Kindred Spirits 

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When Black Button founder Jason Barrett set out to open Rochester’s first distillery since Prohibition, it found a home in an unused portion of Rohrbach’s building on Railroad Street, sandwiched between the brewery’s production space and taproom on one side and a storage and lab space on the other. That was in 2013; Black Button has since grown to the point where it can leave the nest to fly on its own, officially setting up shop in a sprawling new space on University Avenue.

Rohrbach, meanwhile, is growing as well, taking over the 5,000-square-foot Black Button space. The new portion of the brewery will offer an expanded canning line, larger cold storage area, and an outgrowth of the brewery's taproom and restaurant. In the long run, Rohrbach owner John Urlaub said the new space could allow the brewery to up production by 50 percent to 15,000 barrels per year.

“It’s not like we do that all at once,” Urlaub said. “But it gives us the opportunity because we’ll free up a lot of space in the brewery.”

Brewery Manager Joel Will said the expanded canning line is key to the brewery upping production, describing the current 10,000-barrel output as a “bottleneck” from brewing more beer.

“We made it work, but if we grow any more, which of course we hope to do and foresee going into the next year, we’d kind of be at our limit,” Will said.

The growth of Rohrbach over its 31 years of life has moved at a decisively slow, methodical pace.

In 1992, Rohrbach Brewing Company founder John Urlaub swung the doors open at the German House in the South Wedge and welcomed Rochesterians to their first taste of craft beer. In 1998, he opened his second production brewery on Buffalo Road in Chili, which today also houses the brewery’s barrel-aged beers program “Parting Glass.” In 2008, Rohrbach bade farewell to the German House and opened its doors on Railroad Street.

To say Urlaub was ahead of the curve would be a gross understatement. In fact, it would  be nearly two decades from Rohrbach’s opening before another homegrown craft brewing operation would take hold in the city. At the time, craft beer had hardly even entered into the status of a novelty. A mere 300 microbreweries were estimated to be in operation nationwide, compared to the 500 or so operating in New York alone as of 2022.

Throughout all that time, and as some other, newer breweries have had to tighten their belts to survive, Rohrbach has stayed consistent.

“The reality is that the market has changed a lot, and we are not growing at the pace that we used to,” Urlaub said. “But we do continue to have good, steady growth. We are in the positive numbers, and I think when you don’t grow, that’s where the trouble starts.”

Urlaub credited a large part of the brewery’s success to its consistency. Its flagship beer, Scotch Ale, has remained virtually unchanged since its inception, and today still accounts for a quarter of the brewery’s sales.

“It’s been around forever, and that brand continues to grow,” Urlaub said. “We get new fans, and people trust our brand.”

In July, Black Button cut the ribbon on its ambitious new University Avenue facility. To put into perspective just how big the facility is, the entirety of the old distillery’s bar and manufacturing plant could fit comfortably in the new space’s tasting room. Its production capacity is expected to increase 10 times when the distillery gets fully up and running.

The process of moving the old equipment over and getting the distillery’s new, titanic vats and stills up and running is expected to be finished by the end of August. At that point, Barrett will sever the last physical ties with Rohrbach, marking a parting of ways between two titans of Rochester’s beverage culture.

“John was so good to us,” Barrett said. “I always say, his leap of faith was a little crazy.  Here I was, a 24-year-old kid, and we’re going to renovate this place into a modern distillery. But he was hugely helpful.”

Both Barrett and Urlaub see the facilities' relationship in the same building as a
sort of symbiosis which propped up both brands, and as that era ends, both are well positioned to expand.

“We’re not disappointed that they’ve been there the past 10 years,” said Urlaub, “and we’re also not disappointed they’re moving, because it gives us an opportunity to expand our business.”

Gino Fanelli is a CITY/WXXI reporter. He can be reached at (585) 775-9692 or [email protected].