Today we’d like to introduce you to Ricardo Petroni.
Hi Ricardo , we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I (Ricardo) started brewing in 1998, in a small apartment out of Boston MA, while doing a masters in environmental engineering at MIT. My friends gifted me a home brew kit for my birthday which quickly became part of our daily life as it sat bubbling and fermenting underneath our dining room table! Soon after finishing the masters, my wife Maria Jose and I moved back to Buenos Aires Argentina to raise our family. In 2007, we moved back to the United States, settling in Bergen county, and I was working in environmental and hydraulic engineering in projects cleaning up the Hudson river. Around 2013-2014 I decided to move on from engineering and pursue a passion project in Brewing. Soon after that, I founded Equilibrium Brewery in Middletown NY. A few years later, I stepped down from my managerial position there, sold my shares and moved on to other projects in life. However during de pandemic, I began brewing again with my life long friend Javier, who had recently moved to the area. It started out small, with a home brew set up in my basement, and eventually we found a spot in Garnerville, and founded Round Table Brewery. This brewey is owned by my wife Maria Jose, my friend Javier, and myself. We called it Round Table as a nod to a more familial feeling, where between us there is no head of the table, and there’s always room for one more. Today Round Table is run by us three, and our kids work here as well.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No it hasn’t been smooth. Since my Equilibrium days, the market has changed tremendously. I had gone in with knowledge of processes and marketing that no longer worked, so we had to adapt and quickly learn what people were looking for in the beer industry nowadays. Rising costs of raw materials, transportation and energy also pose a challenge. But I think we’re finally getting the hang of things now, and we’re finding our corner in this new industry!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
We do a huge variety of beers here at Round Table! Anything from Lagers, IPAs of different styles, stouts, porters, and recently for our third anniversary, a dopplebock! But we really started with the intention of making great Lambic Style Ales. We have a wide variety of these, which are mixed fermented with Brettanomyces yeast providing great complexity in the taste
I worked many years as a hydraulic engineer looking at all things to do with water conditions, and Javier is a pathologist. If you know about beer, you know the importance go the brewing water. At Round Table we take special care to ensure our water is appropriate for each brew. We have a reverse osmosis system in place, so when we start our brews we begin with only H2O. Then we add in any minerals to make sure the brew is just right. Thats why our beers are so crisp and smooth.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
I think networking in home-brew clubs is a great resource to get started. However, information nowadays is not lacking as the internet has a lot of great resources that were not available when I started brewing. The main thing is to practice and have patience. A lot of home brewers just do one beer and jump to another style in the next one and so on making it difficult to learn details about the brewing techniques. I find important to repeat recipes and see why they don’t come exactly the same. That is a great teacher. One of our brews, Alto Lindo, took close to one hundred iterations to get it right the way we wanted.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.roundtablebrewery.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roundtable.brewery/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roundtablebrewery
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/round-table-brewery
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RoundTableBrewery
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/round-table-brewery-garnerville?osq=Breweries
