When Great Life Brewing threw its last hurrah for the closing of its Kingston location in April 2022, they did not go quietly into the night. “We had a frickin’ party. It was nuts that day,” says Cody Lynch, head brewer of the brewery. “Food trucks, hatchets, fireworks. We went out with a bang.”
Related
Great Life Brewing: Kingston’s Best Kept Secret
It marked the end of a chapter that had started in 2017 for Lynch and even earlier for his mentor and brewery founder, Patrick Clancy. But with rising rents and property prices alongside pandemic-era uncertainty, staying put in Kingston was no longer viable. “Prices went up and we couldn’t afford to stay,” Lynch says. “We knew moving would be the best option.”
The “next best option” turned out to be something far greater: the brewery was bought by Gary and Liz Stone, owners of West Park wedding venue and microwinery Red Maple Vineyard (RMV) and Clancy’s neighbors. In November 2023, Great Life Brewing officially reopened as part of the RMV Cellars complex, a sprawling, multi-use property Lynch now shares with RMV winemaker Madi Marshall and head chef Sara Gonzalez, across the street from the venue.
“The timing fell into place really nicely,” Lynch says. “Madi was making wine for weddings; then she was also making wine for Wednesdays when they were open to the public—all out of a little tiny wine cave. She needed a bigger space and I needed a brew space. And Gary wanted something that was open all year round. Everything came together.”
Related
Great Life Brewing Purchased by Red Maple Vineyard
This new iteration of Great Life an expansive evolution of the brewery, which already had a small but cultish following at its industrial, railroad-adjacent Kingston location. Now, with 14 taps behind the bar, the brewery now offers over a dozen house beers at any given time, including five core brews and a rotating cast of seasonal and experimental releases. “In Kingston, we had our four core beers and kept slowly branching out with the limited releases,” says Lynch. “Now—it’s game on. We’re up to a little over 20 different beer varieties that we make.”
It’s been an evolution for Lynch, too, as a businessman and a brewer. “I knew that Patrick wanted to get out—he had put his time in, he’d passed on his knowledge to me,” Lynch says. “At that point I was doing everything, he was just the guidance of awesomeness. We joked that when Gary purchased the brewery that I was basically ducktaped to the head. Like ‘Thanks for your purchase, here’s your complimentary Cody.’” It was cool that Patrick felt comfortable enough to let go, but it was absolutely terrifying.” (Clancy has since retired with his wife to Spain—not a bad trade.)
Lynch is still the lone brewer (“I’ll be brewing till I die at this rate,” he says with a laugh) but he gets backup from a distinctive brewing arrangement. During the construction of the new building, he spent a year and a half brewing at Keegan Ales in Kingston, and the relationship stuck. “I brew some of our beers there on our system,” he says. “We go through so much that I couldn’t keep up. So we’re kind of brewing in two places.”
The new craft beverage destination, dubbed RMV Cellars, was constructed on a parcel of land across the road from Red Maple Vineyard’s wedding venue, which owners Gary and Liz Stone purchased several years ago. “It was a giant open field with a cool tree,” Lynch remembers. “We walked around and staked everything out. We were involved with all the decisions.” The space now includes a cozy indoor taproom complete with a fireplace, a large outdoor pavilion with a pizza station, and an Argentine-style parrillada grill used for Sunday service.
The food and drink operation is a true collaboration between brewer, winemaker, and chef. “We have a really good flow, there’s good communication,” Lynch says. “All kinds of different approaches twisted into fun.” That fun includes live music every Friday and Saturday and an eclectic calendar of events. “Last Sunday we had Big Shoe play—they always bring a crazy crowd,” Lynch says
RMV Cellars isn’t just a place to drink beer. It’s a place to experience it—along with wine and food—at the source. The award-winning wines are made by Madi Marshall, some from estate-grown grapes, others from fruit sourced from diverse wine regions including Washington, California, the Finger Lakes, and Long Island. Ten to twelve wines are on draft—“a super unique” offering Lynch says distinguishes RMV. “It significantly increases the shelf life of the wine.”
On the culinary side, the kitchen is helmed by a CIA-trained chef Sara Gonzalez, and the menu reflects that pedigree, using local ingredients in globally inspired dishes. “It’s casual, but thoughtful,” Lynch says. The food, like the beer, is crafted to match the location—fresh, flavorful, and designed to be enjoyed with a view of the sculpture garden or surrounded by hops and vines.
On the wedding side, RMV has always offered house wines, and now there are always three Great Life beers on tap, including the signature Sap Sucker saison. This distinctive beer is made entirely from maple sap harvested on the RMV property—no water. “We brewed that for them years ago as a one-time collaboration between neighbors, and it just caught on and got bigger and bigger and bigger,” Lynch says. “We did the first batch the first year. The second year, we did two times as much, the third year three times as much. Then I had to brew it at Keegan to keep up with volume, which is a wonderful problem to have. The brewing of that beer helped to lay out the foundational future of this company.”
Today, Great Life Brewing’s new home reflects that same organic growth: rooted in community, made to scale, and wide open for the next thing.“When you come up the driveway, you pass the hops, you pass the grapes… then ta-da! Here’s this awesome space,” Lynch says. “But it’s also built to grow. There is a beautiful sculpture garden, a big beer garden, and the space has so much more potential that is still untapped.”
[location-1]
This article appears in June 2025.
