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Cans on Cans on Cans this Sunday at Threes Brewing
Get Your Threes To Go
Threes Brewing has carved a beer shop out of their brewery space (333 Douglass St, Gowanus). Situated in their Ninth Street Espresso space, the shop will offer bottles, cans, and growlers from Threes and other breweries they’re fans of, including Pipeworks, 3 Stars, Other Half, and more for sale for your take-away pleasure. The shop is open Tuesday through Sunday from noon-6pm.
It’s hard to miss Singlecut Beersmiths in Astoria, one of the 23 places where you can drink beer at its source in the five boroughs. (Photo: Chris O’Leary)
What greater feeling is there as a beer drinker than drinking fresh beer straight from the source? Given the explosion in craft breweries in New York City in the past few years, it’s becoming easier and easier to do. So, for your reference, we’ve put together a list of every single place in the five boroughs where you can drink beer brewed right on the premises. Updated with this year’s newest brewery openings, these are the places where fresh beer can hit your lips within feet of where it’s brewed. Our list is sorted by borough. Here we go!
Views of Gun Hill Tavern under construction earlier this month (Source: Gun Hill Brewing Company on Facebook)
Gun Hill Goes South
The South Bronx is about to get a taste of Gun Hill Brewing Company. Their new tavern, called Gun Hill Tavern, opens for business at 780 East 133rd Street in the Port Morris section of the Bronx next Friday, November 4th at 7pm. The bar will feature Gun Hill’s beers, guest taps, plus New York wine, cider, and spirits, in addition to a menu of pub food. With the opening, Gun Hill becomes the second brewery in New York City to utilize the benefit of New York state’s Farm Brewery Law that allows for a brewery to open additional “tied house” locations that serve their beer, along with other New York state farm beverages. Rockaway Brewing in Queens opened their second location earlier this year.
Brooklyn Turning 24.5% Japanese
With its large international presence and ever-expanding global footprint, it wasn’t a huge surprise when Brooklyn Brewery announced that Japan’s Kirin would be holding a 24.5% stake in the company earlier this month. That number didn’t come out of thin air – it’s just under the 25% threshold that the Brewers Association puts on outside ownership that strips it of its “craft brewery” definition by the group (Brooklyn co-founder Steve Hindy is on the Board of Directors of the association and a past chair). The deal gives Brooklyn a boost in their efforts to expand their export market – they’re already among the largest exporters of craft beer in the U.S. – and it gives the brewery a leg up ahead of the 2018 opening of their new brewery in Brooklyn’s Navy Yard. Marketwatch’s Jason Notte has a good breakdown of the key elements that came together in the deal.
All Aboard the Trolley
Earlier this month, NYC beer vets Kelly Taylor of KelSo and Chris Cuzme of the forthcoming Fifth Hammer Brewing Co. hosted a trolley tour of several breweries in Brooklyn to raise money for City Harvest. The first tour raised $300, and building off the success of tour number one, a second tour is on the calendar for Thursday night, December 1st. The $40 trolley tour will visit four breweries in Queens: LIC Beer Project, Bridge + Tunnel Brewing, Finback Brewery, and Singlecut Beersmiths. You’ll get transportation and tours and tastings at each brewery. Get on the trolley and get your tickets now!
New Brews
Here’s a quick roundup of some of the newest releases from NYC breweries:
- Sixpoint 5BEANS Bazaar Porter, a 10% ABV Turkish-inspired porter with
cacao, vanilla, coffee, and cardamom, available in 4-packs of cans.
- Threes Temporary Identity, a 6% ABV IPA with notes of Green Pineapple, Hawaiian Punch, and Sap, on tap at the brewpub now.
- Bronx Bog Smash, the fall seasonal 7% ABV cranberry pale ale that’s on tap and in their Boogie Down Set 12-can variety pack.
- LIC Beer Project Imperial Porter, a 9.5% ABV medium bodied robust porter with notes of chocolate, roasted coffee, caramel and toffee, on tap in the taproom.
- Finback A Thousand Years, an aggressive 10.5% Imperial Stout on draft in their taproom and at venues throughout the city.
- Kings County Brewers Collective The Bald And The Beautiful, a coffee sour ale brewed for Glorietta Baldy’s third anniversary, on tap there and at sister bar Bar Great Harry.
- Interboro Bad Meaning Good and The Next Episode, both Double IPAs in cans that will release on Thursday at 5pm at the brewery taproom in Brooklyn.
The Other Side of Other Half
For those feeling cramped when they visit Other Half’s taproom, there’s some good news: relief is coming soon. The brewery acquired space in the adjoining building at 191 Centre Street and has begun work on a larger production space, more bathrooms, and an improved taproom. We’ll keep you updated as construction progresses.
Finally, Pumpkins
It’s practically Halloween, and we’re finally acknowledging pumpkin beer. We’re not the only ones, it seems – anecdotal evidence suggests the pumpkin beer backlash is in full swing, as sales are off last year’s already sluggish figures. But if you’re not one to dance on pumpkin beer’s grave, this is the weekend to drink some of it: The Jeffrey celebrates their Pumpkinfest all day Friday and Saturday with up to a dozen different pumpkin-spiked brews on tap. And Forest Hills Station House hosts their fourth Great Pumpkin Showdown on Saturday at 3pm, with 16 pumpkin beers, to be consumed in carved pumpkins. Happy picking!
Breweries from New York struck gold on Saturday, taking home the top awards in four categories at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver. The competition, which included over 7,200 beers from more than 1,700 breweries in 96 style categories, is the largest of its kind in the nation. 264 judges from 12 countries had the daunting task of tasting and scoring each beer on its merits. The well-attended awards ceremony was held in a 5,000-seat theater, where winners streamed through the aisles to collect their awards, which are presented by the Brewers Association’s Charlie Papazian, who himself was honored for founding the festival, now in its 35th year.
New York breweries came home relatively empty-handed compared to past years. Only four breweries from the Empire State won medals this year, but all of them won gold. Long Island’s Great South Bay won in the Honey Beer category for their Jetty Cream Ale. Tuckahoe’s Broken Bow took gold in the Belgian-Style Strong Specialty Ale category for their Old Split-Foot, the brewery’s first-ever GABF medal. Adirondack Pub and Brewery in Lake George earned gold for their Sour Project Ale in the Wood- and Barrel-Aged Sour Beer category, their first medal at GABF. And Brewery Ommegang’s Witte won its third medal in six years in the Belgian-Style Witbier category.
The four medals is off the state’s five last year, but this year’s haul is the most gold medals New York has won at the festival since 2002, when the state’s brewers took home five golds.
The night prior to the awards, the Brewers Association also hosted Paired, a unique event within the festival that matched 21 breweries with 21 chefs from around the country that features small plates and beers that highlight the flavors of both. It’s another step in the BA’s efforts to heighten the food and beer experience as high-end restaurants start to recognize the importance of craft beer. Among the highlights were an oatmeal blood sausage from Clyde Common in Portland, Oregon paired with the Bear Paw Milk Stout from Joyride Brewing, and beet chicharrones from Park Kitchen (also in Portland) paired with Oskar Blues’ Droppin’ Beets, a beet saison.
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 a play on a beer the brewery made 30 years ago, when Cantillon would add cherries to help filter out their raspberry lambic. In place of cherries, this year’s Zwanze uses blueberries, so it’s a lambic aged on raspberries, blueberries, and vanilla. Yum.
Photo © Brewers Association
The kegs have shipped, and they’re getting their bags packed. Next week, brewers from across the country will decent 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 last year, when the festival expanded to welcome 60,000 attendees, 750 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 7,000 beers vying for less than 300 medals in 92 different categories. Quite simply, GABF is a big deal.
