BINGHAMTON BREWFEST RETURNS TO ARENA
Jordan Patch, the organizer of Binghamton Brewfest, grew up with a penchant for reptile development and business.
“In high school I kept and bred reptiles, and I would sell them to pet stores and people across the country- you know, over the internet,” Patch says. This success led Patch to open up a pet store after graduating. So what comes after a pet store? Everybody knows that people become animals when they drink, so clearly the next thing for him to do was to open a bar- Dino’s, in Conklin, NY.
“To make my bar unique, we focused on microbrews,” Patch explains. “We kept it right around one hundred and one beers. So, one hundred and one bottles of beer on the wall? We did that.”
Logic isn’t everything though. There’s also drunk logic, which sometimes seem to be the logic of the weather. Sometimes a natural disaster comes along out of the deep blue recesses of fate to knock over everything in a celestial challenge to the entrepreneur, as the floods of 2011 did. “Wiping,” in Patch’s words, “Dino’s right out.” So Patch took a vacation, but it wasn’t a vacation in the sense that was a pity party or anything like that. “After the floods I took a year off and traveled the country. I went to zoos and microbreweries all over and I decided, you know, my life, what I wanted to do, was to be working around animals. So I came home and built Animal Adventure Park. And I think it was the second year of operating the park I finally put into place the Binghamton Brewfest.”
With the waters of wreckage subsided, it seems Patch has followed fate’s ebb and flow right into the folds of something that is going just swimmingly. Last year was Binghamton Brewfest’s first, and it sold out at 1,322 tickets in one session. “Last year I think the box office turned four hundred some-odd people away. So we’ve added a session to it, and this year we have the capacity to accommodate up to 3,000 event-goers.” So what’s in the proverbial watering hole’s water? Beer? Well, yes. But what makes Binghamton in particular such a good place to hold a brew fest, what is Binghamton’s niche in the universe of microbrewery culture?
“Binghamton has the nickname of the Parlor City for a reason. We had the highest density of pubs and bars for quite some time- if not in the state, the country. And that kind of went to the wayside. Recently; however, Binghamton has reinvented itself. We’ve jumped on the growing movement of microbrewing to have six, seven breweries open in the past three years within a twenty-mile radius. It’s phenomenal. So from the outside looking in- to somebody traveling out of town to come here- Binghamton is making its mark once again. And we're not just a bar town anymore, we're a brewing town. Come try us, like us, come back.”
There are other brewfests in this area besides Binghamton Brewfest, and according to Patch one of them tried to buy Binghamton Brewfest out. “Our first year being successful, we were approached to be purchased by an organization that also throws beer festivals, and we said no. And they doubled their offer. And we said no again. My feeling was that my community supported me in this effort and this adventure that I took at this rift. I wasn't about to sell out on them. We have a lot more to do and to prove with this event. That being said, they came anyway, they threw their own event. And that's good and all- but what makes us unique, what makes us different, and what makes us the brew festival for our community's support, is that every dollar spent to organize this event stays in this community. The glassware that's brought in is ordered from Logowise, right down here in the Metrocenter. Those thousands of glasses are purchased through them. The beer companies are obviously all local. The company we rent the linens from is local! The venue we rent is county-operated and owned! That money goes back to our county. Every dollar we spend stays here. There's not one other brew festival that can say truly that the dollars they spend stay here.”
It seems like Patch cares about having a symbiotic relationship with Binghamton, which I guess is the scientific way of saying that a person loves something other than his/ or herself. Which is an unusual notion, right? For an entrepreneur? He explains how Binghamton captured his heart, “I have owned multiple businesses in this community, and I would not be who I am where I am without this community's support. And as much as they're invested into me, I'm invested in them. So the bigger and better our community gets, everyone benefits. All the boats rise with the tide.”
Don’t miss your chance to participate in the second annual Binghamton Brewfest on September 12th at the Floyd L Maines Arena, 1 Stuart Street in Binghamton. There are two sessions: one from 2-5pm, and one from 6-9pm. Tickets are $36 and can be purchased on Ticketmaster, or in-person at Sam the Beer Man or at Water Street Brewing Company. There are over one hundred sampling selections of beer; live music; food vendors serving big soft pretzels, kielbasa, sausage, hot dogs, nachos- and as Patch puts it, “Essentially all that greasy food that you're gonna want after an afternoon of drinking beer.” Plus- big announcement- this year between the two sessions, Binghamton Brewfest is hosting a Southern Tier Brewing Company-sponsored special reserve tasting party at Dillingers. “They’re bringing two or three cask beers out of retirement to sample, and we’re only releasing a hundred and fifty tickets to that. You can't buy ‘em. You can only win ‘em. That's the kind of stuff we do to make us different.”
Binghamton Brewfest takes place September 12th. For more info, check out thebinghamtonbrewfest.com.
