Gary Happ and Andrew Mankin — friends, partners and owners of Barrington Brewery and Crissey Farm Banquet Facility – were celebrated last evening by the Southern Berkshire Chamber of Commerce as 2019 Business Persons of the Year. Last year’s awardees, Chris and Matt Masiero, owners of Guido’s Fresh Marketplace, presented the award. Representative William “Smitty” Pignatelli also presented them with citations from both the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Senate. Some 200 people attended the party, which took place in a tent on the outdoor patio at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge.
The irony that this happy event was taking place on September 11 was acknowledged throughout the evening. Julie Hannum, Director of Off-Campus Centers for Berkshire Community College and Chamber President, began the program with a moment of silence. And “Smitty” Pignatelli, also remembering the horror associated with this date and the developments since, concluded, “How blessed are we to live in the southern Berkshires?”
The special nature of living and working in the Berkshires resounded throughout the presentations. Gary, in his acceptance remarks, talked about the opportunities to be innovative and engaged in a place like Great Barrington. And Andrew, in his remarks, described how rewarding it is to do business in a small community, to be able to walk down the street and run into someone you know with whom you can have a good 20-minute talk about what’s happening in town.
But the evening was not about the Berkshires. It was about the impressive achievements of Gary and Andrew, as business people, as innovators, as environmentalists and as community leaders. The tributes began with Gary Moynihan, Managing Partner of Adelson & Company, the accounting firm that has worked with the honorees for years. After describing their modesty (“Can you believe it? Us?” was how Gary and Andrew told him they had been selected), he talked about their great business strengths. They are two of the smartest innovators he has known, he said. They are “classic outliers” who know how to handle risk, are thorough, focused and consummately professional. Their business, which now has 46 employees who are treated like family, has had consistent growth year after year.
Subsequent speakers helped fill out the back-stories of how these two guys got to where they are today. Mary Berle, welcoming the crowd on behalf of the Norman Rockwell Museum, said that Gary Happ was her son’s soccer coach, and that Gary is remembered for his spirit and positivity, even when the team lost. And Jack Sobel, who knows Gary since they were in kindergarten together in Oceanside, Long Island, and came up from Florida for this event, brought a great montage of photos of Gary from high school where he was a terrific athlete and an admired student leader.
Subsequent speakers helped fill out the back-stories of how these two guys got to where they are today. Mary Berle, welcoming the crowd on behalf of the Norman Rockwell Museum, said that Gary Happ was her son’s soccer coach, and that Gary is remembered for his spirit and positivity, even when the team lost. And Jack Sobel, who knows Gary since they were in kindergarten together in Oceanside, Long Island, and came up from Florida for this event, brought a great montage of photos of Gary from high school where he was a terrific athlete and an admired student leader.
Andrew’s brother Mark Mankin reminisced about the plastic beer brewing kit that Andrew was given for Christmas in his senior year in college. That was the genesis of his fascination with brewing. He brewed throughout college. When he graduated, he did an internship at the Vaux Brewery in Northern England.
So how did these two guys get together? Gary came to the Berkshires for the first time in 1973, when friends brought him to a concert at the Music Inn to hear some singer named Bruce Springsteen. He came back two years later to work at the Kolburne School. In 1977, he left the school and, at the age of 27, he and two others opened 20 Railroad Street in Great Barrington. Great Barrington was a very different place then than it is now. There was no nightlife downtown, except for the kind most locals avoided. Peter’s Pub was the only restaurant in town, and it was closed in the evenings. Gary and his partners made sure that 20 Railroad Street was a place where locals, even women, would come and would feel comfortable, in other words good food, nice “ambiance” and no fistfights.
Andrew, who had grown up in Kent, Conn., moved to Great Barrington in 1990. With years of home brewing and the internship in England behind him, he frequented 20 Railroad Street and approached Gary about starting a “craft brewery” together. Well, in 1990, no one, including Gary Happ, had any idea what a craft brewery was, and Gary turned him down. It took several years and the intercession of a mutual friend before Gary came around, and in 1995, drawing on Gary’s restaurant experience and Andrew’s brewing experience, they opened Barrington Brewery together.
Barrington Brewery was one of the first three brewpubs in Massachusetts. From the beginning they have emphasized local products, and environmentally responsible conditions and materials, and they were always smoke-free. They built the first brewery solar hot water system in the Northeast. In 2007, recognizing that the community needed a place where large groups could assemble, they opened Crissey Farm Banquet Facility which included the solar hot water system. In 2015 they bought two adjacent acres and designed a 144-KW solar-electric photovoltaic array, which supplies 85% of the businesses needs. Barrington Brewery will celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2020, and it has been recognized as one of the top 20 solar beer breweries in the world.
Speakers congratulated the partners not just for their business success but for their conscious stewardship of our earth, and also for their entrepreneurial spirit, which makes them role models for our young people.
Andrew’s brother Mark noted the impact on the town of all the people the Brewery draws to Great Barrington. A resident and community leader in his own right in his town of New Milford, Conn., Andrew says he is best known as the “brother of the brewer.” People come to the Brewery from New Milford and many other towns within a reasonable radius of Great Barrington, and they also shop in local shops and buy gas and attend cultural events here.
Throughout the almost 25 years, Gary and Andrew have worked together harmoniously and successfully. What is the key to a successful partnership? As Gary says, “the first thing is that it makes money. If it doesn’t make money, it’s not successful.” And the other thing is “location, location, location.” The southern Berkshires turned out to be exactly the right place to be.
