Post-Standard and Syracuse.com food & drink writer and beer historian, Don Cazentre, and the Salt City Brew Club’s Sarah Townsend and Christophe Colebrook, kicked off our Fall 2016 season with a presentation on the rich past and present of beer brewing in CNY. The event was co-sponsored by Jason Purdy, Strathmore resident and owner and proprietor of Tipp Hill’s Now & Later (formerly Brilbeck’s Corner Market). The event included a free beer tasting and was held at Now & Later on Thursday, September 22^nd, 2016.

Don Cazentre

Don Cazentre hails from New Orleans, Louisiana and earned a BA in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has held numerous posts at Syracuse’s daily newspapers, since joining in 1986. While much of his career was spent as reporter and editor covering politics and government, he began branching out into beer, food, and wine writing in 1995. He became the Post-Standard’s full-time food & drink writer in 2009 and the Syracuse Media Group/Syracuse.com’s in 2013.

Don has freelanced for numerous beer publications including the Ale Street News, Great Lakes Brewing News, Beer Advocate, Beer Connoisseur, and Edible Finger Lakes, among others, for over twenty years. He is also the co-author of New York Breweries and the author of 2017’s Spirits and Cocktails of Upstate New York.

 

 

Sarah Townsend and the Salt City Brew Club

Sarah Townsend is an expert homebrewer and president of CNY’s premier beer club, the Salt City Brew Club. The 20+-year-old Salt City Brew Club, for homebrewers and beer fans, meets on the second Tuesday of each month at Asil’s Pub in Camillus.

Jason Purdy and Now & Later

Syracuse-native and Strathmore resident, Jason Purdy is something of a serial entrepreneur. Together with partners, he took over longtime Northside favorite, Shifty’s Bar & Grill, and ran it until 2014. In late 2013, Purdy purchased Tipp Hill-institution Brilbeck’s Corner Market which had transformed into a half-convenience store, half-craft beer specialty store a decade earlier. In mid-2015 Purdy closed Bribeck’s and set about converting the space into a combination tap room and bottle shop, with the original store space functioning as a bar, and the former garage functioning as a retail store. The newly renovated venue opened as Now & Later in late 2015 and has been a mainstay of the Tipp Hill social scene ever since.

The Strathmore Speaker Series would like to express its sincere gratitude to Purdy who has graciously offered to host this event at Now & Later and donate the beer used in the tasting.