Tag Archives: Craft Beer

Hey, NYC: It’s Time to Drink Schlafly, Pyramid and Wild Onion

Posted on May 23, 2013 | Leave a comment

Schlafly-beer-truckPhoto: SixPackTech.com

So far, this has been a very good year for New York craft beer. New breweries such as SingleCut, Radiant Pig and Bridge and Tunnel are pumping out lip-smacking local beer, while taverns such as Tørst, Skinny Dennis and Dead Rabbit  are raising the bar on, well, bars.

While I’ve been so focused on the city’s homegrown talent, I’ve barely noticed the slow, steady wave of beers flowing into town. It’s time to take pause and recognize the newcomers to our fair metropolis. Here are three of the newest breweries to know and, more importantly, drink.

Wild Onion Brewery
Head northwest of Chicago and you’ll hit Lake Barrington, Illinois, which since 1996 has been home to Wild Onion. The brewery and brewpub may lack the Midwest cachet of, say, Goose Island, but Wild Onion cranks out dependable, session-focused beers sold by the can. With the weather starting to heat up, you’ll want to start with the orange peel–driven Summer Wit or the well-hopped Paddy Pale Ale. Don’t worry, double IPA junkies: the Hop Slayer will soothe your bitter heart.

Pyramid Breweries
Pyramid is one of the sage old brands of the craft beer revolution, having been born way back in 1984 as Kalama, Washington‘s Hart Brewing. After the early ’90s success of its Apricot Ale, which helped kick off the burgeoning fruit-beer category, Hart rebranded itself as Pyramid—named after its flagship Pyramid family of beers.  Though the brewery is now owned by Cerveceria Costa Rica, Pyramid still makes dependably delicious beers such as the refreshing Hefeweizen, floral Thunderhead IPA and the Outburst Imperial IPA, which is flavored with of-the-moment Falconer’s Flight hops.

Schlafly
While St. Louis may be synonymous with Budweiser (well, before Anheuser-Busch was bought by a sprawling international company), the city’s most beloved brewery might just be Schlafly. Since 1991, the independent craft brewery has won over the local citizenry with its stellar lineup that ranges from a delicately fruity Kölsch to a silky, coffee-influenced Oatmeal Stout, aromatic Dry Hopped APA. Add to that an imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels and one of my favorite barrley wines in the county and you’ll understand why Midwest expats celebrated the brand’s May arrival. Schlafly is one of America’s most versatile, vastly underappreciated breweries.

This story was originally published on my Craft Beer New York app. Click here to check it out.

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What Is Beachwood Brewing Doing in Brooklyn?

Posted on April 3, 2013 | 3 Comments

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Beachwood Brewing’s high-tech Flux Capacitor, which might just be the future of draft beer.

At last October’s Great American Beer Festival in Denver, Colorado, I drank enough beer to swell my liver to the size of a cantaloupe.

This is as pleasurable as it is painful. I do not recover from hangovers quite as quickly as I used to, forcing me to wear sunglasses indoors and swallow Ibuprofen by the fistful. But my desire to overindulge is an important one, dear readers: to inform you about the best new breweries I wish we had in New York.

One of my top discoveries in 2012 was Long Beach, California’s Beachwood Brewing. On a tiny 10-barrel system (a bit more than 300 gallons at a time), the BBQ restaurant (it also has a location in Seal Beach) cranks out a dizzying array of top-of-their class IPAs such as the tropical, resinous Amalgamator; citrusy and melony Citraholic; and the Hop Ninja, which is dry-hopped four times with Simcoe, Amarillo and Columbus hops. The bitter gems are complemented by globe-hopping beers including the toffee-touched Full Malted Jacket Scotch ale, nitrogen-dispensed Bulldog dry Irish stout and Mocha Machine, an imperial-strength coffee and chocolate porter. Sounds tasty, right?

Darn skippy. Too bad most of Beachwood’s beers are reserved for its two BBQ restaurants and a handful of accounts in Southern California. To get another taste of these terrific nectars, I’d need to book a flight to the West Coast. At least was the case until March, when a plane ride was exchanged for a train ride. Continue reading →

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The Best Places to Drink Craft Beer in London

Posted on March 27, 2013 | Leave a comment

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The Southampton Arms

The beer scene in London has exploded over the past 18 months: the city now boasts more than 40 breweries and each week, it seems, a pub converts to the gospel of good beer. Here are the five best places to drink beer in London, as chosen by Will Hawkes, author of Craft Beer London:

1. Craft Beer Company, Clerkenwell (82 Leather Lane, Clerkenwell, EC1N 7TR). There are now three Crafts in London, but the best in terms of beer selection remains the original. As many as 16 real ales are on at any time – and there’s plenty of kegged and bottled beer too.

2. Euston Tap (190 Euston Road, NW1 2EF). This handsome building, in the shadow of a rather less handsome station (think Pennsylvania Station), may be small but the beer is excellent and generally a little bit cheaper than at other ale shrines.

3. Well and Bucket (143 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG). At the top of Brick Lane, you’ll find the newest unmissable pub on London’s craft beer map. The old-school tiling, elegant island bar and well-kept beer makes a couple of pints here a very enjoyable experience indeed.

4. The Southampton Arms (139 Highgate Road, NW5 1LE). It only opened a few years ago, but forget that: this is what an old-school boozer should be like. Lots of cask ale, scotch eggs and a piano in the corner. Cash only!

5. The White Horse (1-3 Parson’s Green, SW6 4UL). There’s been good beer here for eons, and it’s a pretty attractive place too. Find yourself a place at the bar and work your way through the impressive Belgian selection.

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Meet Radiant Pig, New York’s Newest Brewery

Posted on March 21, 2013 | 1 Comment

pig_600x444_scaled_croppOnce upon a time, a new brewery opening in New York City was as uncommon a sight as, say, a dolphin in the Gowanus Canal. But these days, nary a month goes by in the Big Apple without another beer maker appearing on the radar.

Or completely flying under the radar. I pride myself on staying current on the newest craft breweries in town, so I was a bit blindsided (in a good way) by this week’s arrival of Radiant Pig Craft Beers. Where had they come from? And, more importantly, what was up with that name?

First things first, the brewery is the brainchild of Rob Pihl and his girlfriend, Laurisa Milici. For years, Pihl had been an avid homebrewer in his Manhattan apartment. Milici loved drinking beer. So it was sort of a no-brainer that, when they were looking to make a break from their advertising gigs, that they turn their passion into a profession.

Pihl spent several years trying to dial in the recipe for a moderate-strength IPA with plenty of citrusy aromatics. You know, something you could drink by the growler and not be a slurring, stumbling wreck. Finally, he hit upon the perfect hop to use: Falconer’s Flight, a proprietary blend of seven citrusy, tropical, floral varieties.

“It was a blend that was perfect for us,” Milici says. “It brings a unique flavor to the beer,” which became known as Junior IPA—the offspring of a pale ale and an IPA. It would be the flagship of their brewery,  which would be known as Radiant Pig. Continue reading →

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Craft Beer New York: On Android!

Posted on March 11, 2013 | 1 Comment

drunk-robotYou asked. We listened. At long last, my Craft Beer New York app is not only available on iPhone. We’ve now created an Android version. As the drunk robot would say, “Awesom-o!”

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Fantastic Four: Great New Beers in New York

Posted on February 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

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This post originally appeared on Craft Beer New York.

Every time I go to my local bottle shop to buy a six-pack or three, it seems like there’s another new beer or brewery gracing the shelves. Despite my ongoing drunkenness, I am not hallucinating. Brands are entering the New York City market at a dizzying clip. Here are a few of my favorite new arrivals to seek out.

Sixpoint 3 Beans: To build this burly Baltic porter (hello, 10 percent ABV), the crew from Brooklyn’s Sixpoint turned to a blend of wheat, barley and, yes, three beans. The first is Stumptown Coffee, while the second is husked cacao beans from Brooklyn’s Mast Brothers Chocolate. And the third bean, well, that’s no obvious. It’s a Romano bean, which was once used to extend the fermentable power of barley and, in a nice twist, contribute proteins to create a rich, luscious body. As a finishing touch, the beer was aged in toasted oak barrels for three weeks, resulting in a creamy, silky indulgence sold by the can.

Troëgs Nugget Nectar: For hop heads, January and February are the cruelest months. Brewers have turned their attentions to barley wines and stouts, mothballing bitter beers until the spring or summer. That’s not the case at Hershey, Pennsylvania’s Troëgs, which uses these months to release its highly covetable Nugget Nectar, the ratcheted-up version of the year-round HopBack Amber Ale. The imperial Nugget’s caramel-malt flavor is complemented by a fresh, floral perfume. It’s now available in bottles. Look for it in draft later this month.

Bayou Teche: While the South has long lagged behind in the craft-beer game, it’s recently begun to catch up thanks to wonderful new breweries such as Louisiana’s Bayou Teche. (Currently, much of its beer is brewed by Mississippi’s Lazy Magnolia.) Based around an hour outside Baton Rogue in Arnaudville, Bayou Teche is the brainchild of brothers Karlos, Byron and Dorsey Knott. Their focus is beers designed to complement Cajun and Creole cuisine. Currently, New Yorkers can try the biscuity LA-31 Bière Pâle and the Passionnè wheat beer, which is made with passion fruit. In the future, be on the lookout for my favorite release, Bière Noire. The robust, subtly smoky dark brew tastes of dark-roasted coffee, but it still drinks crisp and surprisingly dry.

Lakefront Brewery Fernet Stout: Eben Freeman is the bartending equivalent of Mr. Wizard, smoking Coca-Cola, infusing bourbon with cigars and creating “white Russian” Rice Krispies that are twice soaked in Kahlúa and dehydrated, then set adrift in a bowl of simple syrup, vodka and milk. Now Freeman is turning his talents to beer, collaborating  with Milwaukee’s Lakefront Brewery to create Fernet Stout. It’s based on the recipe for the Italian amaro Fernet, and the beer is brewed with ingredients including dried orange peel, star anise, clove, lemon verbena, fennel and saffron. The bitter beer is available on draft at Nicoletta Pizzeria and Osteria Morini.

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From Lebanon, With Beer: Meet 961

Posted on January 29, 2013 | Leave a comment

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961 Beer founder Mazza Hajjar.

When it comes to foreign beer being imported to the U.S., there’s plenty of buzz about brewers from Denmark, Italy and even Spain and France, a nation better known for its love of grapes than grains. But the craft beer revolution is not confined to continental Europe. Lately, craft breweries have begun to crop up in Beijing, India and, perhaps most surprising of all, Beirut, Lebanon.

This month marks the stateside arrival of 961 Beer, Beirut’s first craft brewery. The firm was founded in 2006 by Mazen Hajjar, a former investment banker who ran two airlines before catching the brewing bug. “I bought every book on beer on Amazon and taught myself to brew,” says Hajjar, who took his greatest inspiration from Beer School by Brooklyn Brewery founders Steve Hindy and Tom Potter.

Hajjar began homebrewing, taking his inspiration from Britain’s balanced brewing traditions. He tinkered with porters and English-inspired pale ales, conducting endless “research sessions” with friends and colleagues.

Then one day came a knock at the door. Continue reading →

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A Toast to Long Island

Posted on January 22, 2013 | Leave a comment

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This post originally appeared on Craft Beer New York.

After a long, well-lubricated holiday weekend, the last thing I need is another beer in my belly. I should stick to water, with a cleansing salad thrown in for fun. But common sense has never been my strong suit. Tonight, I’ll no doubt find myself with a beer in hand. After all, it’s the charitable thing to do.

Today marks the release of Surge Protector IPA, which was brewed to benefit the food bank Long Island Cares and Barrier Brewing. Though the Oceanside brewery is now back up and running after getting socked by Sandy, the bill for repairs topped more than $100,000. To help defray the costs, Long Island’s best brewers gathered at Blue Point in December to brew a collaborative beer.

Representatives from Greenport Harbor, Blue Point, Blind Bat, Long Ireland, Spider Bite, Port Jeff, Great South Bay and Barrier all bandied about ideas for the brew, settling on an easy-drinking IPA that checks in at a quaffable 5 percent ABV. Each brewery donated ingredients for what became a 30-barrel batch of Surge Protector.

While most of the beer is earmarked for bars and bottle shops on Long Island, a small amount of Surge Protector will wash up in New York City. Look for the IPA at Brooklyn’s 61 Local and Alewife Queens, as well as the Bronx Alehouse and the Hell’s Kitchen location of Pony Bar.

Don’t feel guilty for having a second, or even a third pint. After all, drinking is merely the charitable thing to do.

P.S. Check out this video detailing the process of brewing and bottling Surge Protector.

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Craft Beer in Rome

Posted on January 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

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Photo: Parla Food, which offers awesome craft beer tours in Rome

Last time I was in Italy, I was a pimply collegiate backpacker subsisting on cheap pizza, even cheaper wine and the desperate desire to find a lass to lay me in a hostel. I failed miserably on that front, leading me to drink even more rotgut wine to drown my perceived sorrows. I left Venice and Florence with vile hangovers and an unhealthy dose of regret.

Was it the lack of love? Hardly. Celibacy was the unfortunate status quo on that trip. The bigger regret was that I never made it to Rome, a city I foolishly skipped because…I don’t remember. I was drunk a lot during that European backpacking sojourn. I made many terrible, irrational decisions with my travel itinerary, most notably sleeping in an Amsterdam park after ingesting hallucinatory mushrooms. Let me tell you: Being awoken at dawn by drug-peddling bicycle riders is, quite possibly, the world’s worst alarm clock.

Now that I’m older and (somewhat) wiser, I wish to correct a few of my youthful missteps. Crowning my list is a long-delayed trip to Rome. The journey is not for the museums or restaurants, but rather the beer. Stick with me here. In the mid-1990s, there was virtually no craft beer commercially produced in Italy. Today, there are around 400 breweries, 140 of which were established between 2008 and 2010. Italian breweries are using indigenous ingredients such as basil, chestnuts, grapes and roses to create beers every bit as complex as wine. Continue reading →

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Port Jefferson Comes to Brooklyn

Posted on January 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

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A decade ago, the Long Island craft brewing scene could be boiled down to two major players: Blue Point and Southampton. Besides them, craft brews were tough to come by on Long Island, much less New York City. But in the last few years, breweries in Long Island have been popping up like mushrooms after a spring rain.

Greenport Harbor, Long Ireland and Blind Bat are among the many breweries that are crafting excellent beers for Long Island residents and New Yorkers alike. And the latest Long Island brewery to expand distribution to New York is Port Jeff Brewing Company, the brainchild of Port Jefferson’s Mike Philbrick.

After more than a decade spent homebrewing, Philbrick decided to go pro. He turned a Christmas-supply shop into the first brewery in this harbor-hugging town on Long Island’s North Shore. On a seven-barrel system, Philbrick crafts full flavor, no-hops-spared beers that honor the town’s shipbuilding past.

The flagship Schooner Ale is the most approachable beer, a malty-citrusy marriage of English and American brewing traditions. Better still is the Runaway Ferry Imperial IPA, which is made with smoked malt, and the Low Tide Black IPA that receives a tropical edge due to Citra hops. The honey-sweetened porter also ain’t half bad, and come summer you’d be happy to sip the White’s Beach Wit.

Tonight at 7 p.m., Bierkraft hosts the brewery’s big Brooklyn debut. Seven Port Jeff beers will be on tap, including Schooner, Runaway Ferry Imperial Smoked IPA, Low Tide and a couple cask ales, notably the Starboard Oatmeal Stout primed with Port Jeff Birch Beer.

Trust me: This brewery will be your favorite new port of call.

This post appeared in my iPhone app, Craft Beer New York.

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Rebuilding Barrier Brewing

Posted on December 18, 2012 | Leave a comment

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One of my favorite breweries in New York is Barrier, which Sixpoint vets Evan Klein and Craig Frymark have built up from a one-barrel nanobrewery to a five-barrel brewhouse with an eye on spreading their inventive, hop-forward ales across New York City and the region.

Well, that was the case until Sandy socked Barrier. Its name proved scant protection. Water rushed into the brewery, knocking equipment asunder and coldly, quickly destroying everything. This blow hit doubly hard, mainly because Barrier had just moved into its larger, newer—and more expensive—space four months earlier. The damage was to the tune of $100,000, a tough nut to scrape up for a couple brewers barely scraping by.

But the New York brewing community does not allow disaster to knock down its brothers and sisters. What Barrier needs to do is sell beer on the double, which is where Brewery Ommegang comes into the story. The Belgian-focused brewery has opened up its brew kettles to the crew from Barrier.

“Ommegang is a brewery we’ve always been inspired by and have admired and to actually be here on the ground making a beer with them is a really exciting thing,” said Barrier’s Frymark.

The crew designed Barrier Relief Ale, a Belgian-style IPA that Ommegang will cook up. There will be around 400 kegs, which will be sold under the Ommegang label with the proceeds directly benefiting Barrier. The beer should be hitting tap lines shortly after the New Year. Hopefully, Barrier we’ll be back in business before then.

“We’re rebuilding. We’ve reordered all of the equipment that we need to be operational again,” explained Barrier’s Klein. “The goal is to be up and running before the year is out.”

And we’ll drink to that.

P.S. Also of note: Ommegang will soon release a Game of Thrones–inspired beers.

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The United States of Beer

Posted on December 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

usbeer-940x500Now that’s a flag!

I spend much of my year on the road, traveling from town to town, state to state, drinking my fair share of local beer. I know, I know: It’s a tough job. And it really is! Have you ever tried to wake up at 7 a.m. and written a 2,000-word story with a jackhammer pounding away at your grey matter? That is no way to live, my friends.

But anyhoo, all that travel and beer drinking paid off for my first contribution to the new food and drink website, First We Feast. For the United States of Beer, I helped pick some of the best beers in each state. While the list may not be exhaustive, it is a fun one to debate. And it’ll tell you just what the heck you should drink in Nevada and New Mexico. Curious? Check out the tale!

 

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