Sixpoint’s new Chief Product Officer Eric Bachli (Photo courtesy Sixpoint)

Sixpoint Signs on Head of Product Development

Brooklyn-based Sixpoint made a new hire this week: Eric Bachli has been named their Chief Product Officer, heading up a new Product Development team tasked with maintaining their existing beer lineup, rolling out new limited beers, and launching a new small-batch series. Bachli’s credentials might be one of the more noteworthy points of this hire; he comes from Massachusetts-based Trillium, where he was head brewer and oversaw the massive expansion of the brewery from Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood to its new Canton facility. Bachli joins industry vet Horace Cunningham, Sixpoint’s Memphis-based VP of Brewing and Quality, to form the new team. The brewery says the small-batch series is “imminent,” and those new beers will start to roll out this fall.

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The newly-expanded Other Half Taproom is new open (Photo: Samuel Hallé for Brew York)

Other Half’s Got a New Look

Late last year, we hinted that Brooklyn’s Other Half would have a new, expanded taproom soon. Soon is now, as they opened their more spacious space in the adjoining building at 191 Centre Street in Gowanus. No more cramped dark rooms – the new space is well-lit, has tables, a long bar, and 20(!) draft lines. There’s also wine and cider, so you no longer feel like you’re dragging your non-beer-drinking friends to their taproom. The taproom’s hours and tap list are on Other Half’s brand spankin’ new website.

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The state’s top award goes to a beer brewed right here in New York City

Several New York City breweries won honors in the New York State Craft Beer Competition, the state’s first professionally-judged state-sponsored competition, including one city brewery that took home the top honor. A panel of 40 judges tasted a lineup of beers from across the state in Rochester last weekend and announced the winners today. The Vliet Pilsner from Threes Brewing won the Governor’s Excelsior Cup, the top honor in the competition, which featured over 700 entries from 143 New York breweries in 20 different beer style categories. In all, brewers from New York City took home 14 of the 64 awards in the competition. 

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After years in the making, Brooklyn’s Five Boroughs Brewing Co. opens to the public this weekend in Sunset Park. The brewery, situated in an old steel fabrication plant that railroad cars would roll through, boasts a 30-barrel brewhouse, a sprawling production floor, and a beautiful taproom with high ceilings and plenty of seating space. That taproom will start pouring this weekend, with a launch party on Saturday that runs noon to midnight.

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Brooklyn adds partners in California, Colorado

Brooklyn Brewery continued their head-spinning sequence of business announcements this week with news that they have acquired minority stakes in both San Leandro, California-based 21st Amendment Brewing and Fort Collins, Colorado-based Funkwerks. The deal includes aligning sales forces for all three brands nationwide, and ultimately expanding their distribution footprint in the US (it may surprise New Yorkers to learn Brooklyn’s beers are still not available in California). It’s Brooklyn’s first big move in the US since Japan’s Kirin acquired a 24.6% stake in the brewery last fall, which has been followed by announcements of Brooklyn partnerships in London, Hong Kong, and  Klaipeda, Lithuania. For New York beer drinkers, this week’s news really has one significant impact: Funkwerks’ range of farmhouse, sour, and barrel-aged beers will eventually show up here in the city.

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Brooklyn has a new brewpub starting today, with the opening of Circa Brewing Co (141 Lawrence St, Downtown Brooklyn). The 6,000-square foot space boasts a lineup of beers made in house, wood-fired pizzas, and wines and cocktails for the beer-averse. Circa’s opening marks the 31st brewery in New York City, and the 5th to open in the city this year.

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