JANUARY 2018 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 67
PRESS MAIN DISH
Moustache Brewing rides craft beer boom
By BERNIE KILKELLY
The craft beer industry on Long
Island is frothing over, with eight
breweries opening new tasting
rooms last year and another 10
more breweries announcing plans
to open tasting rooms in 2018.
That would bring the total number
of local craft breweries with tasting
rooms to 40, which is remarkable
considering that in 2012 there were
just nine. Nowhere on LI has this
growth been more apparent than
in Riverhead, which is home to
five breweries with another three
planning to open this year. One of
the fastest growing is Moustache
Brewing Co., which first opened on
Hallett Avenue in 2014.
“We are close to the downtown
area and want to support local
businesses in Riverhead,” says Lauri
Spitz, who co-founded Moustache
with her husband, Matthew.
The couple started homebrewing
in 2005 and were active members
of Long Island Beer & Malt
Enthusiasts (LIBME), one of Long
Island’s three homebrew clubs.
After deciding to turn their passion
into a business, they became
licensed as a New York State farm
brewery in 2012 and launched a
successful Kickstarter campaign
that raised more than $30,000.
This seed money helped Moustache
build their first one-barrel brewing
system, which was expanded to
a seven-barrel system in 2016.
They’ve since garnered rave reviews
for a wide variety of flavorful and
memorably named beers. One of
those beers is Dexterity Issues, a
super hoppy double IPA brewed
to benefit the National Multiple
Sclerosis Society, a cause Lauri
and Matt support since Matt was
diagnosed with MS a few years ago.
The popularity of canned craft beer
also helped power the growth of
Moustache, with favorites like Lawn,
a cream ale, Keep off the Grass, a wet
hopped cream ale, and Milk + Honey
Brown Ale. Moustache has won praise
for its super hoppy pale ales and India
Pale Ales (IPAs), with the demand
for beers like Life of Leisure Pale Ale,
Sailor Mouth IPA, and Awkward
Conversations double IPA reaching
bitcoin-like frenzy. New can releases
are treated like old Grateful Dead
concerts, with lines forming around
the block in advance of opening and
strict limits on the number of cans
that can be purchased.
Moustache currently self
distributes its beers throughout the
Island, New York City, Westchester
and into the Hudson Valley,
with a team that includes Lauri’s
sister, Kimberly Stoehr. With the
market growing for their beers,
the brewery announced plans last
November to quadruple the size
of their brewery, taking over the
whole building on Hallett Avenue.
The expansion to 5,600 square feet
will include a 1,200-square-foot
tasting room, almost as large as the
entire current brewery. The new
tasting room, with a 30-foot bar, is
expected to open this spring, with
the current tasting room staying
open through renovations.
“The expansion will help us keep
up with demand for our core beers
and also experiment with new
things,” Matt says. He hopes to
be able to offer more barrel-aged
beers, which the brewery has done
but on a limited basis.
In addition to their delicious beers,
catchy names and inventive can
labels, Moustache is also well known
for its membership club, the Society
for Fine Liquid Provisions. The club
offers members monthly growler fills
or four-packs of cans, birthday perks
and access to exclusive, member-only
beers on tap in the tasting room.
It’s no wonder Moustache is one
of the most popular stops on the
group bicycle brewery tours offered
by Brew Crew Cycles in Riverhead.
Moustache Brewing Co. is located at
400 Hallett Ave. in Riverhead. They
can be reached at 631-591-3250 or
moustachebrewing.com
Bernie Kilkelly is the editor and
publisher of LIBeerGuide.com
Moustache Brewing Co. is known for the amusing monikers they affix to their beers.
Lauri and Matthew Spitz,
co-founders of the popular Moustache
Brewing Co.