Hello from on board a Delta flight out of JFK, where I just enjoyed my last old Fat Tire four days after I had my first new Fat Tire. I’m headed up to Alaska this weekend for a beer festival near and dear to my heart: the Alaska Craft Brew and Barleywine Festival. I first attended back in 2013, and it’s so fun to connect with a whole bunch of Alaskan brewers whose beer I would never have a snowball’s chance in hell of seeing in the Lower 48.
Speaking of snowballs, I know what you’re thinking: “Alaska? In January?!” And sure, it’s quite dark. In Anchorage, where the festival is held, the sun will barely scrape above the horizon once it rises around 10 a.m. But in defense of Alaska’s largest city, it’s really not that cold. Of the three times I’ve visited this fest before, twice it was actually warmer in Anchorage than in New York City, thanks to prevailing winds that blow over the warmer Pacific Ocean water and moderate the temperature.
But today, I won’t be in Anchorage. No, I’m headed to interior Alaska — Fairbanks, the true last frontier of beer, and home of the northern-most breweries in North America. I was inspired by a Good Beer Hunting piece by Bailey Berg I read last year about the handful of breweries in this isolated city of just over 30,000 people and couldn’t help but think that the most appropriate time to visit was when nobody else really does — the dead of winter. This isn’t the first time I’ve gone to an isolated part of Alaska when tourists weren’t around, and if this is anything like last time, I’m in for, at the very least, some good stories.
A Variety Pack of NYC Beer News
The hits just keep on coming — here’s a few more assorted pieces of news from our city’s scene.
Opening Bash announces venue; early-bird tickets still available
The New York City Beer Week Opening Bash is Saturday, February 25th, and last week, I gave you a sneak peek at the breweries in attendance. This week, we now have the most important piece in place: a venue. The event will be held at Industry City in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, in a space in buildings 7/8 between 33rd and 34th Streets. That’s just a couple blocks from the D/N/R trains at 36th Street, and close to many of the great businesses and taprooms in Industry City so you can make a day of it. And yes — for those who shivered a bit last year in the Navy Yard, this event will be heated. Early bird tickets are on sale now through February 1st, and start at $75 for General Admission and $105 for VIP.
Three collabs to whet your whistle
Sometimes, beer collaborations don’t just happen between two breweries. Here are some interesting pairings coming to New York in the coming weeks…
TALEA is teaming up with the Billion Oyster Project on She Sells Seashells, a dry stout brewed with oyster shells. Proceeds from the beer will be donated to the non-profit, which works to restore oyster reefs in New York Harbor. To celebrate, the brewery is hosting a beer and oyster pairing at their Cobble Hill taproom next Thursday from 7-9pm. Tickets are $80, which includes a $10 donation to Billion Oyster Project.
Staten Island’s Flagship Brewery is serving up a chocolatey delight just before Valentines Day: The Narrows, an imperial chocolate stout made with chocolate from longtime Staten Island confectioner Superior Chocolates and aged in rye bourbon casks from Fort Hamilton Distillery. The release party happens on Friday, February 10th at 7:30, and tickets include a 750mL bottle of the beer, a chocolate tasting, a bourbon and rye tasting, a beer tasting, and passed hors d’oeuvres.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen bagels from New York City in a beer, and it won’t be the last, but Black Seed Bagels has teamed up with Hudson’s Return Brewing on Come Back Kolsch, a beer that not only celebrates city’s favorite breakfast, but also reduces food waste. The 4.2% ABV brew uses shredded, discarded bagels to impart a slight breadiness to the mash, then throws in New York-grown Cascade hops and a German Ale yeast. You can drink a can of this right now at Black Seed’s Bushwick bakery at 379 Suydam Street and at other bars across the city.
Strong Rope’s Caskiversary returns
Arguably the city’s largest celebration of cask beer returns to Strong Rope Brewery’s Red Hook taproom on Saturday, February 4th. The brewery’s 7th Annual Caskiversary is a daylong celebration of beer served on cask from Strong Rope and a host of other breweries across the city, including KCBC, Torch & Crown, Kills Boro, Finback, and Wild East. In the spirit of cask festivals you might find across the pond, it’s a pay-as-you-go, come-as-you-please event — though you can purchase tokens for beers in advance for a discount: $25 for 5 10-ounce pours, or $35 with a bottle of Strong Rope’s Thomas the Stumbling Buffalo Barleywine included. An unlimited taster wristband is also available for $50. The celebration gets underway at noon, so get there early for the best selection.
Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 2,907
Total breweries visited in 2023: 12
Total breweries visited in Nevada: 25
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #1904, Able Baker Brewing Company, Las Vegas, Nevada (Visited 27-Feb-2020)
Just days before the pandemic through our entire world into disarray, I, a grow-ass American male of thirty-something years old, finally visited Las Vegas for the first time. I noticed a handful of breweries in the Arts District, which lies between the Strip and downtown Las Vegas in my planning for the trip, and since the entire concept of being penned into a larger, more garish and more crowded version of Times Square seems unpleasant at best, I opted to head north into this cool, walkable neighborhood. The first place you’ll hit as you enter the Arts District from the Strip is Able Baker, and I never made it anywhere else on that first night because I enjoyed the beers too much.
The brewery’s name and logo is a nod to Sin City’s atomic past — “Able” and “Baker” were the military codenames for the two atomic bomb explosions at the Nevada Test Site. The brewery’s duck theme — which includes a bunch of rubber ducks behind the bar — is rooted in the legend that the only animal to survive the blasts was a duck: the Atomic Duck. Their IPA by that name has been a highlight of mine on visits to Able Baker since 2020, and it’s a great place to start. The lineup was most hop-forward on my first visit, but has evolved to include some sours and a handful of really solid lagers.
Able Baker is just one of several breweries in this hip neighborhood that’s a soothing antidote to the absolute madness of the Las Vegas strip. It’s well worth your time if you’re looking to escape tourist hell.
Long Read of the Week
I’ve never repeated a long read before, but when I was in London a couple weeks back, I finally got to have Villages Brewery’s Empire State of Mind, a beer brewed in collaboration with writer David Jesudason and Good Beer Hunting that was inspired by David’s piece on the complicated colonial history of IPA that I previously linked to back in August. At the taproom, posters with the full article were printed and I spent a nice session over the beer re-reading it and remembering that it’s well worth your time.
One Last Thing
I’m hitting publish on this at about 9:30am in Fairbanks, Alaska. Here’s the view from my hotel, where it’s a balmy 8°F and sunrise isn’t for another half-hour. Hope you’re staying warmer, wherever you are.
Cheers,
Chris