(Schenectady, NY, Tuesday, August 28, 2018) The new Frog Alley Brewing Company, located in the Mill Artisan District on lower State Street in downtown Schenectady, is getting ready to launch, and the craft brewery today announced the hiring of Master Brewers Rich Michaels and Drew Schmidt. The new brewery is named after the infamous Frog Alley baseball team that lived and worked near the site where the Mill Artisan District is located. The team was arrested for playing baseball on a Sunday in 1903 making regional and national news headlines.
Company founder JT Pollard said “Frog Alley Brewing is about having fun and making great craft brews even on Sundays. We are launching with two of the most respected brewers we could find and we are very excited to welcome them to our team.”
Rich Michaels was most recently the Quality and Innovation Manager at the F.X. Matt Brewing Company in Utica, NY. He also teaches brewing at Schenectady County Community College. Rich serves on the Board of Governor’s for the Master Brewer’s Association of the Americas. He started brewing commercially 25 years ago and completed his Diploma in Brewing at the Siebel Institute in 1997. The Siebel Institute, founded in 1868, is the oldest brewing school in the United States.