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Not everyone gets to turn a hobby into a career, but a liking for making homemade beer has landed Chris Leonard ’90 at the head of a Philadelphia-area inn and brewery.
Leonard, who graduated with a bachelor of arts in engineering, worked for a firm of consulting engineers until deciding he just wasn’t having as much fun as he would like.
“I wanted to be able to do something that made me happy,” the Medford, N.J., native says. “And I looked at my other hobbies of playing guitar and playing hockey and figured brewing beer would be the one I could maybe make some money with.”
Leonard enrolled in a brewer’s school San Diego, Calif., in the late 1990s. He apprenticed in the Seattle area, then worked in New York City until 1999, when he became brewmaster for the General Lafayette Inn & Brewery in Lafayette Hill, Pa.
He bought the business in 2004, and the quality beers Leonard brews have won awards, including a silver medal at the Great American Beer Festival in 2000.
While Leonard is proud of his Lafayette degree, he said the confidence and resourcefulness he learned at college helped him the most.
“I was maybe going through a mid-life crisis at 28,” he jokes. “But I knew I would be able to have the confidence to take something I loved doing and go with it. I had the knowledge that I could always get back into engineering if I had to.”
Leonard stays active in the Lafayette community by hosting alumni events. He will hold a welcoming reception Aug. 8 for incoming Philadelphia area first-year students. He also makes sure to organize a Lafayette-Lehigh football telecast party each year.
Living in the Philadelphia area, Leonard says he has learned more about the Marquis de Lafayette, for whom his establishment — and alma mater — are named. “It feels like I have come a bit full circle,” he says.