NYC Beer Week Awaits
The week's top events and visiting brewers, plus a place worth Czeching out
I sit here writing this introduction as news breaks of an unprovoked and unjustified war breaks on the other side of the world. It’s tough to write this when you realize there are so many more important things you could probably be reading about than beer right now. But let’s face it: beer can be an escape. Not in the “drown your sorrows in alcohol” sense, but in the “social lubrication” sense that keeps you from doomscrolling and instead talking to other people. I went out with friends last Saturday and visited four breweries and barely looked at my phone the whole time we were out. I met a brewer who was out visiting other breweries like me on Monday and we talked shop for a solid hour. Heck, I put off writing this newsletter to meet an old friend for beers on Tuesday night (let’s be honest, half of that time would’ve been wasted on social media anyway).
Beer can be an escape from the ugliness in the world (except when the world’s ugliness and stupidity seeps into beer), so grab a drink with a friend this weekend and put your phone down. We all deserve a break and we’re privileged to live in a place where we can get one.
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Your Guide to 2022 NYC Beer Week
New York City Beer Week, the annual celebration of all things beer that the city has to offer, kicks off on Saturday. The week is organized by the NYC Brewers Guild. As I’ve mentioned before, the NYC Beer Week Opening Bash is this Saturday at Building 269 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It’s arguably the best beer event in the city all year, and it’s well worth going for both the beer and the new venue.
As part of Opening Bash, local breweries bring in a visiting brewery from out of town. The best part of this isn’t just having their beer at the event, but at many events around the city. Among the noteworthy breweries pouring beers both at Opening Bash and at events during the week: Colorado’s Outer Range, Maine’s Mast Landing, Denver’s Bierstadt Lagerhaus, Nyack’s Two Villains, Rochester’s Fifth Frame and many more. Of course, there’s also plenty of events celebrating the New York beer scene and the city’s lineup of over 40 breweries.
The full list is here and is still being updated with more events. Here is just a sampling of noteworthy events lined up for beer week:
Outer Range Tap Takeover at Bierwax: get your hands on this Colorado outfit known for their outstanding hazy IPAs (Sunday 2/27, 3-10pm)
18th Ward and KCBC at Spuyten Duyvil: one of Brooklyn’s most long-standing beer bars celebrates two local breweries in one night (Monday 2/28, 7pm)
Tuesday Gueuzeday at St. Gambrinus Beer Shoppe: a special edition of St. G’s weekly sour and wild bottle pour event. Expect bottles from Jester King, Rare Barrel, Hudson Valley, and more (Tuesday 3/1, 12-9pm)
Lambic Celebration at The Grand Delancey: a big night of lambics as they tap kegs and crack bottles from Cantillon, Drie Fonteinen and Tilquin (Wednesday 3/2, 5pm)
Wild East Tap Takeover at TØRST: instead of inviting out of towners for Beer Week, TØRST is focusing on celebrating the local breweries this year. This one’s got a cask from one of Brooklyn’s favorite newcomers (Thursday 3/3, 5pm)
Twin Elephant and Friends at Someday Bar: this New Jersey brewery is coming to Brooklyn with some friends for a Friday night party. Five Boroughs, Two Villains, Jackie O’s, Drowned Lands, and many more will be pouring all night (Friday 3/4, 7pm)
KCBC Barrel Aged Beer Night at Sweet Avenue: come to Sunnyside, Queens for a lineup of barrel-aged beers from Brooklyn, stay for the food from Tiger Lily Kitchen. Stay later for a Thin Man Brewing and Misguided Spirits event at 8pm (Saturday 3/5, 3pm)
Greenpoint Beer & Bierstadt Lagerhaus at Brouwerij Lane: the beloved maker of lagers from Denver pairs up with Greenpoint’s own brewery, plus sandwiches from Cento Percento to help fend off the eventual Beer Week hangover (Sunday 3/6, 2pm)
Celebrating NYC’s Beer Bars: Blind Tiger Ale House
Blind Tiger Ale House
281 Bleecker Street (at Jones Street)
West Village
There was no chance I could do more than four of these features without writing about Blind Tiger. It’s been a favorite of mine for a long time. I’ve been going to the Tiger regularly since it opened in this corner location, and the greatest delight when day job office moved downtown was that it was within walking distance of this legendary beer bar. The Tiger has been around since 1996, previously in another location on Hudson Street that later became a Starbucks — it had a drawn out fight with neighbors to pour beer at this new spot on Bleecker. I’m so glad it survived that fight and lives on and continues to pour outstanding beers.
The beer list is stellar and 28 draft lines strong, with lots of local representation this week ahead of NYC Beer Week from the likes of Grimm, Evil Twin, Alewife, and Other Half. They were always reliable for cask ale in its heyday in New York craft, and it’s still on whenever they can find it. The food is often overlooked but worth the time. The bar is well-worn and I’d be torn up if they messed with it. So too would many of the regulars, some of whom are approaching double my age but still camp out in the same spot many weekday afternoons. My name is on a plaque on the wall in the back hallway marking when I had tried a hundred different beers there. I’m a relatively new addition to that wall — many of those plaques have dates on them that pre-date my Junior Prom.
Blind Tiger has kept the beer scene in New York on track and still remains an industry favorite that hosts regular tap takeovers deep into its third decade. During lockdown, I longed for the simplicity of a pint of Allagash White at the Tiger, and the first time I could get into Manhattan and sit outside on the street, that’s exactly what I did.
Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 2,591
Total breweries visited in 2022: 63
Total breweries visited in Colorado: 208
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #2438, Cohesion Brewing Company, Denver Colorado (Visited 24-Oct-2021)
I’m honestly embarrassed that I only mentioned this brewery in passing when I visited it last October. Cohesion deserved a Brewery of the Week feature then, and it does now after making another visit while in Colorado last week. Nearly everyone I know who attended the Craft Brewers Conference in Denver last September insisted that I needed to visit, and some of those people might know a thing or two about beer.
Cohesion specializes in Czech-style beer, and only Czech-style beer. The beer names are in Czech (don’t worry, there are pronunciation guides), the taps are all side-pulls, the beers are served in proper mugs, and there’s the option of Šnyt and Mlíko pours in the Czech tradition in addition to the more standard beer pour. For uber beer geeks like me who have made the trek to the Czech Republic, this experience transports me back to Prague. Sipping on the Polotmavý (a caramel-kissed half-dark lager) and the 10º (a single-decocted pale lager that weighs in under 4% ABV), this place is the real deal.
Social Post of the Week
Please drink more draft beer.
Beer of the Week
Laila
Novel Strand Brewing Company (Denver, Colorado)
Black Ale
6.0% ABV
It was so nice to make a return visit to Novel Strand in Denver last weekend, a brewery that I admired from my first sip when I happened to be in town just two weeks after they opened in 2018, when the beer was already amazing. It’s only gotten better at this little corner taproom in Denver’s Baker neighborhood, and their beer is so popular these days that it’s hard to keep it on tap. I picked up this warming dark ale ahead of a cold snap of subzero temperatures in Denver and it really hit the spot. It doesn’t fall into any traditional style category — it’s chocolatey like a Porter, but cold-fermented with ale yeast like a Kolsch and then lagered like a Schwarzbier, so it’s got a clean finish. It was really enjoyable on a cold night in Denver while you were all bathing in warmth back east (serves me right).
Long Read of the Week
After booking a trip to the UK next month that will begin in Manchester and head north into Scotland, I’ve been seeking out more beer writing from that neck of the woods to mentally prepare. This piece by Stephanie Shuttleworth in Pellicle is about drinking in her hometown in Greater Manchester, but I’m sure many of us can relate to the places to drink where we’re from and how different they are from the places to drink where we are.
One More Thing
Two breweries in the US have burned in fires this month, and it’s really great to see the beer community rallying around to help them out. Anawan Brewing in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, was wiped out in a fire last week. And this week, Twisted Hippo Brewing in Chicago burned in an overnight fire that reduced their brewery to rubble. Both had other breweries rush to support them. Brewers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island have rallied to Anawan’s side and a GoFundMe started by the brewery is approaching $35,000 in donations. Illinois’ Mikerphone Brewing started a GoFundMe that is now approaching $150,000 in support for Twisted Hippo. While the past year has shown us that the beer world is far from asshole-free, it’s nice to see a lot of people with big hearts in beer.
Cheers,
Chris
After waking up to the news in the Ukraine, of all the articles and news I could have jumped into first online, I chose yours because I knew I would have a little lift going into what will be a sad news day. Thank you…