Jake and Kerstin Golen, new owners of Kismet Brewing Co., pose behind the bar inside their new microbrewery.
Reminder Publishing photo by Trent Levakis
WESTFIELD — Kismet Brewing Company’s new ownership is excited to grow the brewery and establish a deeper connection with the Westfield community.
Jake and Kerstin Golen are the new owners of Kismet and Jake is now head brewer. Jake, born and raised in Westfield and a graduate of St. Mary’s, has been in the beer and restaurant industry for almost 30 years now with his earliest experience coming at Elm Pizza. He has moved throughout the craft beverage industry having worked at Harpoon, Von Trapp, Citizen Cider and Arcpoint Brewing.
“I was doing delivery, then I moved behind the counter, and then I got all my friends hired,” said Jake with a laugh about his start at Elm Pizza. “Most recently, I was at Arcpoint in Belchertown and was one of their taproom managers over there. So, I’ve been doing a lot of this stuff previously in one form or another.”
A huge fan of craft beer, Jake has been homebrewing for multiple years himself and has created his own recipes that he is looking forward to eventually expanding out on and adding to Kismet Brewing’s selections. While the thought of one day actually opening his own brewery had always been in his mind, Jake did not expect the 66 S. Broad St. location to end up being the home of his brewery once it came up on the market.
“Having worked in the beer industry for so many years with sales and repping brands, I know a lot of people in the beer industry. So, I saw this posted for sale, and I reposted it on Facebook myself because I know a lot of people and am friends with them so I figured, ‘hey there’s a brewery for sale.’ And then multiple people approached me and said, ‘Why aren’t you buying it?’ and I thought, ‘I don’t know why I’m not buying it,’” he said.
After Jake and Kerstin spoke about the opportunity further, they decided they could make it work and it was a good time to dive into ownership of their own brewery.
“I always kind of figured I’d end up with a bar or a brewery, something along those lines. I’ve always enjoyed with the sales stuff, the front facing stuff where I get to actually talk to people and talk to the customers,” said Jake. “It was always one of the high points for me. It was talking to people, why are you drinking? What are you drinking? What do you like about the beer?”
Kerstin added Jake’s favorite thing is finding the right fit for drinkers, or a being a professional beer matchmaker.
Jake has come in full time and Kerstin is co-owner but still works in Holyoke Public Schools during the school year as a physical therapist. Jake spent the last few months shadowing the previous owners of Kismet to learn the larger scale equipment set up as well as additional recipes in order to have a better grasp of the new commercial-scale brewing he will be a part of.
“Each brewery is a little different in its own way that they make and do their things. Their equipment is different, so even if I went to a different brewery and had kind of the same set up, its still a little different how they would do their stuff,” said Jake.
Jake explained Kismet has a 5-barrel system which designates them as a microbrewery. Kerstin pointed out that at Kismet, they brew with steam as opposed to electric or gas, leading to a more efficient process that eliminates the potential for hotspots within the brew.
“The steam heat is better distributed,” said Jake.
“Higher temperatures and lower temperatures will give you different flavors in the beer. A longer boiler time and a shorter boil time will give you different flavors in the beer. So those are all the variables that have to be controlled for when you’re making a batch,” added Kerstin.
Jake said through their brewing they have become known for the beers they have been making such as the pineapple upside down cake or the watermelon strawberry jalapeno brews.
“I’ve been telling people I’m not a big fan of the sour word on there, because when you hear sour you think automatically for the tart pucker and that’s not what we’re making. What we make is closer to a fruited beer, but saying it’s a fruited beer is also the wrong terminology. With the way it’s brewed it’s technically in the sour categories but it’s always interesting at some of the festivals, the facial reactions when people take a sip of it because they’re not expecting to taste what they end up tasting. It truly tastes like a pineapple upside down cake in a glass,” said Jake.
Currently, Kismet is open Fridays from 4-9 p.m. and Saturdays from 1-9 p.m. Plans are to soon add Thursday as another night to their hours and potentially slowly add another day based on how things are going this summer. They also plan to utilize the outdoor space on the property with tents and local food trucks as well to create more space and a more comfortable outdoor brewery experience for attendees.
Kerstin added the space is family and dog friendly as they have no kitchen in the building.
“Our next step, too, is to take some takeout menus for places that will deliver here and have a binder that has all the local delivery places. Obviously, people can DoorDash or Uber Eats whatever they want here, but I wanted to have something that people can be like, ‘We’re just going to order from this local spot.’ We want to be Westfield first,” said Kerstin.
With the new space the Golens will also be able to distribute their own product with local sellers and restaurants.
“We’re going to start trying to do some self-distribution but ideally, we want to do Westfield first. I was born and raised in Westfield. The previous owners lived in Sturbridge, and they were doing a lot more production stuff, and Friday and Saturday taprooms,” explained Jake. “Our first Friday night, we were pretty busy because a lot of the people I know came in and were like hey congratulations this is awesome. And I’ve had regular people come in multiple times now that were regulars before us. Now I have some friends that are coming in to be regulars here as well. I like that even though it’s [Westfield] a city it’s still like a town.”
Having ownership of a business in his hometown has given Jake added excitement for the new endeavor. He and Kerstin hope the people of Westfield and surrounding towns come down to the new Kismet Brewery, grab a drink and see what the city’s latest small business and brewery has to offer from its pocket of the city.
“We’re still very much in a transition period of figuring out what’s possible,” said Kerstin.
“We’re on a dead-end street. Nobody is driving down here unless it’s for work or something more specific. And I feel like a lot of people in Westfield have no idea we’re here,” said Jake. “I want to figure out how to get some marketing around, some more visibility, and let people know we’re here and we make damn good beers.”
