The next time you’re celebrating one of Bryant’s many athletic achievements, raise a glass of Phantom Farms’ Bulldog Lager. And if you’re enjoying what you’re drinking, add a toast to brewery owner Jason Macari ’90MBA, a serial entrepreneur who is quick to salute the value of his Bryant education in supporting a career that has hopped around quite a bit in the last 40 years.
Macari grew up in Smithfield, Rhode Island, not far from the Bryant campus, so even though he obtained his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, being a Bulldog was never too far from his mind.
“My dad went to Bryant. My uncle went to Bryant. My brother went to Bryant," he says. "So, it runs in the family and, was for me, a very natural choice when I was ready to go back for my MBA.”
“My dad went to Bryant. My uncle went to Bryant. My brother went to Bryant. So, it runs in the family and, was for me, a very natural choice when I was ready to go back for my MBA.”
Macari’s first job was with Hasbro, helping design toys like Transformers and G.I. Joes. Later, he worked at Davol, another iconic Rhode Island company before partnering with a former Hasbro colleague to launch a custom cabinetry business. Macari also worked as a project engineer, manufacturing engineer, and built houses, as he says, “on the side.”
“I always wanted to run my own business. I just didn't know how, and that's why I went for my MBA,” says Macari. “Jack Keigwin, my Entrepreneurship professor, owned a real estate company in Lincoln and was a good teacher and mentor. I was 39 when I started my own business, and I tell my kids that whole first 17 years of my working career was just learning.”
"I was 39 when I started my own business, and I tell my kids that whole first 17 years of my working career was just learning.”
Today, he’s involved in four businesses as President & CEO of Macari Properties, Inc., owner of infant product company Baby Delight, Inc., and owner of Phantom Farms the Phantom Farms Brewing.
As a real estate developer, Macari has built 20 residential homes and invested in commercial property, including the former mill building that now houses the brewery.
Owning his first baby product business, Summer Infant, began with taking out a second mortgage on his house to buy an existing company. Macari grew that firm’s annual sales to $265 million, then sold it and later launched Baby Delight, which company now has approximately 40 employees and manufactures bassinets, bouncers, cribs, and other related products.
The brewery opened in 2024; Macari’s son-in-law, Jay Neveu, now manages the day-to-day operations. In fact, Macari’s extended family is involved in all of his businesses: his daughter, Mary, runs the Phantom Farms agricultural operation and farm stand, for example, and opening the brewery grew out of Macari’s relationship with his oldest son, Micah.
“One of the ways we bonded in his 20s was going to microbreweries together. And that's when we said, why don't we do a brewery? We like beer,” recalls Macari. “We already had the mill, and I said this is a perfect spot for it. During COVID-19, one of the things I bought was a farm called Phantom Farms that was right up the street from my house, so we called the brewery Phantom Farms Brewing.”
While the craft beer industry is experiencing some major consolidation and transition, Macari says owning Phantom Farms has been a great experience. In addition to a beautifully renovated space in the circa 1872 Berkeley Mill building, Phantom Farms carves a unique niche with its beers, brewed by husband-and-wife master brewers Oscar Garrido and Andrea Riera, who are from Chile and Argentina, respectively.
The brewers bring an international approach to their craft that helps Phantom Farms stand out in the local market, says Macari. “They are very focused on brewing each beer the way it was originally brewed, and are very traditional in their approach,” he says.
Among the dozens of beer styles Phantom Farms has brewed so far, the most popular is the Elegant Viking IPA. The 10-barrel system also is used to brew a variety of pilsners, lagers, and other styles; house-made ciders utilize apples from the Phantom Farms orchards.
Macari has remained an involved Bryant alumni — he and his wife underwrite the Jason P. '90MBA and Martha Anne Macari Partners in Scholarship Fund, for example — and the idea to brew a beer in collaboration with Bryant arose from an Alumni Association event at the brewery.
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“President Ross Gittell came with his staff and some people from the athletics program. It was just a great night,” Macari recalls. “To be honest with you, I hadn't really thought about it, but President Gittell said why don't we do a beer together, and I said, ‘I’m in.’”
The Bryant Bulldog Lager went from idea to inception in less than a year. Unveiled in September, the beer was sold at home football and soccer games at Beirne Stadium, including in the new Navigant Credit Union Field House and the Phantom Farms Brewing Beer Garden, located behind the north end zone of the stadium.
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“The reception to Bulldog Lager has been fantastic,” says Macari. “The day after the article hit the alumni paper, I was down here at the bar, and there must have been a half a dozen people that came in asking specifically for the beer. We’ve had people wanting us to send it to them in other parts of New England and the country.”
Other Phantom Farms beers are also for sale at the stadium, and Macari is currently working on another Bryant-themed beer, this time an IPA.
“Bryant has been very, very supportive,” he says. “We sold out of the first batch immediately. Everybody wants more.”
Macari says the timing for a partnership with Bryant, a school on the rise, couldn’t be better.
“Back when I went it was Bryant College,” he says. “I'm proud of the fact that they've grown, and it’s been personally rewarding to see the positive reaction to beer. It’s been really fun to do it with the school, the athletic department, and the president.”
As fans of both beer and Bryant, we’ll drink to that.