Southside doc to open Bay Shore beer plant

Richard Sobotka is an anesthesiologist at Southside Hospital in Bay Shore, but he has always dreamed of owning a small brewery.

That dream will come true this year when the doctor opens the Great South Bay Brewery in Bay Shore. There are only a handful of breweries on the Island now.

"There's a huge need" for more, said Sobotka, who was raised in the Binghamton area, where his father brewed beer for the family. "I think Long Island could use 10 or 15 of these breweries. People want good-quality, fresh beer."

The beer, he said making a comparison, "will taste like fresh fish instead of frozen fish." He said he will ferment his beer for about three weeks instead of a few days, as is the custom of many large breweries.

"Chemical reactions keep happening the longer it's fermented," Sobotka said. "All the bad stuff falls to the bottom and the good stuff stays on top, and you keep adding fresh hops to it. That's when the magical stuff happens."

Sobotka has invested about $100,000 so far in brewing equipment at a 3,500-square-foot building that will serve as a production facility. He figures he will receive his liquor license in September.

"This is my dream," said Sobotka, who worked in breweries in San Diego and elsewhere before going to medical school.

Alan Wax of Dix Hills, who writes frequently about the beer and wine industry, said start-ups face stiff competitive challenges.

"The early entries here failed" with the exception of a few, Wax said. "But micro-brewed beer has a much broader audience today than it did 15 years ago. The young people grew up wanting to taste more interesting beers."