Where every brewer knows your name
An 'old Nantucket' holdout, Cisco Breweries makes room for more friends with a new layout
By Marli Guzzetta + Independent Arts Editor
Cisco Breweries' newly renovated tasting bars are a kind of oasis of Nantucket ease.

Clockwise from top left: Randy Hudson pours a beer in the Cisco Brewery tasting room; last year's Air band champions hang outside on a perfect day; the bar in the Triple Eight tasting lab; guests play Ring the Bull in the courtyard.

You enter via a little arbor, with parking spaces cleared out just last week, to the greetings of pleasantly unrefined handwritten signs. Lush planters and surrounding indigenous vegetation anticipate your entry to the courtyard, designed by Chip Webster and Associates to be a kind of common space between three distinct little buildings - one with beer from Cisco Brewers, one with wine from Nantucket Vineyard and one with spirits from Triple Eight Distillery.

"I feel like I'm on vacation every time I come out here," said year-round resident and Mind's Eye project coordinator Eve Messing.

Young guys in flip-flops and board shorts play "ring the bull," while others listen to a friend goof around on a guitar, and an enormous white lab named Duke sleeps in the middle of the courtyard. Cisco co-owner Randy Hudson is nearby, gardening in preparation for the Blooming Bids for Kids - an auction of lush planters to benefit Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Nantucket to be held Thursday of this week.

Cisco brewmaster Jeff Horner holds his newest creation, the Indie, a bold beer heavy on the hops. Currently, it's only available at the brewery.

"It's definitely more welcoming to people," said Hudson.

With the exception of the beautifully designed, yet casual and rustic bar spaces, it looks a little bit like a grill out in someone's backyard. Each building has its own outdoor table or enclave with Adirondack chairs, allowing people to sit with their company without feeling cut off from the general activity of the whole place.

"I think you get the more genuine article out here, probably what the island used to be like," said the man with the guitar, Chris Johnston. "We're young bucks out having fun, and we've been hanging out here for a few years."

At first, Johnston was apprehensive at the idea of the breweries expanding to include more people. "But it still has that intimate atmosphere," he said.

BARBARA GOOKIN/The Independent Jay Harman and Randy Hudson hang out at the Brewery on a Saturday afternoon.

The breweries opened the new spaces up last month and cleared the construction equipment just last week. Up until last summer, Cisco was offering a tasting bar out of the same hangar that housed its brewing vats. Building codes, however, required separate spaces for the service of liquor and the subsequent renovations turned out to be a blessing. The owners say the new spread will allow them to host winetasting and beer-tasting dinners.

In the last three years, the brewers on Bartlett Farm Road have had some big successes - including write-ups in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and even beer made available at Fenway Park.

The friendly atmosphere of the breweries reflects its homey origins.

Dean and Melissa Long bought the property after founding Nantucket Vineyards in 1981. Cut to the early '90s, Randy and Wendy Hudson were a young couple with a gift for brewing beer and a need for housing. The Longs put them up in the loft over the winery, the beer business grew and then, in 1996, the quad became a quintuplet when it acquired Jay Harman out of Fairfield University. Within two years, the company was brewing hard liquor, and the market for its products has grown consistently.

In its new facility, the brewery samples products not yet released to the public, like Jeff Horner's Grey Lady ale - as light and fresh as lambic, but with a bit more Quaker stoicism. It's poured on tap in the Cisco building while bartender Jonas tries out horseradish and peppercorn vodka (mixed with tomato juice and fresh lemon) on the Triple Eight side. The resident mixologists have been using locally grown produce to create new flavors.

"I've had so many people come out here and say, 'It's like you've sliced off

a little bit of Napa,'" Hudson said. I