Steve Larkin never expected to become a beer guy. He’ll tell you that himself. Before moving to Waterville Valley seven years ago, he wasn’t much of an IPA drinker, and the idea of launching a craft beverage company wasn’t anywhere on his whiteboard. Yet here he is: the face behind Schwendi Bevco, the number one selling beer brand in Waterville Valley for three consecutive ski seasons, pouring pints at the Schwendi Hutte at the top of the mountain and turning up as “Schwendi Steve” as far afield as airport terminals and ferry rides to Nantucket.
Episode nine of Waterville Unwrapped features Steve in conversation with hosts Charlie and Ken — cracking open cans of Oblivion and the Schwendi German-style Pilsner as they talk — and the result is one of the more wide-ranging episodes the podcast has produced. The conversation covers craft beer strategy, community building, ski-joring, the peculiar logistics of Waterville social life, and the bittersweet news that Steve and his family are preparing to leave the valley for Guilford, even as he plans to stay deeply involved with the Schwendi Hutte.
If Ski the East Has a Beer, Why Can’t We?
The origin story of Schwendi Bevco is pure Waterville Thursday Night Race League. Steve and his business partner Jon were having drinks when the question came up: if Ski the East can have its own beer, why couldn’t Waterville? The “if they can do it, why can’t we?” logic stuck, and within roughly five months — a timeline that left their distributor, Amascake, genuinely astonished — Schwendi went from an idea with no labels to a brand moving 30 barrels of beer in a single month.
The flagship product, Oblivion, is a New England IPA that Steve calls their “gateway IPA.” It has been the top-selling IPA in Waterville Valley for three years running. The choice to keep it at 6.5% ABV turned out to be more than just a sales strategy. This past January, during one of the coldest stretches anyone can remember, every other tap at the mountain froze solid — every tap except Oblivion. “We were the only ones ripping,” Steve says. Six-point-five, it turns out, is the sweet spot that keeps beer flowing even on the coldest days.
Schwendi Bevco now has a presence in 65 to 70 bars and restaurants across New Hampshire, with distribution through Amascake covering the whole state. A German-style Pilsner has joined the lineup, and Steve is in talks about bringing a Double Diamond Pinot Noir and Rosé to shelves — the result of a connection through a college roommate who owns a vineyard in the Willamette Valley. The company name, Schwendi Bevco rather than Schwendi Beer, was deliberate: they always planned to go broader than just beer.
More Than a Beer Company
Steve’s connection to Waterville predates Schwendi Bevco by decades. He came here as a kid when his parents had a condo in the ’80s. His wife Michelle is even more deeply rooted — she attended the academy, started its snowboard program, and brought in coach Bill Enos, who went on to coach in multiple Olympics. After years of punishing commutes north of Boston and a serious look at living on a boat in Constitution Marina, the couple moved to Waterville for what they figured would be six months. Then COVID hit, and they started building things: a preschool, the Get Schwendy apparel brand, Schwendi Bevco, and a genuine life in the community.
One of the episode’s most charming stretches is Steve’s account of the annual Ski-Joring fundraiser for the Waterville Valley Preschool. The event — skiers being pulled behind horses across Craig’s golf course — was Michelle’s idea, inspired by her upbringing out west. It has grown every year. This past year it raised $22,000 for the preschool, bringing the all-time total to nearly $50,000. Cars were parked halfway down Snow’s Mountain Road. Someone drove up from Pennsylvania. Steve, who goes by “Cowboy Steve” for the occasion, describes it simply as a labor of love.
Looking Out for Each Other
The episode’s most reflective moment comes when Steve talks about what made Waterville feel like home. As a kid, he noticed that the older residents always made the younger crowd feel welcome. They talked to you like you were somebody. He sees the same thing now: he gets text messages from neighbors who spotted his kids cycling around Town Square with candy. “If that’s the worst thing they’re doing, who cares?” he says. “This community, everyone looks out for everyone’s kids.”
That spirit, Steve argues, is something Waterville shouldn’t take for granted or let slip.
The Road Ahead
Steve and Michelle are moving to Guilford before the school year starts, but Steve is quick to clarify what that means for his presence in the valley. His wife’s terms were clear: up for Thursday ski racing, working the Schwendi Hutte on Friday and Saturday, skiing Sunday. “You will be just a typical Waterville person who doesn’t live here but is here on the weekends,” Ken offers. Steve laughs and agrees.
Before the episode wraps, the three of them manage to work in a pub crawl that visits eleven stops around the valley, a pitch for a speakeasy in the unused Valley Inn bar, a proposed Schwendi-sponsored one-club golf tournament, summer dinners at the Schwendi Hutte, a pedal pub tour, and a quick mention of the bus-tracking app that Ken and Mike Furgal have been quietly developing. For a show that started with a debate about baseball players and steroids, it covers a remarkable amount of ground.
The full episode is well worth a listen — especially with a Schwendi in hand.