Oh, What a Niteglow

A new brewery officially launches in Bushwick and a story about balls

This little newsletter turned three years old last week, launching back at a time when we were all still masking up and couldn’t even eat indoors in New York City. I can’t thank you all enough for your support and feedback over the years, and the growth in my readership has surpassed even my most wild expectations (this many people care about what I have to say about beer? but why?). Three years, 156 issues, and over 1,200 breweries later, some things are the same — like how I’m delivering the news of the opening of a brewery in Brooklyn and still discovering interesting breweries in unusual places, whether it’s downtown Johnson City, Tennessee or down a side street in Florence, New Jersey. But we’re dealing with a beer industry that’s facing a whole different set of challenges, but it’s still a beer industry that excites me — and one that has me traveling all around the world in the search for unique and interesting experiences.

But man, those challenges keep rearing their ugly head again this week. There was already the news in last week’s newsletter that The Grand Delancey closes this weekend, on the same day my favorite Virginia brewery closes its doors. But add to that a string of not-great signs for beer: a well-known brewery in Minnesota filed for Chapter 11. The Brewers Association is essentially merging Homebrew Con into the Great American Beer Festival. Wakefest, a long-running beer festival in Florida run by J. Wakefield Brewing, isn’t happening this year. Neither is TAP New York.

It’s hard to stay positive sometimes, but then I go out in the world and discover something new in beer that wows me. Those stories keep me coming back for more. And thankfully, there’s more of those in this week’s edition.

Niteglow celebrates launch of Bushwick brewery

The H03 New York Pale Ale, launching at Niteglow tomorrow

Niteglow has officially launched its first New York-brewed beers. The well-polished taproom is an all-day space that operates as a coffee shop during the day (as Dayglow) and a taproom at night (as Niteglow). The first beer brewed on premise in the rear brewery space on Wilson Avenue in Bushwick is Rare 03 NY Brown Ale, a coffee-spiked 5% ABV Brown Ale made in collaboration with Barcelona-based Nomad Coffee. Two other beers are currently fermenting in the tanks, including a Pale Ale that will debut at the taproom tomorrow.

While Niteglow has origins in Illinois, where its co-owner and brewer Jonny Ifergan got his start in beer and spent more than three decades of his life and where Niteglow beers were initially brewed as the brewhouse got up and running, this spot has planted its roots in New York. They’ll be focused on brewing with New York State ingredients as a licensed Farm Brewery. The Rare 03 uses New York-grown pale malt from revered Massachusetts maltster Valley Malt, darker malts from New York Craft Malt, and New York-grown Columbus hops. The forthcoming H03, a bright Pale Ale I got to sample earlier this week, utilizes New York-grown Centennial and Cascade hops. In my conversations with Jonny, it’s clear he’s passionate about New York beer agriculture, understanding processes and fermentation, and appreciating the art of the pour — all of the draft beers at Niteglow are poured from Lukr taps, and the three core traditional Czech-style pours are offered. And yes, there are milktubes.

Niteglow is open seven days a week from 11am-11pm at 8 Wilson Avenue in Brooklyn, the space that was previously home to Non Sequitur Beer. This is their grand opening weekend and they’ll roll out more new beers gradually while they also offer guest taps from the likes of other New York breweries like Wild East, Wayward Lane, and Drowned Lands. Cider, cocktails, NA beer, and snacks from La Cabra Bakery are also available.

Brewery Tracker

Total brewery count: 3,331
Total breweries visited in 2024: 47
Total breweries visited in New Jersey: 76

Brewery Visit of the Week

Brewery #3326, Subculture Artisan Ales, Florence, New Jersey (Visited 10-Feb-2024)

Every so often, I stumble across a brewery that’s less than a year old that I’ve heard nothing about, yet blows me away. That’s not a surprise, exactly — I can’t have my ear to the ground on every single new brewery opening around the world. But what impressed me about Subculture Artisan Ales, which opened last April in this South Jersey town on the Delaware River, was that it was very obviously not built by a beer rookie. Everything from the taproom to the service to the beer felt very intentional. Not surprisingly, founder and brewer David Williams has some pretty respectable experience under his belt, coming from Horse Thief Hollow in Chicago, where he racked up awards at Great American Beer Festival, the World Beer Cup, and the Festival of Barrel-Aged Beer (FOBAB).

That all explains why I enjoyed the Petticoat Pils and Bob Loblaw Belgo-American IPA. I really enjoyed the Burton Reynolds, an English Burton Ale (when was the last time you saw that style?). And I was intrigued by the Bob’n for Apples, a caramel apple-inspired IPA made with fresh-pressed apples, caramel, cinnamon, and orange blossom honey. The space itself is bright, with lots of tile and wood, and a vast collection of beer steins behind the bar. And the service on a Saturday afternoon was well-informed but not even remotely snobbish. I’m hoping this is one of those breweries I’m going to be hearing a lot more about in the future, and not so I can say “oh, I went there before it was cool” (after all, it’s already cool).

The Weekly Reader

• A well-known Buffalo brewery is buying another well-known Buffalo brewery [Will Cleveland, Cleveland Prost]

• New Jersey’s long-awaited brewery rule changes weren’t enough to save some taprooms [Eric Conklin, NJ.com]

• Some beer festivals aren’t happening this year, but plenty are [Hop Culture]

• The story of Upstate New York’s beer balls [Dave Infante, Taplines]

One Last Thing

The beer ball (courtesy F.X. Matt Brewing Company)

Funny thing about that last link in the Weekly Reader: you wouldn’t be blamed for having never heard of the obscure beer ball. But I learned about beer balls nearly two decades ago. I was in college and working on a journalism assignment, and I chose to interview alumni of Ithaca College (my alma mater) who attended back in the early 1980s, when the drinking age in New York State rose year-by-year from 18 to 19 to 20 to 21. As part of that project, I researched the campus’ alcohol policies at the time, and one of the rules for dorms caught my eye: “no kegs or beer balls.”

Naturally, one of the first questions I asked a former student I interviewed was, “what the hell is a beer ball?” And that’s how I learned how much they were a phenomenon in Upstate New York in the late 70s and early 80s, and how prevalent they were in college drinking culture at the time.

Anyway, it’s scary to think that I’m approaching the age of those alumni when I interviewed them. If any students are looking to write a piece about college drinking culture in the Aughts, I’ve got a lot to say about alcopops like Smirnoff Ice and Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

Cheers,
Chris