Beer Bash Brooklyn

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New York City Beer Week began on Saturday, February 22nd. It was the start of 10 days of craft beer events with beer tastings, beer themed food pairings and seminars throughout the city.

The beer week kicked off with the Opening Bash on Saturday afternoon and evening. That event was held at the Brooklyn Expo Center, an event venue at 72 Noble Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It’s becoming a popular spot for hosting beer/wine/spirit events.

The opening bash was sponsored by the New York City Brewers Guild whose mission is to advance New York City’s brewing industry and thereby “lessen human misery”.

It was a huge event with 75+ breweries from New York City, New York State and from around the country pouring their beer to sample with all styles represented. There was even a brewery on hand from Sweden.

At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, there were so many breweries in New York that New York State was the largest grower of hops in the country. Prohibition brought that all to an end. The last couple of decades has seen a resurgence for the beer industry in New York City and Data from the State Liquor Authority (2018) had 41 breweries throughout the five boroughs.

With such a massive amount of beer to sample, I focused my efforts on sampling any beer that was out of the ordinary. For the most part on that night that meant sampling sour beers which were usually infused with all sorts of fruits and botanicals, and any beer that was aged in various barrels which included wine, whiskey and rum barrels. For a change of pace I sampled stouts which themselves were flavored with coffee, chocolate, coconut and vanilla to name a few of the ingredients used. Surprisingly, I could only find one cider company in the house.

Some of what sampled:

Mikkeller: “Jammy Buggers” fruited sour ale.

KCBC: “Cosmic Zombie” barrel aged fruited sour ale with coffee.

Bronx Brewery: “Long Island” sour IPA, “Blacktop Stout” imperial stout.

Graft: “Lost Tropic” hop mimosa cider, “Book of Nomad” cabernet franc, black current cider.

Oxbow: “Pinkette” mixed fermented farmhouse ale with cherries

Grimm: “Purple Prose” Foeder fermented sour ale with black current and raspberries.

Icarus Brewing: “AW Raspberry” Barrel aged Russian imperial stout, “A Tale of Two Printers” Rye aged Russian imperial stout.

Interboro: “Cocotaso” Rum barrel aged imperial stout.

Collective Arts: “Origin of Darkness” Barrel aged cannoli stout, blueberry sour with cocoa nibs.

Fonta Flora Brewery: “Rhythm Rug” Appalachian wild ale conditioned on local organic strawberries.

Killsboro: “Gimme Gimme Blackberry Peach” Dessert sour.

Brooklyn Brewery: “Rosé de Ville” Spritz sour ale brewed with tart raspberry.

Screaming Hill Farm Brewery: “Ol’ Barn” Sour series wildberry.

Threes Brewing: “Dare To Know” Fruit punch, rock candy, jamba juice medley, grapefruit essence.

Widowmaker Brewing: “There’s No Wrong Way” Peanut butter stout.

Monday Night Brewing: “Situational Ethics” Praline stout.

Kent Falls Brewing Co.: “Non Linear Thought” Farmhouse pale ale with peaches and apricots.

Amor Artis: Colonel stout.

Hops & Props

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Hops & Props was a beer festival that was held on February 8th. The event took place at the Cradle of Aviation Museum which is located on Charles Lindberg Boulevard in Garden City, Long Island.

The event featured 100+ craft beer and cider scattered throughout the galleries of the museum.

The Cradle of Aviation Museum is dedicated to the history of flight with galleries showcasing exhibits from the first hot air balloons to the space program. The museum houses many restored World War II fighter planes as well as an authentic Apollo-era lunar module. That lunar module was built by the Grumman Corp. which is based in nearby Bethpage and was scheduled to fly to the moon on the Apollo 18 mission. That mission was cancelled and the craft is now on exhibit in the museum. It was a cool venue to have a beer fest.

The museum sits on the Hempstead plains, a flat and treeless (at the beginning of the 20th century at least) part of central Nassau county on Long Island which made it a natural airfield. At the dawn of the aviation age, many flight schools and flying clubs made their homes in the area. Charles Lindbergh’s took off on his famous 1927 transatlantic flight from nearby Roosevelt Field which is now a shopping mall.

Beer Without Beards

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On Saturday afternoon of August 10th I attended the second annual Beer without Beards “stumbling through the stubble of craft beer” festival.

The event which was promoted by Hop Culture is the country’s largest celebration of female led craft breweries.

It’s actually a week of beer dinners and a bottle share event ending with the festival which had 24 breweries owned by women or having women brewers.

The event was held at The Well at 272 Meserole Street in Bushwick Brooklyn. It’s a bar and performance space in the former Hittleman Brewery which was erected in 1867 in an area that was once Brooklyn’s Brewers Row. At one time there were 17 breweries in 9 blocks! The bar pays homage to that past by serving over 200 different beer.

The neighborhood is ground zero for Millennial hipsters so it’s not surprising that many of the people enjoying the festival were young and tattooed.

The event was held in the outdoor “graffiti garden” where you had the opportunity to sample the beer and chat with many of the women owners and brewers.

Breweries pouring:

Austin Street	Backward Flag
Drake’s	Fort Point
Garrison City	Harlem Brewing Co.
King’s Court	LIC Beer Project
Mikkeller NYC	Moustache Brewing
Resident Culture	Rhinegeist
Stone Brewing	Superstition
Tales	The Rare Barrel

Troegs	Twin Elepnant
Three Weavers	Two Roads

Bourbon, Brew & BBQ

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Summer is getting into high gear, wine events slack off but there are still food and drink events to attend. This past Saturday I attended the Summer session of Bourbon, Brew & BBQ. The event featured 30+ American beers, 15+ American Rye and Bourbon with BBQ bites to go along with all that.

The event was hosted at Route 66 Smokehouse restaurant at 46 Stone Street in the financial district of lower Manhattan. Stone Street is one of the oldest streets in New York and the first paved street in New Amsterdam. It was also the site of the first commercial brewery in North America. It’s now a historical district with restaurants and outdoor seating on the cobblestone streets. It’s a very popular spot during the warm months with people eating and drinking outside.

At these beer fests I usually like to try the stouts and porters or any of the funky (sour) beers I can find. At this event that had a good selection of American beer but in keeping with the season they were on the light style.

Some whiskey I sampled:

Jim Beam Double Oaked Bourbon (My favorite of the day)

Jim Beam Black Extra Aged Bourbon

OYO Michelone Reserve Bourbon

OYO Single cask Rye

Black Dirt Single Barrel Bourbon (Made in upstate NY with locally sourced ingrediants)

Black Dirt 3 year Bourbon

Redemption High Rye Bourbon

Bulleit Bourbon

Bulleit Rye

Dickel Tennessee Sour Mash 8 year

Dickel Rye

Templeton Rye 4 year

Templeton Rye 6 year

FEW Rye

FEW Bourbon

BBQ Bites

Billy’s pork belly lettuce wraps

Pork on a fork

Sarah’s famous wings

Deviled eggs

Buttery pretzels

Beer, Bourbon & BBQ Fest 2017

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The 8th annual Beer, Bourbon & BBQ festival kicked off its multi city tour this past Saturday, January 28th in Manhattan. Their motto is, Brew it, Taste it. Sip it. Pork it. It was a day of “down home Southern fried good time” to benefit the Spirit of Hope children foundation. There was plenty of beer, cider, whiskey and bbq for the crowd in addition to a DJ, cigars and beer games. The event was held this year as in last at The Tunnel event space at 608 West 28th Street on the far West side of Manhattan.

After feasting on ribs, chicken and pork belly it was time to try several ryes, bourbons and ciders. Of the ciders that I tried, Angry Orchard wooden spoon was the most interesting, bone dry with wood notes on the finish.

Seminar: High End Whiskeys

Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey Single Barrel-Barrel Proof

Booker’s Bourbon Barrel Strength

Wild Turkey Bourbon Master’s Keep 17 Year

Bib & Tucker Bourbon

Jefferson’s Bourbon Ocean Aged

Sagamore Spirit Rye

Harbor Island Beer Fest

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The past Saturday afternoon, September 24th I attend the 3rd annual Harbor Island Beer & Cider Festival. They say it’s the worlds largest beer festival with over 200 breweries pouring 400+ beers and ciders along with food vendors and live music.

The event was held under the big tents at Harbor Island Park in the town of Mamaroneck which is about a 40 minute train ride North from Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan.

Rain threatened the day when I woke in the morning but by the time I got to the event the sun came out for a beautiful day of beer and cider drinking. It was a huge event and I concentrated on the ciders and any interesting beers I could find including sours, gose, stouts and porters.

Pig Island 2016

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This past Saturday afternoon, September 10th I attended the 7th annual Pig Island Porktacular BBQ festival.

Pig Island was created in 2010 to support New York pig farmers with hogs sourced directly from small farms. This year the pork was provided by Flying Pig Farms in Shushan New York.

The outdoor festival was held on the waterfront at Erie Basin Park in Red Hook, Brooklyn which is surrounded with plenty of reminders of its industrial past with monolithic cranes and rotting piers.

Over 25 Chefs served pork-centric dishes for us to sample along with craft beer, artisan spirits and cider, and the beer and cider came in handy since this Saturday was brutally hot, with temperatures atypical for this time of year in the mid 90’s (34°). I have to give Kudos to the pitmasters who practiced their craft over a hot grill in these temperatures.