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Beers produced by Dundee Ales & Lagers, a craft beer line from the Genesee Brewery in Rochester.

(Dundee Ales & Lagers )

ROCHESTER, NY -- Are you a fan of the beers sold under the label Dundee Ales & Lagers? You may have noticed they're not around anymore.

Dundee Ales & Lagers, a craft beer line from the Genesee Brewery in Rochester, was known for its seasonal variety packs.

Except for one: Honey Brown, the beer introduced in 1994 as JW Dundee's Honey Brown. It's still being made at the Genesee Brewery in Rochester and sold across the state.

North American Breweries, the company that owns the Genesee Brewery in Rochester and brands like Genesee and Dundee, stopped making the lineup of Dundee Ales & Lagers in 2016, said NAB corporate relations director Mary Beth Popp. The company, which spun Honey Brown off from Dundee, continues to make that beer on its own.

The Dundee lineup started with Honey Brown and included beers like Michael Shea's Irish Amber and several named for traditional beer styles, like Dundee IPA, Porter, Nut Brown Ale etc. In the 1990s, it was Genesee Brewing Co.'s attempt to get into the craft beer segment of the beer market. The separate brand name distinguished them from the legacy beers like Genesee Beer, Genny Light and Genesee Cream Ale.

More recently, in 2012, the company opened the Genesee Brewhouse in a building adjacent to its big brewery on St. Paul Street in Rochester. It includes a small, or "pilot" brewhouse, where the company is making even more innovative craft beer styles than the Dundee line.

The success of the Genesee Brewhouse Pilot Batch Series beers -- like its Salted Caramel Chocolate Porter, Scotch Ale and the recent Helles Bock and Orange Honey Cream Ale -- contributed to the decision to discontinue Dundee, Popp said. So have the continued interest in what Genesee calls its "German heritage" specialty beers, like Genesee Bock and Genesee Octoberfest.

"Both (of those) lines have been growing in popularity and we're putting our efforts behind them," Popp said.

The disappearance of Dundee from stores and bars caught some beer fans by surprise. A thread on the Facebook group, Flour City Beer (appreciation association), on Monday included a discussion of Dundee.

From FCBaa group member Steve Colburn: "Was the Dundee brand killed off? I normally look for their sampler and I cannot find a reference to it."

FCBaa member Jesse St. John responded: "Yes it was, I had to e-mail the brewery to verify... so bummed."

Much has changed at the Genesee Brewery since the launch of JW Dundee in 1994. The brewery had been owned by the Wehle family from its founding in 1878 until the late 1990s, when a group of management employees led a buyout of the Wehles. They briefly renamed the whole operation High Falls Brewing Co., with Genesee and Dundee as brand names.

In 2009, a New York City investment group called KPS bought the brewery from the managers. They created a new company, called North American Breweries, restored the name Genesee to the Rochester brewery and added other craft breweries to their portfolio, including Magic Hat of Vermont, Pyramid of Washington state and McTarnhans of Oregon.

In 2012, not long after opening the Genesee Brewhouse, KPS sold North American Breweries and its brands to the Florida Ice & Farm Co. of Costa Rica, the makers of the popular Central American brand Cerveza Imperial.

And here's a bit of trivia about the name JW Dundee. According to current Genesee brewmaster Mike Mueller, the JW stood for then brewery president John Wehle. Dundee came about because the source of the honey used in the Honey Brown was a farm in Dundee, near Seneca Lake.

Don Cazentre writes about craft beer, wine, spirits and beverages for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.