Kidd Squidd Joins With Cornell Cooperative Extension To Support Eelgrass Restoration

A brand new brew from Kidd Squid will raise funds for reseeding oysters and planting eelgrass in Sag Harbor, keeping the waterways clean in a village built on the bay.

Kidd Squid, the brewery located on Spring Street in Sag Harbor, in collaboration with the Cornell Cooperative Extension, has created a new brew to help raise funds and awareness for two local Sag Harbor projects — eelgrass revitalization and oyster bed restoration. All purchases of “Brew for the Bay Sag Harbor” will directly fund these two initiatives with every purchased can seeding 10 oysters and planting five shoots of eelgrass.

“We’re so glad to work with Kidd Squid,” Kimberly Barbour, director of the Back to Bays initiative through Cornell Cooperative Extension, said.

Everyone is welcome to come down to the brewery on Friday, December 15, from 4 to 7 p.m. to learn more about the Back to the Bays plans for Sag Harbor, and pick up the limited release Brew for the Bay.

“We are super excited,” Barbour added. “We are well on our way to officially starting our stewardship site in Sag Harbor with funds that we’ve raised since the summer. It’s going to happen — 2024 will be the year we get oysters in the water.”

Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County’s Back to the Bays Stewardship Initiative’s mission is to protect water quality. They work to restore, both commercially and recreationally, important finfish and shellfish, rebuild coastal habitats, maintain biodiversity in the bays, and protect local shorelines from erosion.

“It’s the perfect small-town event. Kidd Squid gets involved with everything. It’s an extension of who they are as people and their brand,” Shawn Sachs, a Sag Harbor resident since 2017, and Suffolk County native added. Sachs has been volunteering with the Back to Bays initiative and was originally inspired to act after reading stories in The Express about water quality issues. Sachs attended a CCE lecture series at Kidd Squid Brewing Company in Sag Harbor over the summer and has been involved ever since, helping CCE to raise funds and getting the word out.

The Brew for the Bay Sag Harbor is brewed with Sagaponack-grown Foster Farm 2-row malt barley and hopped with an experimental hop developed and grown in upstate New York. At 6.6 percent alcohol by volume, McEvoy said that “it is a smooth and hazy IPA.”

“Kimberly and her team are rock stars,” Sachs said. “They’re exactly the kind of people our community needs.”

When Rory McEvoy, owner of Kidd Squid and brew master, was 10, he came out East one summer to take part in a Cornell Cooperative Extension summer camp. After a week at Tiana Bay in Hampton Bays, he knew he wanted to pursue marine biology. McEvoy holds a degree in marine biology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

“That week has always stuck in my head,” McEvoy recalled, adding that he jumped on the chance to host lectures throughout the year with the experts from the Back to the Bay program.

McEvoy said that this is an extremely limited run, with just enough brew to fund these two local projects. Folks are welcome to visit the tasting room which is built in an old railroad station on Spring Street in the heart of Sag Harbor Village. In addition to the new brew, they feature 18 taps of Kidd Squid beer — staples, moon series IPAs, collaborations, guest taps, and impossible-to-find experimentals. They also serve Sagaponack Farm Distillery spirits, Channing Daughters and Wölffer Estate wines and ciders and soft drinks.

Since 2016, Cornell Cooperative Extension has been restoring eelgrass in Sag Harbor with the hope of restoration and improving conditions of nearby naturally existing eelgrass. Each planting is marked by labeled stakes to map where new and old plantings meet. The oldest plantings have become dense eelgrass, indistinguishable from nearby natural eelgrass meadows. Bay scallops, hard clams, whelks, northern puffer, sea bass and other species are frequently encountered in the eelgrass.

Eelgrass serves as a habitat for these animals, which help filter and keep the waterways clean. The restoration site has become their best success story in the Peconics, and was initially sponsored by the Great Peconic Race on Shelter Island followed by PEP, LICF, DEC and others up until 2022. In 2023, the Sag Harbor community came together to raise funds to enable a Marine Meadows Workshop and subsequent eelgrass planting to take place in November 2023.

On October 21 at Havens Beach, Barbour, Sachs and McEvoy helped rally the community together to weave eelgrass shoots into burlap “tortillas” for transplanting. On the rainy, cold, October day, over 70 community members showed up to help and raise funds. Kidd Squid donated beverages for the adults, while the kids got their hands dirty making the “tortillas” and learning about Barbour’s animals in her touch tank.

The eelgrass “tortillas”— or biodegradable burlap planting units — were planted at restoration sites by CCE Marine’s dive team to provide essential habitat for finfish and shellfish, and help improve water quality and coastal resiliency of Sag Harbor’s shorelines.

Runoff flows into Haven’s Beach contaminated with pollutants that migrate from nearby roadways and properties to the watershed area causing water quality degradation problems leading to closures for bathers.

All of the proceeds from the sale of the brews will go directly to CCE’s mission to help the waterways.

Right now, the 16-ounce cans are available for preorder on KiddSquid.com. McEvoy said 1,800 cans are being batched, so there is a limited supply. At the December 15 event, from 4 to 7 p.m., if available, the new brew will be sold directly from the tasting room as well.

McEvoy, who runs Kidd Squid with his wife, Grainne Coen, designed the nautical label himself, as he usually does in addition to the unique and fun décor of Kidd Squid.

“It’s such a good example of the community doing their part,” Sachs added.

“I’m sure people are going to love this new brew from Kidd Squid,” Barbour said, adding that more information about the reseeding and eelgrass will be released once permitting is completed and more funds are raised.

For more information about the Back to the Bays program, contact Barbour at kp237@cornell.edu.