A Connecticut Brewing Godfather

For Leonard, turning a small-batch operation into a 30-barrel brewery on the verge of further expansion has meant sharing power with head brewers and their assistants. “I had to let some of the younger guys do it and step back and not look over their shoulder,” Leonard says. “I think that’s the secret to this place: the autonomy that the brewers have. The brewers control the brewery, and I think that’s part of the magic.” 

Some head brewers have moved on and started their own breweries. Counter Weight Brewing in Hamden and Tribus Beer Company in Milford both were started by former NEBCo brewers. With a new brewery opening every few months since 2017, there have been plenty of chances for Leonard to mentor. He said he’s been asked advice about opening breweries since day one. “I sometimes scare them to death, so that they don’t want to do it; I’m very honest,” Leonard says. “It’s not just hanging out and drinking with your buddies. It’s a lot of work. It’s different today, though. You can open up with a tap room and a small brewery, and there’s a lot of profit margin there. Back when I started, I was selling to distributors. We weren’t like a big brewery with marketing material and vans. It was just me.”

Jeff Koebbe, who started as an assistant at NEBCo and quickly worked his way up to head brewer, says Leonard has created an environment that blends the best of old and new. “There have been a lot of great recipes that have come through here. You want to pay homage to that and keep the legacy of those recipes going, but there are also style holes, new taste palates, and room for what you want to come up with. You have the knowledge of former brewers to stand on along with a creative environment that lets you do what you want to do. We get to do a lot of messing around here."

One way Leonard has kept creativity at the forefront of the in-house dynamic is by installing a playground. For NEBCo brewers, that takes the form of a 3.5-barrel pilot system that looks like a set of lobster pots next to the giant vessels of the main brewing system. Using the pilot system, brewers can experiment with a different kind of yeast or a new supplier’s malted wheat or create small batches of beers “out of season,” like a light, crisp lager during the dead of winter. “The little pilot system is for fun stuff that allows us to create things we haven’t done before,” Koebbe says. “We’ve been experimenting with different kinds of lagers and different yeast strains.” Some beers make the leap from pilot batch to full brewing system. For example, playing with new combinations of hops as part of their Spin Cycle series led to a triple-IPA version of Fuzzy Baby Ducks, known as Triple Fuzzy.