Is All Beer Corporate Beer?
NYC’s homebrewers win big and Jersey gets closer to sensible brewery laws
It was midnight at my local dive bar last weekend, and the bartender and beer buyer, who knew I’m into beer, offered me a taste of a new beer they had on tap. It was a delicious hazy IPA bursting with tropical flavors from Blue Point. “Damn,” I said, a couple beers into my night and willing to make a snide remark, “this is really great. Especially for a corporate beer.”
She nodded. Then, without skipping a beat, she said, “yeah, but isn’t all beer corporate beer? Like, if they’re a brewing company trying to make money, what’s not corporate about that?”
I took another swig of my KCBC Infinite Machine and smiled. “But not that one,” she said, as she pointed to my can. “They carry that over from down the street. There’s nothing corporate about that.”
A fair point. All commercial beer is corporate beer, but some beers feel more corporate than others. I guess, in a way, the only beer that isn’t corporate beer is homebrew. Speaking of…
New York City Homebrewers Guild wins accolade in National Competition
At last weekend’s National Homebrew Competition in San Diego, the New York City Homebrewers Guild took home the Gambrinus Award, a national accolade given to the homebrew club that garners the most points scored on beers entered in the final round of competition. Two beers from the club — a Pale British Ale made by member Alex Cigan and a European Sour Ale made by member Joshua Cotton — won medals in competition, which featured 4,335 entries from 1,708 homebrewers across 50 states this year. The guild, which marks 35 years of existence this year, meets monthly and hosts the annual Homebrew Alley competition, which was held in February at Wild East Brewing in Brooklyn.
It’s not the first accolade for homebrewing scene in New York City. Back in 2015, a trio of homebrewers in the NYCHG won the Homebrewer of the Year award in the competition. And in 2019, the city’s only homebrew shop, Bitter & Esters in Brooklyn, won the Homebrew Shop of the Year award.
New Jersey moves closer to more sensible brewery regulations
The Garden State is now a floor vote and signature away from more sensible regulations for their craft breweries. S3038, a bill to loosen the state’s archaic rules around food and events at brewery taprooms, unanimously passed the State Senate on Monday, moving one step closer to becoming law. The 36-0 vote on the bipartisan bill comes in a crucial week for the state’s breweries, as absurd rules set by the state’s Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control last year are set to be renewed again on July 1st. The legislature typically goes on recess after this week.
Those rules banned food from being served in taprooms from an outside vendor, restricted how many special events and private events can be held at a brewery, and even limited the number of outside events, such as beer festivals, a beer maker can attend. A backlash from both breweries and the general public finally forced the state legislature’s hand, and a bipartisan bill gained traction in this session to overturn the rules and impose more sensible regulations that sync with neighboring states.
The bill allows breweries to sell light snacks and non-alcoholic beverages. It also allows breweries to coordinate with food vendors like food trucks and provide menus for nearby restaurants. All of these seemingly innocuous things are banned by the current regulations set by the ABC. The bill also allows an unlimited number of on-premise events each year, and participation in up to 25 off-premise special events and 25 social affairs. It also finally ends the tour requirement for customers visiting a brewery for the first time. Another noteworthy change in the bill: increasing the production cap on a brewery license from 10,000 barrels per year to 300,000 barrels per year, a massive increase that would enable every craft brewery in the state to take advantage of the reforms for the foreseeable future.
The Assembly is scheduled to meet tomorrow for a day-long session. The chamber’s companion to the passed Senate bill is on the bill calendar for a floor vote.
Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 3,101
Total breweries visited in 2023: 206
Total breweries visited in Rhode Island: 37
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #1,030, Buttonwoods Brewery, Cranston, Rhode Island (Visited 24-Nov-2017)
When you’ve been connected to the beer industry as long as I have (I’ve been described as “industry-adjacent”), you’re bound to get to know some people who eventually open their own breweries. But it’s rare that you get to know someone who just happens to open a brewery in the town where you grew up, a 15-minute walk from the house you grew up in.
But that’s what happened when Morgan Snyder, a friend of mine who spent time working for a distributor in the city before working at Bronx Brewery, told me he was opening a brewery in Cranston, Rhode Island. Buttonwoods Brewery is special for me, not just because I know the location and the founder, but also because Morgan quickly made connections with other brewers in this small state — including one I knew from my early days in beer, one who’s seemingly had a hand in every beer brewed in Rhode Island, and one I literally graduated high school with (that’s another Brewery Visit of the Week sometime).
Buttonwoods makes some incredible beer in a wonderfully janky industrial space in my hometown, and the photo above, a candid shot I took when Morgan was still trying to envision that space where he’d eventually brew months later, is still one of my favorite photos of anyone in beer at any stage of their career.
The Weekly Reader
A new beer distributor is delivering beer exclusively from small New York breweries [Don Cazentre, Syracuse.com]
An examination of beets in beer, featuring Lasting Joy Brewery in the Hudson Valley [Ariana DiValentino, Pellicle]
The struggle of balancing drinking and working in the alcohol industry [Mark LaFaro, Good Beer Hunting]
Get to know the Asian-American brewery founders who’ve helped shape the industry [T.M. Brown, NY Times]
One More Thing
A friendly hello to anyone who stumbled upon this newsletter from Will Cleveland’s very generous plug in his excellent profile of Brooklyn’s Wild East Brewing. Thanks for reading, and hope you’ll subscribe if you’re interested in keeping tabs on the beer scene in New York City. If you didn’t come here from over there, you should be subscribing to his newsletter to keep tabs on the beer scene in Western New York and the Finger Lakes.
Cheers,
Chris
Hey, thanks for the mention!!