Eat Your Heart Out, Page Six
A Green City preview, Maß-produced bier, and a celebrity haze bro
In the past week, I finally settled on most of my summer travel plans. DC, Scandinavia, Kentucky, Kansas City, and the Rockies are all in the cards, and I’m looking forward to connecting with old friends, drinking some of my favorite regional beers, and visiting some new breweries. But where are you going? (Or are you reading some of the travel horror stories and rethinking traveling at all?)
I’m here to offer you a brewery recommendation, no matter where you’re headed this summer. Leave a comment and I’ll reply with a suggestion. And if you can remember, come back here once you’ve traveled and let me know if I steered you right or wrong. And safe travels!
TALEA opens new Cobble Hill location
TALEA Beer Co. has opened their second satellite location, and unlike their pop-up near Grand Central, this one is a little more permanent. Their new taproom in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn is bright, airy, and colorful, just like their Williamsburg brewery, and pours a variety of their beers, along with cocktails and wines, but also coffee and snacks as an invitation to “work from TALEA,” with a 10am opening every day.
The location may be familiar to some beer fans, as the space at 61 Bergen Street was home to 61 Local, a longtime craft beer bar that closed during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020. While the location may be familiar, the interior is dramatically different, with a horseshoe shaped bar and lots of seating options. In addition to beers and flights to stay, they’ll also offer a cooler stocked with cans to-go.
The taproom is open seven days a week at 10am, closing at 11pm Sunday-Thursday and midnight on Friday and Saturday.
Your guide to breweries at this weekend’s Green City
Other Half Brewing is hosting the long-awaited return of their Green City festival tomorrow and Saturday at Zerospace Baltic in Brooklyn, and there’s still some tickets available if you’ve been procrastinating. But if you’re a planner and you’re going to scope out what to drink ahead of time, here are some suggestions among the breweries that have come from afar to pour:
The Seed: A Living Beer Project (Atlantic City, New Jersey): AC can be the butt of many jokes, but this brewery is not joking around. Since opening in 2020, word has gotten around New Jersey about this spot, which specializes in simple beers using local ingredients and fermentation. They’ll be pouring a mixed-culture saison during each session. [Location: Butler East]
Fast Fashion (Seattle, Washington): It wasn’t long ago that I would send everyone I know to The Masonry in Seattle for great pizza and a well-curated beer list from other breweries. But then in 2021, owner Matt Storm and brewer Brian Strumke (of Stillwater Brewing fame), went and started their own brand of beers. Hidden Gems, a DIPA with Citra and Nelson hops, pours on Friday, and expect Shrimp and White Wine IPA on Saturday, a collab with famed Northwest outlet Great Notion. [Location: Baltic East]
Phase Three Brewing (Lake Zurich, Illinois): It was less than two years between the launch of this suburban Chicago brewery and their rise to the top of many beer writers’ favorites list. The combined thirty years of beer experience of the three founders certainly helped, but collaborating with the likes of Other Half, Weldwerks, and J. Wakefield put them on the map, too. Their DDH Protocol with Citra, Galaxy, and El Dorado is not to be missed Friday; refresh with their P3 German Helles on Saturday. [Location: Butler East]
Harland Brewing Co. (San Diego, California): San Diego has a lot of breweries, and even in a cluttered market, they’ve got a lot of new breweries. Despite this, Harland, which opened in 2018, has grown rapidly while making excellent beer. No surprise, the staff has places like Green Flash, Saint Archer, and Pure Project on their resumes, among others. Stop by for the Double Mango Milkshake Drip Milkshake IPA on Friday, or the Yuzu Japanese Lager on Saturday. [Location: Butler West]
Halfway Crooks Beer (Atlanta, Georgia): Last but definitely not least, this gem has been specializing in lagers since opening in 2019, and it’s sure to be a refreshing stop in the festival for some crispy beers. On Friday, they’ll have the Zero Zero German-Style Pils, and on Saturday, they’ll pour a 10°P Czech-Style Lager called Deset. [Location: Butler East]
Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 2,704
Total breweries visited in 2022: 175
Total breweries visited in Colorado: 214
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #2430, Zwei Brewing, Fort Collins, Colorado (Visited 23-Oct-2021)
There are a lot of breweries in Fort Collins, Colorado. There are so many good ones that you could probably get a half-dozen different answers from a half-dozen locals when asking which one is their favorite in town. I didn’t expect much walking up to Zwei, which is across from a Walmart among non-descript suburban sprawl. But on a day when my friend and I intended to crawl from brewery to brewery, the beer here kept us at Zwei far long than we planned.
I should’ve taken a hint when the line to order a beer was long enough to strike up conversation with others waiting for a beer. They all swore the place up and down, explaining that it was Fort Collins’ best kept secret. It seemed that while everyone else in town was seeking out barrel-aged sours or a fresh pint of a mainstream beer, the folks at Zwei were drinking up their true-to-form German-style beers, from the Pils to the Helles to the Weissbier — all named by style, with no fancy bells and whistles.
While it’s hard to create a fun social taproom environment next door between a car repair shop and a Panda Express drive-thru, the long communal tables and leafy patio did their best to emulate a German biergarten in the midst of suburbia. Despite the suburban setting, neighbors came by foot and by bike to grab a beer here. Striking up conversation with strangers over a Maß of Lager seems to be exactly what Zwei was designed for. It’s a small miracle we left to visit another brewery.
Social Post of the Week
This hits a little too close to home.
Blind Item!
What Academy Award-winning actor was spotted sipping hazy IPAs with an Emmy Award-winning actor at Other Half Domino Park on Monday?
Long Read of the Week
Last summer in this space, I linked to the first piece in a series on Good Beer Hunting on the roots of inequity in beer, as told through the lens of beer in Charleston, South Carolina. I got to have beers with its author, Jamaal Lemon, last weekend in Chicago, where he was in town because the series was nominated for a James Beard Award. That reminded me that I never shared parts two and three, which you should read if you didn’t get the chance to follow the rest of the series.
One More Thing
I’ve booked a European beer trip for the summer that will include stops in Stockholm, London, and Riga, Latvia. The first two I’ve got covered (I’ve visited both before — London well over a dozen times), but has anyone reading been to Riga before? Bonus points for beer recommendations!
Cheers,
Chris
Eat Your Heart Out, Page Six
Gonna leave us hangin' on that blind item? Ha ha!
Going to Denver for the first time this August. I've got two nights there and a long Monday plus two nights in Vail for a wedding. I've got Bierstadt Lagerhaus and Cohesion on my list (I swear I drink more than lager), but would love to know other must hit spots!