Hello from Barcelona, Spain, where I’m in town for this weekend’s Mash Beer Fest, a revered celebration of craft beer that’s back after its two-year Covid pause. The festival features nearly fifty new-world craft breweries from around the world, including some you’ll be quite familiar with. If you weren’t convinced that New York is a global beer city, consider the fact that attendees at Mash will be lining up for pours of beer from Finback, Other Half, Barrier, Hudson Valley, and Equilibrium among the dozen or so American breweries with a presence at the fest.
I didn’t travel nearly four thousand miles to drink beer from my own backyard, though. I’m excited to try some of the newer Spanish craft breweries that my last trip here pre-dates, like Espiga, Freddo Fox, and Soma Beer. I’m also looking forward to drinking some freshies from some of my European favorites like Track, Fuerst Wiacek, and Põhjala.
Follow along on Instagram for reports from the fest and photos of familiar faces abroad.
Arcane rolls out new product line in new distillery
Arcane Distilling, which started its effort to distill beer into whiskey back in 2017, is now distilling in their own space in Bushwick. Their current offerings are all distilled from beer brewed at nearby Kings County Brewers Collective, including one whiskey made from the brewery’s flagship IPA, Superhero Sidekicks. That’s been behind the bar at KCBC’s taproom for the last couple months, but their two latest whiskies, Alpha and Imperial, stray in different directions.
The Alpha is distilled from a Triple IPA, with a pronounced hop aroma from Mosaic and Cascade hops. The Imperial is distilled from an Imperial Stout, and has a cocoa-like smoothness and sweetness on the finish. These are whiskies for beer drinkers.
In addition to their still (which is a work of art), Arcane’s space in Bushwick includes a brewery. Ultimately, the plan is to brew beer on premise and distill it down — a process that takes a little over two weeks from start to finish. In addition, a future on-site taproom will serve the beer along side the whiskey.
Currently, you can buy these directly from the distillery online, in select liquor stores, or give them a try at a bar, like Bierwax, The Owl Farm, or the KCBC taproom.
Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 2,830
Total breweries visited in 2022: 301
Total breweries visited in California: 255
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #1016, Monkish Brewing Co., Torrance, California (Visited 10-Dec-2017)
Since Monkish is among the American breweries pouring at this weekend’s Mash Fest, I figured I’d tell you a story about them. I’m not going to tell you about Monkish, because anyone into hazy IPAs probably already knows about them — even if you’ve never ventured away from New York, their much-ballyhooed collaborations with Other Half have established their reputation here. Instead, I want to talk about this hat:
You see, Monkish had been putting out this awesome Dodger blue snapback hat back in 2017, and I immediately wanted it. I have a pretty deep collection of beer-related hats, but nothing as beautiful as this one. I had to have it. So why not go to the source to get it? At the time, I was visiting L.A. quite often, so I figured I’d just head to the taproom to buy one while I sipped on their wide array of hazies and Belgians.
On my first visit in December of 2017, they were out. On my second visit in March of 2018, they were out. On my third visit, fully convinced I’d leave dejected again, I was giddy with joy when this hat was on display on their merch wall behind the bar. Then, the customer in front of me pointed to it, and after looking for others, the bartender pulled that single display hat off the wall. “I think that was the last one,” he told me when I got to the bar to order.
“I’m never getting this hat,” I thought to myself, as a expression of disappointment
“But wait, let me check to see if we have anymore.” They did, in fact, have one more. And literally just one more. And today, I am the proud owner of that hat, which has racked up quite a bit of mileage over the past four years:
Social Post of the Week
Instead of suggesting a single post from social media this week, I’m going to recommend a series of videos on the Instagram account of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania’s Bonn Place Brewing Company. It’s not for the squeamish, but for the past two months, owner and brewer Sam Masotto has been posting videos of him making and drinking some truly disgusting concoctions, each one progressively worse than the last. It’s hilarious, gross, and somewhat impressive that he’s been able to stomach these drinks. Anyway, watch at your own risk.
Long Read of the Week
Courtney Iseman answers a question in Punch that I’ve been asking: how did IPA become uncool? She’s got some pull quotes from some friends of this newsletter, like Brett Taylor of Wild East Brewing and Dave Infante of the excellent Fingers newsletter. Come for the article, stay for the sidebar with a pretty comprehensive history of IPA.
One Last Thing
When Anheuser-Busch acquired Long Island’s Blue Point Brewing Company in 2014, one of the biggest concerns that some local beer nerds had was what would become of their annual Cask Fest. Thankfully, that tradition continued seamlessly, and it’s back for 2022, next Saturday at 2pm at their brewery in Patchogue. Fifty breweries will be in attendance in what is undoubtedly the largest celebration of cask beer in the Tri-State. Tickets are still available for the event, and I couldn’t think of a better time of year to drink from a firkin — ushering in the colder, darker months.
Here’s a memory from a past Cask Fest, complete with a disappointed fest-goer who saw a firkin kick:
Cheers,
Chris
I was at Bonn Place a couple of months ago, excellent beer! Lost Tavern was very cool too with live music to go along with the beer.