BOALSBURG — On Friday, April 12, Boal City Brewing, a craft brewery and beer garden located in historic Boalsburg, will celebrate its one-year anniversary — and owner Gordon Kauffman is celebrating in style with a weeklong, community-centered celebration.
Created by Kauffman with the help of master brewer Mike Smith, Boal City Brewing serves up a revolving menu of classic style beers with an innovative twist. Throughout Boal City’s first year of business, Smith has created around 85 different brews, with a few select customer favorites being repeated.
Those brews are a result of Kauffman’s dream to build a place for the community to come together to enjoy beer and each other’s company.
“Five or six years ago, I’d been traveling around the country and seeing lots of microbreweries in the places I visited,” Kauffman shared. “And, obviously, I like beer, but I just felt like many of the breweries that I visited really tapped into the community spirit.”
Kauffman quickly realized Boalsburg would make for the perfect place to build a community spot, he explained, noting how the proximity to Rothrock State Forest and the surrounding trailheads and the people and recreational activities that came with those areas aligned perfectly with his vision for the brewery.
“It is of course about the beer — we’re a beer manufacturer first and foremost — but when people come to the tap room, we want them to have an entire experience.”
Part of that experience is the spacious beer garden and rotating food trucks customers can enjoy while visiting Boal City Brewing.
“I knew we had to have some food trucks available for people who wanted to have a substantial meal while they’re hanging out. Boalsburg is sort of a destination once people are there; it’s not like they can just walk around and get food,” Kauffman explained. “I’m a foodie. It’s really important to me to not just have food, but to have really great and creative food.”
Kauffman credits Rebecca Larson from Super Duper Café for helping develop the food offerings in the taproom, which benefited the business over the winter when many food trucks temporarily closed.
Still, in the coming year he plans on extending his food truck options to have one on site each day of the week. The business also plans on launching a core range of beers customers can regularly purchase.
This growth is all possible due to the expectations Kauffman had for the business being far exceeded.
“People really wrapped their arms around it, and it was really great to watch everybody enjoy the space like I had envisioned,” Kauffman explained. “Whether there’s 10 people in the tap room or 50, everyone’s having a great time. I would say that is what far exceeded our expectations.”
To celebrate a successful first year, from Tuesday, April 9, to Sunday, April 14, Boal City Brewing will have different events each night. The brewery will drop a new beer — Oolong Saison First Anniversary Ale — on the first night, and on Friday, April 12, weather permitting, there will be a pig roast. The celebrations will also feature a rotation of local performers playing live music, and food trucks.
“We want to do something special for the first anniversary,” Kauffman said. “I think it’s important for us, as busy as we are and as crazy as it’s been, to celebrate milestones. And this is obviously a big milestone.”
With the one-year milestone approaching, Kauffman is looking ahead to the coming years for the business.
“We always want to continue to improve and innovate and I’m always looking for ways to support organizations in the community,” Kauffman shared. “Any time we can give back, that’s really important to me.”
