November has flown by, but we’d like to run down some things of note for those of us who stick around the city for Thanksgiving.
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After over ten years pioneering craft beer in Midtown, Rattle-N-Hum East will serve its last beer on November 25th.
Last year’s sold-out Blocktoberfest at The Well (Photo: Chris O’Leary)
The annual fall celebration of local beer put on by the NYC Brewers Guild, Blocktoberfest, returns to The Well this Saturday, October 6th starting at 1pm. The festival features beers from over two dozen breweries across the five boroughs, including Finback, Fifth Hammer, Other Half, Lineup, and more, all based in New York City. Breweries will be bringing their A-game, with some rolling out some special brews for the occasion. And, like last year, there’s a special collaboration can release as part of the festival, too.
Braven Brewing Company (52 Harrison Pl, at Morgan Ave, Bushwick) is the newest addition to Brooklyn’s brewing scene with its opening this week off the Morgan Avenue stop on the L Train in Bushwick. Brewery co-founders Marshall Thompson and Eric Feldman launched Braven as a contract brand in 2015, but the beer had never been brewed in the five boroughs until just a few weeks ago, when it fired up its brewpub on Harrison Place in the former Lantern Hall space. Like most things in New York, the brewpub packs a lot into a small space, with a wedged-in 3-½ barrel brewhouse and fermenters, plus with a kitchen, seating, and a bar.
Gun Hill co-founder Dave Lopez, Brewers Assocation Founder Charlie Papazian, and Gun Hill brewer Chris Prout (left to right) pose on stage with the brewery’s bronze medal at Great American Beer Festival on Saturday (Photo: Chris O’Leary)
Three New York state breweries, including one in New York City, took home medals at this year’s Great American Beer Festival in Denver this weekend. Genesee Beer in Rochester, Gun Hill in The Bronx, and Captain Lawrence in Elmsford all scored wins in the 32nd annual edition of the competition, which featured nearly 8,500 beers from over 2,400 breweries across the country in 102 categories. While the most entered category this year was the new Juicy or Hazy India Pale Ale category with 391 entries, New York’s winning beers placed in lesser-known categories that still featured a significantly larger field than earlier years as the number of breweries nationwide has ballooned.
Photo © Brewers Association
The kegs have shipped, and they’re ready to tap. Starting Thursday, brewers from across the country will descend upon Denver, Colorado for the Great American Beer Festival, the nation’s largest celebration of American beer. The event has been held since 1982, and continues to become larger every year to meet the rapid growth in breweries in the US. This year, the festival will cover 584,000 square feet of floor space – the size of ten football fields. GABF is expected to welcome 62,000 attendees, over 800 breweries, and 4,000 different beers poured over four sessions on three days. And it’s also a competition – one of the most prestigious in the world, with close to 8,300 beers vying for over 300 medals in 102 different categories. Quite simply, GABF is a big deal.
