The Great American Ale Trail - Christian DeBenedetti [117]
PHILOSOPHY
Don’t judge a beer bar—or a beer—by its size.
KEY BEER
Bear Republic’s luscious, hoppy, strong Racer 5 IPA (7% ABV) is one of the few beers that seems to be on tap constantly. It’s lush, piney, abundant, and stands with the best of the best IPAs in the world.
BROOKLYN BREWERY
No. 1 Brewers Row • 79 N. 11th St. • Brooklyn, NY 11211 (718) 486-7422 • brooklynbrewery.com • Established: 1987
SCENE & STORY
Once there were some four dozen breweries in Brooklyn, producing a fifth of the nation’s brews, today, there are just a few in operation, and all of them are products of the modern craft beer era. The most famous of them is Brooklyn Brewery, a short hop on the L train into Williamsburg and by all means worth the beer traveler’s efforts. Since former Associated Press journalist Steve Hindy and his downstairs neighbor Tom Potter founded the company in 1987 (with a ribbon cutting by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani), and especially with the arrival of brewmaster Garrett Oliver, the company’s fame and acclaim have grown. The beers are distinctive, especially the small batch brews, which are in fact crafted in Brooklyn (the rest is brewed in Utica, New York).
Visitors mingle in a rustic tavern setting (opened in 1996) in view of the shiny tanks in the company’s new 50 bbl brewhouse, where Monster (the brewery cat) is officially in charge. Friday nights have a raucous happy hour vibe and Saturdays and Sundays are for tours; many make the stop en route to other Williamsburg drinking destinations including Brookyn Bowl, Spuyten Duyvil, Radegast, Fette Sau, Barcade, the Diamond, and others.
PHILOSOPHY
Brooklyn’s beers, under avowed foodie Garrett Oliver’s watch, strive for dryness layered over a full malty backbone, and often hints of overt spiciness. Recently the company has released a slew of complex Belgian ales, collaborations, and experimental one-offs including beers made with bacon (!) and barrel-aged whimsies like Cuvée de la Crochet Rouge (his Belgian-style Local 1, a strong Belgian Pale ale, aged on botrytis-altered Riesling lees) that continue to spread Oliver’s reputation for a steadily creative hand at the kettles. More than anything though, Oliver strives for what he calls “the four pint principle.” It’s simple: “If you don’t want four pints, then I feel like there’s something that you haven’t really understood about the way the beer is supposed to be,” he explains. Sounds like a principle worth putting to the test.
KEY BEER
Brooklyn Lager, the company’s 5.2% ABV flagship (compare that to a standard Budweiser, at 5% ABV), is an unusual brew: it has the spice and fruitiness and body of many ales, but also the creamy but clean and palate-cleansing mouthfeel of German lagers (thanks to a long cold fermentation). Blast, an American-style double IPA that the brewery has quietly produced for years, is a delicious grapefruity hop bomb.
DETOUR
AN EVENING WITH BROOKLYN BREWERY’S GARRETT OLIVER
One of the most accomplished figures in the modern craft brewing world, Queens native Garrett Oliver is also among the most quotable. Over the course of an evening’s tasting in Brooklyn on a chilly December night, Oliver, who was in the midst of finishing the editing of The Oxford Companion to Beer (a tome—not his first—with 1,150 different subjects and one hundred contributing editors on board), took time to elucidate his philosophies on being a brewmaster in New York City. And Oliver, as anticipated, was the perfect host.
Getting the Williamsburg operation off the ground, he recalled, was a dicey proposition, even for a seasoned local. “There was nothing. You went outside; it was dark; you were looking over