From Trails to Taps: Outdoor Advocacy with Boal City Brewing

[00:00:00] Brad Groznik: This is the Rediscover State College podcast. On this show, we talk to locals about how they were able to find their happy place in Happy Valley. I’m your host, Brad Groznik. Today we’re joined by the owner of Boal City Brewing and avid mountain biker, Gordon Kaufman. In this episode, Gordy and I will dive into the plans for the new skate park in State College, explore how he recommends getting involved in advocacy groups in the area, and And discover how he designed Boal City Brewing to be a meeting place for the outdoor community.

[00:00:34] Brad Groznik: Gordy, thanks so much for joining us today. Yeah, Brad, good to see you. Yes. You know, we have a long history over the last couple of years. We’ve, we’ve done a lot of work together. If you wouldn’t mind, just kind of introduce yourself to, to our audience.

[00:00:47] Gordy Kauffman: So I grew up in Los Angeles. My family moved to central Pennsylvania when I was 14.

[00:00:52] Gordy Kauffman: So like right. Around freshman year high school was, it was a shock to the system, but I I’m so happy to be living in Pennsylvania right now. Amazingly, I’ve lived in a state college area for over 30 years. So over half my life, I went to Penn state and then fortunately for me, never left. Had a remote corporate job and now I own and operate a microbrewery in Boalsburg, which is a bedroom community of state college.

[00:01:19] Gordy Kauffman: So about four miles from state college.

[00:01:21] Brad Groznik: Boal City. Huge impact on the local community over the last couple of years in high school. Did you and your friends go camping and stuff like that? When did you start getting on a mountain bike?

[00:01:31] Gordy Kauffman: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I had, I had a bike when I was four years old.

[00:01:34] Gordy Kauffman: A dirt squirt had like a little race plate on it and everything. So yeah, my friends and I in California, we rode skateboards, rode bikes. My parents definitely took us camping. So yeah, I always kind of appreciated being in the forest. Although I, I didn’t understand like. I mean, you could take it to a whole nother level, like with forest bathing, you know, where you really get into it, use all your senses and really appreciate what the forest can do for people’s health.

[00:01:59] Gordy Kauffman: I knew Subconsciously that that was going on. And then I became more mindful of it. I think over the last 10 years living here with these pristine forests, so close to us,

[00:02:11] Brad Groznik: the forest for you is a, is a wellness aspect. So like you got to get out in the woods every once in a while to feel balance.

[00:02:18] Gordy Kauffman: Yeah, for sure.

[00:02:19] Gordy Kauffman: I mean, I sometimes think that I do my very best thinking while I’m in the woods. I don’t wear like ear pods or listen to music while I’m out there. I like to take it all in. And, uh, it’s, it’s just my time to relax and appreciate the little things.

[00:02:34] Brad Groznik: So if you’re pitching people considering moving here, who have just moved here, or maybe they’ve lived here for awhile and they’ve, they’ve never kind of done mountain biking, what’s the pitch?

[00:02:45] Gordy Kauffman: There’s a strong sense of community for it. Like you pull into the parking lot, trailhead, you know, there’s a lot of like minded people there. So you can certainly develop friendships when you get involved with that kind of stuff. Yeah. I think one of the cool things about mountain biking specifically is that the manufacturers of these mountain bikes were creating very capable bikes, improved technology, so you could really get into a bike that could do a lot in the forest and make it that much more fun.

[00:03:14] Gordy Kauffman: I mean, it’s all about having fun, having a big smile on your face, you know, being a kid again, like I said, said earlier, I think. That is the big draw for me, plus camaraderie and certainly the fitness piece. I mean that’s, it’s really important. You get those endorphins going and that’s a big pull.

[00:03:30] Brad Groznik: So you mentioned some of the trailheads, that you pull up to a trailhead.

[00:03:34] Brad Groznik: One thing I’ve heard about the mountain biking around here is that it can be pretty technical and it could be actually be pretty difficult. Can you just give us a scope of what resources are around here?

[00:03:45] Gordy Kauffman: We all kind of call them the city trails. They’re on the other side of like Sunset Park, on the other side of the Arboretum, so close to campus.

[00:03:51] Gordy Kauffman: I’ve seen a lot of folks, you know, doing a lot of trail building in those areas. They’re fun. They’re flowy. They’re not super technical. You could ride from downtown State College to them. You’ve also got Harvest Field, which was really designed as a beginner mountain biking trail system. And that’s out really close to the brewery here in Walsberg.

[00:04:13] Gordy Kauffman: So those are two really good places to get started. My buddy Ryan Leach runs a clinic on mountain biking skills camp kind of thing. So we have teachers out there take classes on it. Get your confidence up. Because, yeah, once you get into Rothrock, Bald Eagle, and Mo Shannon, you do have a lot of technical features to deal with.

[00:04:32] Gordy Kauffman: So, you just need to continue to ride, and continue to take chances, and continue to push yourself. And then you can do things that you never thought you could do. And that’s sort of what I experienced.

[00:04:44] Brad Groznik: Yeah, that’s awesome. So I know a lot of that love for mountain biking and love for biking has translated now into you sitting on a number of non profit boards and also With the state college borough, you said on the transportation committee.

[00:04:59] Brad Groznik: Can you tell me a little bit about like, like what nonprofits are, are you part of and why are you doing that work?

[00:05:04] Gordy Kauffman: Yeah. So, I mean, I started with my neighborhood association. So I became the president of that. I got active with many of the biking organizations. Like I was on the board of center bike. I was on the board of the Nittany mountain bike association.

[00:05:18] Gordy Kauffman: And sort of through, through those activities. Uh, it opened more doors for me. Then I got involved in the skate park project. I was on the committee to determine whether the skate park was, it should be built in State College, and if so, what it should look like. So it was like the incubator for the skate park project, and it also led the transportation mission appointment as well, just, you know, again, advocating for more efficient modes of transportation, better infrastructure, and certainly with a focus on, on cycling.

[00:05:49] Gordy Kauffman: But for me, I wanted to make the community a better place. And so I put my mind up to it and that’s, that’s how it, that’s how it happened.

[00:05:58] Brad Groznik: I mean, that story, it’s almost a template. That I’ve seen a lot of people who get involved in State College in a number of areas, but it’s just like you raise your hand and you volunteer with one thing, all of a sudden you’re sitting on a board, all of a sudden you’re on two boards.

[00:06:13] Brad Groznik: Doors just keep opening up in this, in this town, you know, for people who do that and take that initiative. So I just want to quickly talk about the, the skate park project, because that’s where you and I met. For me, it just felt like a no brainer, like how does State College not have a skate park already?

[00:06:27] Brad Groznik: Everything that you and the team that you were working with, you know, to put it all together, you know, there’s a local pro skater named Jake Johnson who, you know, was traveling the world and then moved back to State College and he’s investing, you know, in the young skating community. It just, all the pieces seem to fit.

[00:06:45] Brad Groznik: You said you started in 2017 or 2016, maybe, so it’s been eight years of this project. But yeah, we’re really close. And, you know, can you talk a little bit about like, what it would mean for state college to have this skate park and why, how, how you’ve kept that drive for the last eight years?

[00:07:01] Gordy Kauffman: Number one, it’s like, it doesn’t exist here, right?

[00:07:04] Gordy Kauffman: I mean, there’s nothing like it. So, you know, we saw that there was some safety concerns with kids skateboarding, their boards were flying into traffic or they were up on campus and they were just, they didn’t have a place to go, you know, and it really, It was about those kids, the kids that are in the state and the BMX community, so we could create a park for them, a place for them to go, a place that’s, again, outdoor recreation, good for the mind, good for the body kind of place.

[00:07:35] Gordy Kauffman: And so just grew once we got people like Ant and Russell involved with New Line Skate Parks who built like over 400 parks and super knowledgeable about the process and just the consistent kind of outreach that we did with the community, taking our time to really make sure that we were creating a park that was for, like I said, the three, we call it an all wheel park, right, Brad, so it’s like skate parks, BMX, scooters, And creating elements for that all those different user groups to kind of cast a wider net.

[00:08:08] Gordy Kauffman: And then really the important thing there too, was to build it to a scale that. It would bring people to the area, right, to bring in visitors, which is really important when we talk to folks like the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau. Like, that’s 1 of the things that they really care about. Or if we’re applying for grants, like, those are the things that a lot of the grant applications are looking for.

[00:08:28] Gordy Kauffman: So. And then, and then once you get going down that path, like, you can’t quit.

[00:08:32] Brad Groznik: That was a great synopsis. I also gotta brag, you know, we got money from Tony Hawk’s Foundation. So, like, this is a legit, like, this is just gonna be such a cool thing, you know, when it gets built.

[00:08:44] Gordy Kauffman: Yeah, it’s one of those things too, Brad.

[00:08:46] Gordy Kauffman: Like, some, some people don’t have the vision. Like, you could look at drawings of the park and not really get a feel for what it’s gonna be. Some people, like, for this brewery, for example, they may not have vision of this. Bye. People that have the vision, I think people are going be shocked and in awe of skate.

[00:09:06] Gordy Kauffman: Beautiful. I mean, the way that it’s designed.

[00:09:12] Gordy Kauffman: Plant material in the middle of it. There’s lots of places for people to hang out, either watch or people that are skating, they can kind of chill out in a safe spot and watch other skaters. I think it’s just going to be a beautiful park.

[00:09:25] Brad Groznik: And I know you have teenagers and I have a five year old. And it’s just like anything to get them outside and hanging out with other people.

[00:09:34] Brad Groznik: So whether, you know, my daughter gets into skating or mountain biking or dance, it’s like, we want this community to have every resource for our kid to get away from, you know, the house. Just like, get out, be kids.

[00:09:46] Gordy Kauffman: Well, it’s got, it’s got to turn people onto the, well, skating specifically, it’s got to turn them onto it.

[00:09:50] Gordy Kauffman: And remember that’s, you know, skateboarding is an Olympic sport now. And so you’re going to end up with kids that they’re going to get turned on to skateboarding or BMX or scootering or whatever the case, you know, raising kids and having to deal with that, like the technology and the cell phones and the screens and all that kind of stuff.

[00:10:09] Gordy Kauffman: Yeah. Anything that we can do to get, to get kids outside.

[00:10:13] Brad Groznik: One hundred percent. So we’d love to talk about your brewery. Here’s the way I’m seeing it. I’m seeing You have a full time job remotely, you’re raising two kids, you have a great marriage, you’re on all these non profit boards, you’re trying to get out mountain biking two or three times a week, and then you have this idea, I’m going to start a brewery from scratch.

[00:10:34] Brad Groznik: How did that, why did that happen?

[00:10:37] Gordy Kauffman: Well, I created something that I wanted personally, but I kind of recognized too that I felt like it was, there was a gap there. For this type of business in this particular location. I think that, that was, those were sort of the two key elements that had to come together for it.

[00:10:53] Brad Groznik: Once you quickly describe what bowl city is, because it is one of the most unique micro breweries I’ve ever been to ever seen, and it’s just, it’s spectacular. So again, going towards that, like vision, like people didn’t quite get, see the vision until they show up and they’re just like, it’s true. It’s true.

[00:11:10] Gordy Kauffman: Yeah. Like I see, I say to my friends, they’re like, Oh, you started a micro brewery. And then, you know. It takes them a while to visit, but when they finally get here, like. Every time it’s not what they expected, you know, what we do first and foremost is we make beer. So we’re a manufacturer and we take great pride in that, but we also, it was important to offer a setting to drink the beer or whatever other beverage really comfortable and a lot of outdoor seating.

[00:11:40] Gordy Kauffman: That was really, really important to me. I felt like. A lot of other businesses didn’t have that kind of outdoor seating. So that was, that was really important, but people that come here, like we wanted to create an overall experience. So it’s hospitality. If you’re a beer lover, you’re drinking beer that you can really only get here.

[00:11:58] Gordy Kauffman: You’ve got to come here to get it. It’s great. It’s fresh. It’s become a place that if you want to see some old friends, you’ll probably run into them down here if you’re from the area. So some people like that. Some people don’t.

[00:12:11] Brad Groznik: Well, I think the people that like it end up loving State College, right? Like, for me, it’s turned in, it’s a, it’s a mini town hall.

[00:12:18] Brad Groznik: It’s like, you don’t even have to text your friends and say, Hey, I’m headed down. Cause you could just go down and be like, I wonder who’s there. Like, and, and, you know, especially on, on a nice night, the, the field is just full. People are bringing their own chairs. And, you know, surprise, surprise, it’s kind of turned into a meeting place for the outdoor community.

[00:12:37] Brad Groznik: So, can you talk a little bit about like some of the programs that you’re doing specifically at Boal City to create a community of outdoor enthusiasts?

[00:12:45] Gordy Kauffman: Yeah, so, I mean, one of the first ones that comes to mind, the Run Club, you know, so they’re here every Tuesday and they run, so the nice thing about our location is that Adjacent to us, we have a trail system.

[00:12:56] Gordy Kauffman: It’s, it’s small, you know, it’s two to three miles, but it is maintained. So there’s like wood chips and everything. So it’s very nice. And so it’s a trail run, which is sort of unique. I mean, they might hit a little bit of pavement, but it’s mostly trail running. And so that has brought like the whole run community.

[00:13:13] Gordy Kauffman: And then in addition to that, last year, we had our first annual 5k trail race. We put that together in conjunction with our Oktoberfest, which is sort of a celebratory time. We roll out a special seasonal beer for it, that’s one piece. We offer lots of bike parking here, as you know. So we encourage people to start and finish rides here at the brewery.

[00:13:40] Gordy Kauffman: Those are sort of like the key things. We just make it, we just want it to be very accommodative. For folks like if someone comes in and their bike kit after a ride, it’s great. No one’s looking weirdly at that person, you know, I wanted to have a couple sinks that were standalone, like not in the bathrooms because I wanted people if they, if they came back from a run or a ride that they could get somewhat cleaned up.

[00:14:03] Gordy Kauffman: I don’t have an outdoor shower here just yet. That might be in the future. I don’t know. But then also just having what we do is we will have like events here for. The Nittany Mountain Bike Association and many different organizations that we want to shine a light on, raise money for, and so that’s important as well, to show them that we care.

[00:14:23] Brad Groznik: So you’re clearly a State College visionary. You have that vision. What do you want for State College in the next 10 years, 20 years? What does it look like? What are you hoping to build toward?

[00:14:33] Gordy Kauffman: Having a business in Bowlsburg, of course, I’d like to see Bowlsburg continue to thrive for folks to feel comfortable and take some risks here, like starting a restaurant, doing other types of businesses that dovetail with what we’re doing.

[00:14:48] Gordy Kauffman: For example, last year, my buddy started The Bike Roots, so there’s a bike shop there. With the skate park, like I said earlier, I think that’s going to bring a lot of visitors to the area. As a business owner now, that’s really important to me. So that’s why I’m working so closely with the Adventure Bureau.

[00:15:03] Gordy Kauffman: Like, I think that’s, that’s really one of the big things. Like, I know there’s a balance there between having people visit here and having that help drive some economic growth. How do we get more people to visit here? And get to enjoy what we have to offer. I think that’s, that’s sort of where I see it moving in the next 10 years.

[00:15:23] Brad Groznik: Well, I appreciate the work that you’ve done. I appreciate the work that I’ve got to do with you. And you know, I look forward to, you know, continuing that. Now we’re going to enter our segment called How to Do the Thing, where we ask you to briefly lay out for us three actionable steps on how to do the thing, or at least how to get started doing the thing.

[00:15:41] Brad Groznik: The thing in this case is volunteering in State College to grow the outdoor community. Whether that be helping with a project like the skate park or advocating for better bike commuting infrastructure, what would you say are three actionable steps our listeners could take toward achieving that goal?

[00:15:57] Gordy Kauffman: That’s a great question, Brad. And I will say that I’d like to focus on the bike infrastructure because I think that The cycling infrastructure as it relates to commuting, just getting around town, can be improved. So I think the best way to volunteer and get involved from an advocacy standpoint there would be, number one, ride your bike.

[00:16:22] Gordy Kauffman: As much as possible. I think that that’s the best form of advocacy. So the more people we have out there riding bikes, that’s why I’m a huge supporter of bikes do get more people out on their bikes riding that in and of itself will begin to hopefully create a change. Second, I would suggest getting involved in whatever organization you think would be important for that.

[00:16:46] Gordy Kauffman: And there’s plenty of options around here. Like I mentioned earlier, center bike would be good one. So. Their mission is to create safer cycling practices, making sure you put your lights on, making sure that you know how, you know, how to change a flat tire, understand how to ride your bike, traffic, those kinds of things.

[00:17:03] Gordy Kauffman: And then once you’re, I think the third important, most important action would be once you’re involved in, in that organization, develop relationships that will support The endeavor and support you moving forward because ultimately that first volunteer work that you do or first board that you’re on, it’s just the stepping stone for the next.

[00:17:27] Gordy Kauffman: So you have to develop the relationship. Ultimately, that’s what, that’s the fabric, you know, the relationships that you develop, and that’s going to allow you and everybody else that’s working towards the same mission to actually get things done.

[00:17:40] Brad Groznik: Excellent. Well, I think this has been great talking to you.

[00:17:43] Gordy Kauffman: This has been a lot of fun. I love what you guys are doing. Thank you so much. All right, buddy. Thank you.

[00:17:51] Brad Groznik: Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Rediscover State College podcast. If you like what you heard and want to hear more, please subscribe to the Rediscover State College podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:18:02] Brad Groznik: If you want to connect with Gordy about anything we just talked about, or you just have some thoughts about outdoor advocacy groups that you would like to share with us, email us at hello at rediscoverstatecollege. com.