Brew Highways

Grand Delancey announces closure and Other Half celebrates ten years

Naked Dove Brewing Company in Canandaigua, one of several breweries along U.S. 20 in New York

My friend and fellow brewery traveler Joel Geier visited a brewery in Illinois a couple weeks ago called Highway 20 Brewing Company in Elizabeth, Illinois, named for the U.S. highway that runs in front of the brewery. It got me thinking about U.S. highways — those secondary routes that criss-cross the country. Highway 20 is far from the only brewery on U.S. Highway 20 — heck, there are at least seven on New York’s segment of the route. So it has me thinking — is there a U.S. highway with a preposterous amount of good breweries? U.S. 20 seemed like a good place to start. The easternmost on the road is a recently-opened satellite location of Widowmaker Brewing in the Brighton section of Boston. And the highway is punching above its weight with both Tree House Charlton and Other Half Finger Lakes among the first twenty or so breweries as you travel east from there.

But as U.S. 20 winds through the Midwest, across the Plains, and into the rural routes across Northern Nebraska, the wilds of Wyoming, and through Yellowstone National Park, the breweries become few and far between. In fact, once you get west beyond Highway 20 Brewing Company, you won’t pass another brewery on the highway itself for 1,100 miles — Millstone Pizza Company & Brewery in Cody, Wyoming. You’ll hit a few more as U.S. 20 passes through an impressive stretch of breweries in Garden City, Idaho, just outside of Boise, and you’ll see one in Bend, Oregon (Worthy Brewing), though its address is on a parallel street. Wind through the Cascade Mountains and you’ll pass a pair in Lebanon, Oregon, Block 15 in Corvallis, and the westernmost brewery on the route, Dirt Road Brewing in Philomath, Oregon. If you follow U.S. 20 all the way to the end, though, you’re just a 5-minute drive from Rogue’s headquarters in Newport, Oregon — though that’s in the shadow of U.S. 101, a highway that will take you to a number of breweries along the Oregon and California coast, like Lost Coast in Eureka, California.

It’s amazing how vast this country of ours is, and how you can pass through large swaths of it without being near a brewery. Though a lot of those swaths are unpopulated, and land doesn’t drink — people do. There aren’t a lot of people in Marathon, Texas (410, according to the 2020 Census), but they do have a brewery. It is, by all accounts, the most isolated brewery in the U.S. — the furthest brewery from another brewery. Brick Vault Brewery & BBQ, which opened in 2018, is not far from the site of a previous title-holder of most isolated brewery in the U.S., Big Bend Brewing Company, which closed in 2019. Brick Vault is 140 miles as the crow flies from the next closest brewery, Midland, Texas’ Eccentric Brewing Company. Yes, even Alaska doesn’t have a brewery this isolated — though you could argue that the ones that can only be reached by ferry, airplane, or seaplane are pretty damn isolated, too.

Anyway, I regret to inform you that this is one of those newsletters that’s going to have some bad news in it. Buckle up.

The Grand Delancey to close next week

The Grand Delancey, a bar that has served New York beer drinkers one of the best selections of beer in the city for over four years, has announced its closure. Its final day of operations will be Sunday, February 18th. The bar is located in The Market Line, an underground food hall in a somewhat hidden location in on the Lower East Side, which has seen a loss of vendors in recent weeks that contributed to the closure, the bar’s owner said in a statement:

Notwithstanding the twists and turns that have affected the industry in the last few years, we have loved getting to know our neighbors in the Lower East Side and the many, many friends we have made in and beyond NYC’s craft beer scene.

We still believe in the vision that brought us to New York in 2019: the marriage of the best craft beer in the world and the collection of amazing NYC-based food and beverage operators like Nom Wah, Schaller and Weber, Veselka, Peoples Wine, and many others.

Unfortunately that vision was never fully realized, and now with just a handful of fellow vendors left it has become impossible to sustain our operations at The Market Line.

While our original location may be closing, we're actively seeking a new home for The Grand Delancey so that we can continue our mission of delivering the most memorable craft beer experiences to the New York market. In the meantime, please join us over the next two weeks as we say goodbye with a host of bottle and draft specials.

We look forward to raising a glass with all of you.

- The Grand Delancey

The Grand Delancey hosted numerous noteworthy beer events over its short time in business — a period that included the Covid-19 pandemic. Among the noteworthy events were a lot of Belgian imports, like massive drops of bottles and kegs from Cantillon, a visit from Brasserie de la Senne founder/brewer Yvan De Baets, a tasting with Pierre Tilquin of Gueuzerie Tilquin, and a meet-and-greet with the producers of 3 Fonteinen. And while the occasional Belgian invasion was fun on its own, many noteworthy American breweries passed through their doors over the past four years, including Trillium, Hill Farmstead, Monkish, Good Word, Lawson’s, and more. They were one of the few bars in the city to support cask ale through its near-extinction and slow recovery in New York. And their bartenders were some of the most knowledgeable people in beer in the five boroughs.

The Grand Delancey will be missed, and I look forward to seeing what happens next.

Brewery Tracker

Total brewery count: 3,320
Total breweries visited in 2024: 36
Total breweries visited in Virginia: 55

Brewery Visit of the Week

Brewery #2296, Black Narrows Brewing Company, Chincoteague, Virginia (Visited 23-Jul-2021)

Editor’s Note: earlier this week, Black Narrows announced they will close later this month. This one stings in particular because the general consensus among people in beer, myself included, was that Josh and his team were some of the kindest, smartest, and most passionate people in beer. I’m torn up about this, but I can only hope that Black Narrows’ closure brings on better things for everyone involved. Here’s the write up I published in 2021 after a visit there on a roadtrip across the DMV.

When at least a half-dozen people you know and whose opinions you trust about beer insist that you visit a brewery that they have, you take their advice. So when the opportunity arose last weekend to make the 10-mile detour off U.S. 13 to have a beer at Black Narrows on the way to the Hampton Roads, I took it. I was not disappointed. The taproom is nestled on the center of Chincoteague Island, and while it was teeming with tourists in town for the annual Blueberry Festival, the service still felt personal and the vibe was authentic. I settled in with a Plover Season, a delicious Amber Lager with a touch of sweetness. My friend opted for a flight that started with the How Bout It Corn Lager, a clean refresher made with local corn that was simple enough for the Bud Light drinkers on the island, but with enough complexity to please beer geeks like us.

As we sipped, owner and brewer Josh Chapman popped over to ask us how we were enjoying the beers. I mentioned that his spot had come highly recommended from friends in Washington, D.C., and connected the dots once he mentioned he had previously brewed at Bluejacket He took far more time than he probably had to talk with us about his approach to beer, walk us through what was on the board, and just chat about the beer industry in general. Over that chat, I enjoyed a Weathered Together, a Pale Ale made with hops grown locally — something I didn’t expect to see on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and Salts, a tart wheat ale with oysters — a nod to the brewery’s past life as an oyster shucking house.

Josh has made an effort to use local ingredients in his beers in an area that’s dominated by agriculture and aquaculture, but it doesn’t feel so intentional that the beer is gimmicky. It’s just good, clean beer that feels far more a part of this part of Virginia than the tourist-trap mini golf course or antique shop does. And that oyster beer pairs darn well with local oysters.

The Weekly Reader

• There’s a pop-up bookstore at Strong Rope Red Hook [Amber Sutherland-Namako, Time Out]

• Beer should be back on the Staten Island Ferry soon [Ben Brachfeld, amNY]

• How barley growers and maltsters are changing beer agriculture [Don Tse, Good Beer Hunting]

• Meanwhile, another grain is seeing wider use in beer [Charlie Scudder, Vinepair]

One Last Thing

Hey, there is some good news this week! Other Half celebrates its tenth anniversary this weekend with a sold-out affair at its Centre Street Brooklyn taproom on Saturday. It’s a huge milestone for a brewery that has grown from one location with a closet-sized taproom to an operation that spans eight locations from New York to Chicago to DC (and soon, a ninth in Canandaigua). I truly couldn’t be happier for them as they’ve evolved from West Coast IPA juggernaut to Hazy IPA powerhouse to… well, I don’t know what to call this current iteration, but I like it.

In its humble beginnings, the first batch of Other Half IPA at Greenpoint Beer Works made me celebrate the founding of a true West Coast IPA maker in the city. The lines for cans out of their Gowanus brewery were a sign of its wild success and hype in the era of hazebros, professional line-waiters, and bringing your own hand truck to cart cases home. And its success in surviving the pandemic was a result of concerted efforts to deliver and ship beer to as many people and places as possible to keep beer drinkers sated in lockdown.

There are plenty of jokes in beer that have been made at Other Half’s expense over the last ten years — heck, I’ve made them myself. But I’m not stupid: they know what types of beer drinkers butter their bread, and they always seem ahead of a trend in beer. I envy their success and I cannot wait to see what the next ten years bring for the brewery that started in a little room across from a McDonald’s under the Gowanus Expressway.

Cheers,
Chris