The Kings (County) of Brooklyn Beer | Draft Magazine

This story was originally published in Draft Magazine in 2013.

I can track the evolution of Brooklyn beer through my crappy bodega. Back in January 2003 when I moved to then-hardscrabble Crown Heights, my corner store’s coolers were filled with Coors, Bud tallboys and a wealth of low-cost malt liquor. Occasionally the bodega stocked six-packs of Brooklyn Lager, but the beer’s freshness, like that of the milk, was hardly guaranteed. As the years disappeared, I noticed a steady, upward shift in my bodega’s beer offerings. Harpoon appeared, then Lagunitas, Goose Island and Bear Republic. Simultaneously across Kings County, better beer began bubbling up. Craft-focused bars such as Barcade, Bar Great Harry and Pacific Standard became IPA-dispensing neighborhood anchors. Bierkraft introduced the take-home growler. Sixpoint opened in Red Hook, concocting hoppy ales that tapped the thirsty market for locally crafted beer. Brooklyn Homebrew and Brooklyn Brew Shop made apartment brewing a snap. Today, Brooklyn’s beer scene is firmly on the national map. But that’s not enough for a quirky cast of passionate entrepreneurs and innovators, who are transforming Brooklyn into a world-class beer destination. From an Evil Twin’s epically ambitious bar to a bespoke bottle shop run by a former pro basketball player, here are five key projects destined to alter Brooklyn’s carbonated landscape. 

Kings County Brewers Collective
Opening a brewery in Brooklyn is an easy path to bankruptcy. Real estate is expensive. Licensing is complex. Then there’s the matter of raising funds for construction and equipment. The undertaking is often too onerous for a single homebrewer looking to make the professional leap. That’s why a homebrewing foursome have joined forces as the Kings County Brewers Collective, a unique partnership in which financial risks and rewards are equally shared. “We’re trying to create a brewery with four different brands created by four different brewers,” says Jason Sahler, who is joined by fellow Brooklynites Pete Lengyel, Ryan McMahon and Tony Bellis. For example, Sahler can focus on cask ales while McMahon tinkers with hop-forward ales. “We will not be a traditional brewery with three standard beers,” McMahon says of KCBC, which will also operate a taproom offering pints and growlers fills. Concerning the timeline, the quartet hope to open the brewhouse (equipped with a three- to five-barrel system) by mid-2014 in an as-yet-undisclosed Brooklyn neighborhood. “Our goal is to be a destination where people can connect with beer and with us,” Bellis says. “We want to help create new craft beer drinkers in Brooklyn.”

Beer Street
Basketball was Lorcan Precious’ first passion, and the speedy point guard parlayed his talents into a pro career for teams in Ireland, France, Spain and Switzerland. Over time, the journeyman’s travels included detours to breweries and bars in burgeoning beer cultures. “I could easily shoot over to Italy,” says Precious, who began spending offseasons working at Manhattan’s branch of Ginger Man—his dad founded the influential family of pubs. As his career wound down, his interest in beer ramped up. Precious lockered his sneakers, relocated to Brooklyn and, in 2012, turned a sausage-making store into Beer Street, which might be New York’s most exotic bottle shop. The handpicked stock includes sought-after rarities such as Brouwerij Smisje’s Wostyntje mustard beer and Omnipollo’s Nebuchadnezzar double IPA, along with 10 offbeat drafts for growler fills. “You can get good beer in so many places, so we try to carry unusual bottles,” says Precious, whose license also allows him to distribute beers. Currently, he carries releases from Quebec’s Le Trou du Diable and Le Bilboquet, as well as San Diego’s Lightning. “I wanted to bring in unique brands that were not available in New York,” Precious says. “It’s fun to get people excited about craft beer.” Like father, like son. 

Tørst
Not long after moving to Brooklyn last year, Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø, the Danish mastermind behind gypsy brewery Evil Twin, had a brain flash: “New York City has the best restaurants, so why not have one of the best beer bars in the country?” says Jarnit-Bjergsø (his twin brother runs Mikkeller), who partnered with Brian Ewing of beer importer 12 Percent and Momofuku alum Daniel Burns to create the sleek Tørst (Danish for “thirst”). Since opening in March, flocks of beer geeks have made the pilgrimage to Greenpoint to sample rare IPAs, sours and barrel-aged everything. On an average day, the 21 taps—controlled by a custom-built “flux capacitor” that lets barkeeps adjust each beer’s blend of carbon dioxide and nitrogen—dispense sublime nectars from Hill Farmstead, Cantillon, Beachwood Brewing, De Molen, Omnipollo, Crooked Stave and, heck, anything that strikes the fancy of Jarnit-Bjergsø and general manager Jon Langley. “We go through an obscene amount of beer,” says Langley, who rarely has the same tap list two days in a row. As for chef Burns, he carved out space in Tørst for Luksus (Danish for “luxury”), his 26-seat, Scandinavian-influenced restaurant. “We’re taking things to the next level with beer and food,” Jarnit-Bjergsø says.

EST
The poster children of New York’s homebrew revolution are Stephen Valand and Erica Shea, who turned the notion that no apartment—especially their own—is too small for brewing into Brooklyn Brew Shop, a purveyor of one-gallon beer-making kits sold worldwide. While the recently engaged couple zealously spread the homebrew gospel, “there will always be people who won’t make their own beer,” Valand says. “At beer festivals, we’d give people samples and they’d say, ‘This beer is great. Where can we buy it?’” To meet demand, this summer the duo will debut their EST (short for Established Brewing Company) line of beers, which will be crafted at an upstate New York brewery. “We wanted to make the leap to teaching people about making beer to making beer for them,” Valand says. EST’s first beer will be the crisp and spicy Jalapeño Saison—a favorite homebrew-kit recipe—and future releases will be a blend of established BBS recipes and brand-new formulations that, in time, may become a kit. Old homebrewing habits die hard. 

Dirk the Norseman
For more than 25 years, Ed Raven has helped Brooklynites drink better beer. In the 1980s, Raven started as a salesman for Brooklyn Brewery, then founded beer importer Raven Brands and, in 2009, growler and bottle shop Brouwerij Lane. Beer-wise, Raven has a firm handle on the borough’s strengths—and what it’s sorely lacking. “It’s amazing that Brooklyn doesn’t have a brewpub,” says Raven, who aims to remedy that shortage with Williamsburg’s Dirk the Norseman (it’s slated for a summertime opening). Named after Greenpoint’s first Dutch settler, the beer hall is housed in a former plastic-bag factory located near the East River (“We have one of the best views of Manhattan,” Raven says) and within stumbling distance of the Brooklyn Brewery. Dirk will serve a mixture of Raven’s imported brands (including Gaffel Kölsch, Jever Pilser and Dentergems Wit) and beers brewed by homebrewer Chris Prout, who cut his teeth at North Carolina’s Outer Banks Brewing Station. (The brewery will have a different, still-undetermined name.) On a five-barrel system that’s visible to customers through glass dividers, he’ll turn out traditional Belgian and American styles with a twist, such as a Tupelo honey IPA and rhubarb saison. “We want to be a showcase for fresh, quality, craft beer,” Raven says.