72 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • JULY 2019
GREAT SOUTH BAY BREWERY
AFLOAT WITH SUCCESS
BY BERNIE KILKELLY
One of Long Island’s best craft breweries,
Great South Bay Brewery, was
founded in 2009 by fourth-generation
brewer Rick Sobotka, whose family
tradition dates back to his great-grandfather
Growing up in upstate New York,
where his father was an award-winning
homebrewer, Sobotka took up
brewing and later apprenticed at
breweries in San Diego and Colorado
while pursuing his medical studies in
anesthesiology. After settling down on
LI and establishing a successful practice,
“I really enjoy anesthesia as a career,
but I always knew one day I would
start my own brewery,” Sobotka says.
Sobotka enlisted Greg Maisch, who
began his brewing career at Blue
WESTCHESTER
LONG ISLAND
distilling whiskey in Poland.
he decided to follow his dream.
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Point Brewing, to serve as head
brewer and GSB quickly built a reputation
for inventive, high-quality,
award-winning beers. One of the
original beers, Blood Orange Pale
Ale, is now GSB’s best-seller, with distribution
in cans and bottles across
the tristate area.
In 2012, the brewery set up shop
in a 39,000-square-foot building
on Drexel Drive, which houses a
30-barrel brewhouse with its own
canning and bottling lines. It features
a 4,000-square-foot tasting room and
party space, which is open every day
except Tuesday and features regular
weekly events in addition to annual
festivals with live music.
In 2016, GSB sublet 15,000 square
feet of its space to Fire Island Beer
Co., which set up its own brewhouse
and planned to open a tasting room.
Those plans fell through in 2018 and
Fire Island Beer shut down, but the
space recently gained a new tenant,
Ghost Brewing Co., which plans to
open its brewery and tasting room
this summer.
Ghost Brewing's new brewmaster is
Paul Komsic, who will helm a 15-barrel
system and plans to focus on
wood-aged beer, including working
with a barrel maker in Medford.
Based on past experience, we can
expect to see collaboration beers
between GSB and its new neighbor
in the near future.
Great South Bay Brewery and Ghost
Brewing Company are located at 25
Drexel Drive in Bay Shore. For more
information visit.greatsouthbaybrewery.
com or @ghostbrewingco
on Facebook.
Bernie Kilkelly is the editor and publisher
of LIBeerGuide.com.
MAIN DISH
The GSB team including Rick Sobotka (3rd from right) celebrating Gold
Medals at TAP New York
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