, that “crazy idea” became Greenport Harbor Brewing Company, which today is one of the most revered craft breweries in New York State.

“The building,” at 234 Carpenter Street in Greenport Village, was an 1860s firehouse that the partners renovated top to bottom and converted to a brewery and tasting room. It doubles as a gallery, exhibiting the work of local artists.

The partners’ timing was fortuitous. “We kind of hit it right when everything started taking off strongly,” Vandenburgh said. “We didn’t figure it that way, it just happened.”

According to the New York State Brewers Association, the number of breweries in the state grew from 95 in 2012 to more than 535 in 2023, with more than 60 on Long Island alone. The second-largest craft beer market in the United States, New York’s craft beers have an economic impact of $5.4 billion, fourth-highest in the country. New York’s craft breweries, according to the association, increased production from 556,436 barrels in 2011 to 1,257,395 barrels in 2021.

“The trend in 2009, when we first opened, was definitely heading north,” Vandenburgh recalled. “After we built the original location in Greenport, people discovered us, word got out, people from the city were coming out and visiting.

“We connected with distributors. We were considered a local New York craft beer all the way up to Albany. We’re not considered an uber-micro, because we are all throughout Long Island, New York City, Westchester. Are we considered a regional brewery? Not really, but we do distribute into Connecticut and have distributed into New Jersey.”

Greenport Harbor Brewing Co. certainly has grown. “We always thought it would be a passion project,” Vandenburgh said. “We never really thought it would be a full-time gig.”

But when the brewery exceeded its Greenport headquarters’ capacity, it expanded, adding a larger tasting room and restaurant in Peconic, where working farms and vineyards surround its spacious beer garden and field.

“We always have 14 different beers on tap,” Vandenburgh said, as well as, now, a cider for those seeking a gluten-free option. “But we always have our six to eight core beers that are available year-round. And we offer seasonally appropriate beers, and we have limiteds — smaller-batch, more premium stuff.”

The core offerings, however, are diverse in flavor and inspiration, each likely to bring a smile to the face of any connoisseur. In no particular order, they are: Harbor Ale, an American pale ale; Otherside IPA, a West Coast-type IPA, and Vandenburgh’s personal favorite; Black Duck Porter, a dark-but-not-heavy beer popular with fans of stout; Haus Pilsner, a delicious German-style pilsner that is somewhat lighter on hop flavor; Facing East, a New England-style IPA; and Summer Ale, a light golden-colored ale with a hint of orange blossom honey (“Not too sweet,” Vandenburgh observed, “but just enough to make it refreshing”).

To the extent possible, ingredients are locally sourced. “We’ve done beers where we’ve worked with local farms and vegetable growers,” Vandenburgh said. “We’ve done some wild yeast stuff with farms out here, some of the fruits from Wickham’s Fruit Farm,” in Cutchogue, “or Wesnofske Farms,” in Peconic.

With autumn’s arrival, the brewer has reintroduced its Leaf Pile amber ale. “We don’t really call it a pumpkin ale, but it definitely imparts some of that pumpkin flavoring,” Vandenburgh said, along with hints of cinnamon, ginger and clove. “People always tell us it’s not overly pumpkin — it’s still very drinkable, very refreshing. They seem to love it.”

Also on tap for fall is Leaf Pile Pie, a pastry beer he describes as “more sweet and interesting, more a sipping beer than a drinking beer. People lose their minds over it.”

In the face of ever-expanding competition, “we’re trying to be innovative and keep pushing,” he said.

Hometown fans of the brewer will be on Cloud Nine during the annual Greenport Maritime Festival, happening on September 21 and 22. As a sponsor, Greenport Harbor Brewing Company’s repurposed 1986 firetruck, outfitted with six taps on the side, will be onsite. “We serve beer off the firetruck,” Vandenburgh said. “People love that.” Leaf Pile will be offered, along with Summer Ale, Harbor Ale, Light Work Lager “and the other standards.”

Brewing beer, it turns out, can be as joyous an experience as drinking it. But in founding Greenport Harbor Brewing Company and offering its brews directly to customers at their tasting rooms, Liegey and Vandenburgh discovered another reward.

“Somebody will come in and say, ‘I’m a Miller guy,’ or ‘What do you have that tastes like Coors?’” Vandenburgh said. “We’ll say, ‘Try this.’ You work them through a tasting where they’ll look at it and say, ‘I don’t think I’m going like that,’ but then their eyes go wide open, because they don’t realize that beer should have really interesting flavors.

“Beyond the Coors and Miller and Budweiser — not that those aren’t good, for what they are — there’s so much more to beer,” he said. “That’s really the fun part. We have something for anybody who wants it.”