I Guess This is Glowing Up
A grand opening for a two-year old brewery, EBBS emerges in Williamsburg
Look, I don’t own or operate a brewery, and I’m not in the market to open one. So I’m probably in no real position to give advice to breweries, but having been to close to 2,400 of them, I hope I might offer them a small suggestions in the wake of Monday’s Facebook outage: maintain an Internet presence beyond one social media platform, and use all those platforms to post important information about your business.
When I travel to a city to visit breweries, the first place I’ve started looking for information about those breweries is Instagram — not because I want to, but because I have to. For the vast majority of breweries, I’ve found it’s often the only source for information about a brewery’s special events, temporary closures, beer releases, and sometimes even basic information like hours of operation. This week’s outage is a pretty good reminder that when you put your eggs in one basket and an entire social network goes down for an entire day, that information could be entirely unavailable to potential customers.
Cross-posting across other platforms is practically non-existent these days. Heck, most of the newer breweries I’ve come across don’t even have Twitter accounts (though, can you blame them? It can be a pretty toxic place). Google Maps has a space you can use for special announcements and changes in hours, which are probably the most important pieces of information a business can provide when a customer is literally navigating to you. Better yet, a responsive, mobile-optimized website can be used to post important announcements in conspicuous places, and it’s a relatively small expense these days. Plus, a better website can expand e-commerce opportunities that can enhance revenue.
But like I said, I don’t run a brewery, so what do I know? I’m just some guy who’s shown up at least twenty or thirty breweries on days when they’re closed for a private event but didn’t post it anywhere on the Internet.
Finally, a grand opening for Wild East
Wild East Brewing in Gowanus, Brooklyn has been brewing beer for nearly two years. They initially planned to open their taproom to the public starting in April of 2020… but then 2020 happened. So nearly 19 months after they first started selling beer out of their taproom, and just over a year after their indoor taproom could finally serve customers, they’re finally going to celebrate their grand opening. And since the brewery has already built up a fanbase, it’s sort of an anniversary party, too. So it’s a Grand-inversary, and it’s happening starting tomorrow.
Tomorrow, they’ll open at noon with a limited bottle release, new cans, and a special cask ale tapping. That’s the warmup for Friday night, when they’ll have a vinyl set by DJ Mister Cam-Run starting at 7 while serving up barbeque by The Drip Jones. Saturday, they’ll celebrate again with sandwiches by Papa Pernil and exclusive bottle pours from their cellar all day long.
EBBS’ Williamsburg taproom now in soft opening
EBBS Brewing Co. soft-opened their Williamsburg taproom this week with a limited menu. The space, which is located on North 8th between Bedford and Driggs, is offering draft pours to stay and cans to go at the moment. After a grand opening later this month, a kitchen will open and eventually small-batch beers will be brewed on premise (the space is licensed as a full-scale brewery). At the moment, the beer (and hard seltzer under the Fountain name) served is brewed at Citi Field in the former Mikkeller NYC facility, which changed hands in October of last year. They’re hoping to open that space back up to the public under the Ebbs name next year.
On my visit this week, the staff was friendly and knowledgeable about the beer and the vibe was extremely relaxed. I dug revisiting the IPA No. 7, a smooth NEIPA with some delightful piney and tropical notes that I had previously tried over the summer.
Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 2,394
New breweries in 2021: 320
Breweries visited in Pennsylvania: 73
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #2289, Two Frays Brewery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Visited 17-Jul-2021)
Over the summer, I took a quick weekend trip to Pittsburgh to see the Mets lose on a ninth-inning walkoff to the Pirates. With some time before first pitch, I ventured over to the Bloomfield neighborhood east of downtown and checked out this relative newcomer. Two Frays was one of those unfortunate pandemic-era planned openings that pressed on and officially opened in June of this year.
Just a month in when I visited, and I was impressed. The Together Better Kolsch was a great start — a refreshing, crisp brew that was ideal after a long uphill climb on a heavy bikeshare bike. Next came the It’s Always Sunny Session IPA, which was served to me just as the sky opened up to torrential downpours and rumbles of thunder. Good thing this one was good, too, because it looked like I was going to be there for a while waiting out the rain.
The staff was friendly and calm as more and more folks ducked in from the rain to escape into a beer. The taproom was calm, spacious, and welcoming — even moreso when the sun re-emerged and the patio started to fill up. That was a great time for the Freeze Tag Wheat Ale with Passion Fruit, which was a tropical accompaniment to the heat and humidity that emerged after the storms passed.
It also helped numb me in preparation for the Mets heartbreak I’d experience later that night.
Social Post of the Week
Beer of the Week
Cucumber Lime Glow Up
Folksbier (Brooklyn, New York)
Berliner-Style Weisse Ale
4.75% ABV
I was overdue for a visit to Folksbier, so I biked over to Carroll Gardens last Friday night, and it wasn’t even a question what beer I’d be ordering once I looked at the menu. I’m a sucker for cucumber in beer, and while I know it’s not for everyone, it just meshes so perfectly with the tartness of the lime in this Berliner. If you haven’t had beers in Folksbier’s Glow Up series before, you’re really missing out on some of the most pleasing fruit-forward beers made in New York City.
Long Reads of the Week
At 5280 Magazine, Sarah Kuta highlights the women in craft beer in Colorado, weaving in details from distant and recent history. Lady Justice Brewing, a brewery I’m very much looking forward to visiting later this month, is featured prominently. Meanwhile, Pete Dulin profiles Tara Nurin and her book A Woman's Place Is in the Brewhouse on the KC Ale Trail website, describing the history of women in beer from the beverage’s origins up to present day issues of harassment and sexism.
One More Thing
I had my first beer at a concert in 21 months last Thursday night. Cheers to Brooklyn Steel for offering $11 16-ounce cans of Jack’s Abby House Lager. That’s downright reasonable for a concert venue these days, especially when Forest Hills Stadium charges $15 for the same size of beer.
Cheers,
Chris
$15 at Forest Hills? Did they lower their prices? And a good take on the "have more than one presence online" advice! Seems like there is a story there for someone about how much the pandemic forced small craft beer to (finally) up their online-game (the e-comm thing as you mentioned). Or, perhaps how much they further relied on IG and FB for their livelihood instead.