The Beer That Took the Long Way to Hudson

Last fall, Jonathan Spanos and his wife, Anastasia, were driving back from upstate when they decided to pull into Hudson and look for a brewery. Upper Depot came up. They walked in. Aaron happened to be behind the bar that night, which, as Jonathan pointed out, was not even his usual post at the time.

Still, one conversation led to another, and before long the three of them were talking beer, breweries, and the kind of brewing details that tend to make strangers skip a few steps and get right to the good stuff.

Jonathan and Anastasia run a brewing company in Greece, where their flagship is a saison called Peacetime. After that visit to Upper Depot, the idea stuck with him. He and Anastasia had already been thinking about how to grow the brand on this side of the Atlantic. Aaron had been welcoming, curious, and generous with his time.

So Jonathan did what a lot of people do when they are half hopeful and half unsure: he made the call anyway.

He asked Aaron if he would be interested in brewing a collaboration saison inspired by Peacetime, the beer that had become the flagship of their brewery in Greece.

“He wasn’t looking to reinvent the wheel or create some crazy new style. He just wanted to make really good beer.”

— Aaron Maas

Aaron was in.

Part of it was the beer itself. Part of it was the people behind it.

Aaron said the connection felt immediate, and the brewing philosophy sounded familiar in the best way. Jonathan was not trying to make something flashy for the sake of being flashy. He wanted to make really good beer.

That landed.

Upper Depot has always been at its best when it remembers that not everybody walking through the door is chasing the newest, weirdest, most extreme thing they have ever had. Sometimes people just want a beer that feels right, and making that well is harder than it looks.

Jonathan came to this beer by a long route.

His father was from Greece, and he spent summers there growing up, building the kind of family connections that stop feeling like visits and start feeling like another life you belong to.

Back in New York, he worked in restaurants and beer bars for years, including during the stretch when craft beer in the city was starting to feel less like a niche and more like a real movement. He handled beer buying for a 25-line system, studied styles, got pulled deeper into the process, and eventually did what so many future brewers do: bought the homebrew kit, opened the extract, caught that first blast of sweet malt in the kitchen, and got hooked.

Later, he and Anastasia took the leap and opened a small brewery and taproom in Greece.

And somewhere along the way, one beer kept proving itself.

The spark for Peacetime Saison came from a glass of Allagash Saison and the realization that a beer does not have to shout to be memorable.

Jonathan describes that beer with the kind of admiration people usually reserve for a song or a meal they wish they could experience again for the first time.

It was balanced. Calm. Unshowy.

It knew exactly what it was doing.

That became the model, not in a copycat sense, but in spirit.

He wanted to make a saison that could act as a bridge beer, especially for people whose idea of beer had been narrowed by decades of drinking the same few lagers. Something with character, but not attitude. Something that opens the door without trying to drag you through it.

“A lightly made saison can be a bridge.”

— Jonathan Spanos

That is part of what makes saison such an interesting style in the first place.

Its roots are practical, not precious.

Historically, saisons were farm beers that changed from season to season based on available ingredients and local conditions. Consistency was never the point. Adaptation was.

Jonathan’s Peacetime Saison draws inspiration from that tradition, and Long Way Home Saison continues it—taking the spirit of the original beer and reinterpreting it through a collaboration brewed in Hudson.

The result is familiar in philosophy, but distinct in its own right: crisp, drinkable, and just distinctive enough to make you notice.

Aaron had his own reasons for wanting in.

He talked about Jonathan’s passion for the recipe and the time he has spent dialing in the softer side of saison, which is easy to miss if you think the style has to come in loud.

He also liked the chance to learn something.

One of the hops in the brew was new to him, and that alone was enough to make the day interesting.

The best collaborations usually work that way.

Not as a branding exercise.

More as an exchange—ideas, technique, trust, a little curiosity, maybe a few course corrections along the way.

And the timing could not be much better.

It is summer.

The beer garden is open. Food trucks are rolling. Upper Depot is moving into that stretch of the year when Hudson feels especially alive, and a crisp saison starts sounding less like a category and more like exactly what you want in your hand.

What makes this story stick is how unforced it is.

A brewer with roots in Greece walks into a taproom in Hudson.

Aaron happens to be pouring.

They talk.

They hit it off.

Weeks later, a phone call turns into a collaboration.

That is not some grand master plan.

It is just what can happen when a place is open enough and welcoming enough, for people to bring their stories through the door.

Soon enough, you’ll be able to taste the result for yourself.

Long Way Home Saison isn’t simply Peacetime brewed somewhere else.

It’s a collaboration shaped by two breweries, two brewing cultures, and a friendship that began with an unexpected visit.

In a way, that makes it true to the saison tradition itself.

Farmhouse brewers worked with what was available, adapting recipes to place, season, and circumstance. No two versions were ever exactly alike.

Long Way Home Saison follows that same path.

It may have started with Peacetime in Greece, but it found its own identity in Hudson.

Sometimes the long way home is the right way after all.

Long Way Home Saison Release Party

Saturday, July 11 | 2 PM–7 PM

Join us as we release Long Way Home Saison and welcome Jonathan to Hudson for the celebration.

Food is available throughout the event.

Come raise a glass to good beer, unexpected connections, and the stories that bring people together.