Genesee Country Village & Museum in Mumford is teaming up with Rohrbach Brewing Company to produce the museum’s collection of historical beer recipes. Genesee Country Village & Museum’s Stocking Hill Ale (American Wheat Ale) and Fat Ox Ale (American-Style Brown Ale) connect modern lovers of craft beer to the history of brewing in New York State. Found on tap at various locations around the Museum grounds, both beers are brewed referencing historical recipes from New York State in the 19th century. Rohrbach’s, one of Rochester’s original craft breweries, has locations in downtown Rochester on Railroad Street and on Buffalo Road, and will take over brewing the Museum’s historical recipes and providing beer to the organization for the 2022 season and beyond. GCV&M is the largest living history museum in New York State with the largest collection of historic buildings in the Northeast, including a working brewery, a vintage baseball diamond, and many historic buildings representing a typical village of the 19th century. The museum has a historical connection with Rochester’s rich brewing scene. Its founder, John L. “Jack” Wehle, also served as Chairman of the family business, the Genesee Brewing Company in Rochester, which his father Louis Wehle purchased in 1932. Today, the museum’s president and CEO is Becky Wehle, granddaughter of Jack Wehle.

Stocking Hill Ale is an American Wheat Ale with ginger – it pours a light hazy gold color with wheaty aromas and a bittersweet ginger-y finish. Fat Ox Ale boasts notes of dark chocolate and coffee, the aromas derived from roasted malts. In addition to these unique offerings, museum visitors will also find seasonal Genesee Brewing Company beers on tap, as well as hard ciders by OSB Ciderworks.

Museum visitors interested in learning more about the history of brewing in the region can visit Grieve’s Brewery on the museum grounds, a reconstruction of a brewery dating back to 1803 and relocated from nearby Geneva. Genesee Country Village & Museum is the only museum in the United States to showcase a working 19th-century brewery. Brewing demonstrations rely on gravity during much of the process, with liquids either pumped by hand or ladled into troughs throughout the building. Portions of Rochester’s old Enright Brewery (closed in 1907) and an early timber-framed structure near West Bloomfield were merged to form the present building. Beside the brewery, visitors will find a Hop House (built c. 1870 in Greece, NY), surrounded by a small hop yard. Hops grown at the Museum are harvested in the late summer during the annual Hop Harvest Festival, a celebration of craft beer and the history of brewing in the region.

Craft beer lovers looking to sample Stocking Hill Ale and Fat Ox Ale can find the brews on tap this season at Genesee Country Village & Museum in the Freight House Pub, Depot Restaurant, and Pavilion Garden Restaurant. Visitors can bring home filled growlers and find branded craft beer merchandise in the Museum’s Flint Hill Store. Several events throughout the year at GCV&M highlight craft beer and the history of brewing – namely, History on Tap (June 3), and the Hop Harvest Festival (September 10). Details for all upcoming events can be found at www.gcv.org.

—via Press Release