Will Cleveland

Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — If you can't go bigger, you might as well go brighter.

That's the mind-set used by the building team at Rochester's Genesee Brewery. For the third consecutive year Genesee constructed a massive keg tree outside of the Genesee Brew House.

“We added 1,500 feet of lights this year,” said Mike Gaesser, Genesee's director of packaging innovation, who oversees the project. “It gets a light count of just over 20,000. We’ve also synched it to music and running it from a computer inside the Brew House. The tree is synchronized to Christmas carols now.”

This year's keg tree was lit up during a celebration Friday evening. Hundreds gathered in the cold to witness the lighting and enjoy the Brew House's new Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Black IPA, released exclusively for the tree lighting.

“We’re having a blast,” said Dean Jones, Genesee Brew House brewmaster.

"This is one of those nights you always remember. It's a wonderful memory and I'm so happy to be a little piece of it."

The tree consists of 430 half-barrel kegs and measures 26 feet in height. It's about a foot taller than last year's tree because of a taller revolving Brew House lighted logo on top.

It's 11 layers tall, with the first two layers taking up almost half the kegs.

As soon as the tree is deconstructed, the kegs will be refilled and go back into circulation.