Photo © Brewers Association

The kegs have shipped, and they’re ready to tap. Starting today, 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 grew to its largest starting in 2015, when the festival expanded to meet the rapid growth in breweries in the US. This year, GABF is expected to welcome 60,000 attendees, 798 breweries, and nearly 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 8,100 beers vying for less than 300 medals in 98 different categories. Quite simply, GABF is a big deal.

This year, New York will be represented at the festival by 18 breweries from across the state, including 5 based in New York City. Big Alice Brewing Company, Brooklyn Brewery, Chelsea Craft Brewing Company, Gun Hill Brewing Co., and Sixpoint Brewery will represent the city. It’s a repeat performance for all five breweries, who each poured at last year’s festival. Sixpoint and Brooklyn continue their long-running appearances, with Brooklyn flexing their muscle with a larger “end cap” booth for the first time in recent history.

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Blocktoberfest 2017 is set

The annual fall celebration of local beer put on by the NYC Brewers Guild, Blocktoberfest, returns to The Well on October 14th. The reasonably-priced, pay-as-you-go festival features beers from nearly two dozen breweries across the five boroughs, including Finback, Gun Hill, Other Half, Flagship, and more, with pours available in 12-ounce and 4-ounce options, so you can sample or imbibe in the beers you like. New this year is a special collaboration can release from Other Half that will debut at the festival in 4-packs… more details on that beer to come. Tickets for the event start at $10, with options to buy beers before you arrive. Proceeds from the event go to support the NYC Brewers Guild.

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The brewing floor of Sixpoint’s Red Hook brewery in 2016 (Photo: Chris O’Leary)

For the first time in over seven years, Sixpoint will begin welcoming the public to their Red Hook, Brooklyn brewery with the debut of new can releases that can be purchased through a new app. The brewery’s new native mobile app, which rolls out as a closed beta starting tomorrow (registration is available now), will let fans of their beers skip the typical waiting in line for beer, instead reserving beer directly in the app to pick up at the brewery. The first two beers will hit the app on Monday, September 25th at noon for pick up in the brewery’s courtyard on Saturday, September 30th.

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What is Zwanze Day? It’s the one day a year where kegs of the famed annually-released beer called Zwanze is tapped at select locations around the world simultaneously. The beer is made by Brussels, Belgium-based Brasserie Cantillon, a widely-respected brewer of Lambic. The beer itself varies from year to year, but it’s always released one day a year. This year’s version is dedicated to owner Jean-Pierre van Roy’s youngest son, Sylvain, to commemorate his turning 18. It’s a 2-year old Lambic blended with a semi-fermented blue-green Oolong tea.

Only 28 places in the US have the honor of pouring this beer, which all will do so at 9pm Central European Time (3pm here on the east coast). New York City has the distinction of being one of only two cities in the world with two venues pouring the beer tomorrow. The other is Brussels.

Spuyten Duyvil (350 Metropolitan Ave., at Havermeyer St., Williamsburg) will distribute tickets for a pour of the beer starting at 10am outside the bar for $14, which includes a commemorative glass. The bar itself will open at 11am and operate as normal with no admission fee – and lots of special Cantillon draft and bottles for sale throughout the day before the tapping at 3pm.

Fools Gold (145 E. Houston St., at Eldridge St., Lower East Side) will be Manhattan’s home for Zwanze Day. They’ll start tapping Cantillon kegs hourly at 11am leading up to the 3pm tapping of Zwanze. It’ll get busy, so get there early (read: before opening) and plan accordingly.

This beer isn’t bottled and distributed, and nobody would dare fill a growler with it, so these are your only chances to drink it in New York. Godspeed.

It’s Oktoberfest Season

It’s that time of the year again. Dissatisfied with having only one beer-drinking holiday each year, more and more bars and event organizers in New York have been jumping on the Oktoberfest bandwagon - offering copious amounts of beer to coincide with Saturday’s start of Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany. This year will see the return of Munich on the East River, Zum Schneider’s annual celebration with live entertainment and lots of German beer. Spots like Threes Brewing, Treadwell Park, Circa Brewing Co, and Loreley all kick off their own Oktoberfest celebrations this weekend. There’s a whole rundown of upcoming celebrations on our calendar. Prost!

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For small breweries, milestones can be a big deal. They’re also a big excuse to party. This week, two breweries in Brooklyn will celebrate a year in operation – both of which have seen massive growth in popularity and attention over the last 12 months. Get ready to celebrate Kings County Brewers Collective and Interboro turning one!

First up, Thursday night, KCBC will throw their anniversary party starting at 5pm at their brewery taproom on Troutman Street in Bushwick. They’ll have three new beers for sale in package form: cans of the aptly-named Once Around The Sun double dry-hopped IPA ($18/4-pk), plus bottles of two sours: Into the Machine Tart Cherry Barrel-Aged Sour ($15/bottle), and Full Contact Apricot Barrel-Aged Sour ($12/bottle). They’ll also have some special beers on draft, a DJ, and food. The party runs till 11pm.

Saturday, it’s Interboro’s chance to party on Grand Street, and they’re calling it their Mad Fat Anniversary. Starting at 10am sharp, they’ll be releasing cans of a beer by the same name and another called Primo Remix (both double dry-hopped double IPA), their collab with Grimm called Castle Bushburg, a hoppy pilsner to cap off the #summerofpils, plus cans of a new cocktail, their Hibiscus Lime Gin and Tonic. They’ll have plenty more on tap, including guest collabs with Pipeworks, Nightshift, Other Half, and more. The party runs till 6pm on Saturday.