"I had never been to the Renaissance Faire before I met Chuck," Bowser said on a recent busy afternoon as he worked at his Swashbuckler Brewing Co., located on the fair grounds. "He came into the restaurant and we talked. He said, "How do we get beer at the fair?' and I said, "We'd have to build a brewery.'"
And that's exactly what the conversation led to, with Bowser setting up a small brewery on the fair grounds in 2000 and, this year, a much bigger brewery.
Bowser, who has since sold his share of Summy House, said his brewing days date back to college, starting with wine. He got into home beer-brewing in the early 1990s and was operating a small brewery at Summy House at the time Romito asked him about it.
"I've been a big supporter of the Summy House; it's still one of my favorite places to eat," Romito said. "I got to know him (Bowser) by being a frequent patron of his restaurant. He was cooking, and I wanted to meet the chef and tell him how much I enjoyed his food, and I always had a beer with my meal. Had I not been going to the restaurant to eat on a regular basis, we probably wouldn't have met. I was attracted first to his food, and then the beer as a possible addition to the fair."
That first fairground brewery was a 3-barrel system capable of putting out 14 barrels every two weeks. It has since been replaced by a 12-barrel system, which produces 72 barrels in the same amount of time, upping production from 110 gallons per batch to 400 gallons per batch.
"Before this year, we could only produce enough for the fair. Now, we have expansion capabilities. We're large enough now to take on some wholesale accounts," Bowser said. "Last year we sold 328 barrels, which is a little less than 10,000 gallons of beer, just to fair patrons. We don't bottle it; you can't buy it anywhere but here. It's all draught beer, by the pint."
Swashbuckler beer sells for $4.50 and includes four different varieties, ranging from light to dark, "to appeal to all beer drinkers," Bowser said.
Romito said the Swashbuckler, known at the fair as "the pub," was a welcome addition.
"It's not a nightclub where people come to have a couple of drinks. I think the per-capita consumption of beer would be low by bar or restaurant standards, but because we have so many people, his volume is continuing to grow. People grab a beer and walk around the fair site.
"Before that time, we had beer on the grounds, but sporadically. We had done it as fund-raisers for local charities."
As if all that brewing isn't enough to keep Bowser busy, his company, S.H.B. Restaurant Corp., also operates eight other food and beverage stands at the fair, employing 65 people, most of them seasonally. The company also does catering for weddings and corporate events.
"It's amazing. The growth of the firm has just been phenomenal," Bowser said.
Romito agreed.
"He is growing every year," Romito said of Bowser's operation, which accounts for a third of the food booths at the fair. There are more than 150 booths in all.
Romito said Bowser is developing devoted drinkers of his beer, and that if he wanted to begin a wholesale operation, he probably could.
"What is unique about it is that it's brewed here on-site. It is consistent with what we try to offer our patrons, whether it be a fine piece of hand-blown glass, or any of the food made by hand," Romito said.
"I think he's started to develop his own following. We get questions: "How do we find Swashbuckler outside the fairgrounds?' We have to tell all those people they can't. It would be a nice base to build from, because a couple hundred thousand people will go through the fair this year."
And if wholesaling is in the Swashbuckler's future, Bowser will have to find more time in an already short day.
"I start in January. As soon as the fair's over, I get ready for the next year," he said. "For me, it is a full-time job. The Celtic Fling in spring is the biggest weekend for beer drinking. The Celtic Fling is more of a celebration of music, so there's some more vendors here, and it's different."
Then it's time for the Renaissance Faire, which runs for several months through late summer and into autumn. Bowser said the summer months are good for sales, but business really picks up when the weather begins to cool down.
"We probably serve 400 to 500 people a day for lunch and serve 2,000 beers a day," he said. "The 20 acres here is interactive; all my personnel are dressed in period garb. We sell the fantasy, from the ticket-taker to the guy who sells you your soda, to the guy who sells you your beer. If you want to get into that mode, it's really a lot of fun."
And if $4.50 a pint sounds a wee bit pricey for Swashbuckler beer, consider the time and expense of setting up a system capable of brewing all those suds.
A new system would have cost $330,000, Bowser said, but he heard about the "Holy Cow Brewery" in Las Vegas, which was closing, and bought its system. But it was on a second story, and the sections -- the heaviest of which weighed, literally, a ton -- had to be pushed out through a window and lowered onto a truck.
"It took 14 hours to get one tank out one day," Bowser said. "Taking it apart actually helped -- everything was labeled, cataloged and photographed -- but it still took us a month and a half to put it back together, and we knew where everything went. It was a big task putting this together. We bought it for 10 cents on the dollar; we paid $39,000 with delivery. It was, "the right place at the right time.'
"A brewery is very expensive, and it's not just the tanks; it's the ancillary equipment. A valve will run $95 to $125, and I needed 40 valves. Little stuff like a new pump is $1,500. It's expensive, because it's all stainless."
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