Sometime last year, I was interviewed by Friend of Brew York and intrepid drinks reporter Dave Infante in a Vinepair piece about how breweries were becoming Instagram thirst traps. To be honest, I was a bit skeptical of his premise when he reached out for a quote — sure, there are some breweries that are definitely choosing form over function, but there aren’t too many I’d see that were particularly overt about it. But I thought it over a bit and could recall a few spots that had flashy art pieces and wall displays that were playing to a particular self-absorbed demographic. Since that piece went out last October, I hadn’t come across an egregious example of this concept in a while.
Then I went to Pig Pounder Brewery in Greensboro, North Carolina last weekend:
Yeah, it’s quite the space. And it’s brilliant, if you think about it — I don’t think these types of installations are going to keep someone at a brewery longer the way cornhole and board games will, but they’ll certainly go a long way toward marketing the brewery. Social media followers of the people who visit will see this stuff and want to go themselves. Some will go back just for the joy of a photo standing next to a Garfield mural. And maybe others will tag along and actually enjoy the beer, too.
Anyway, well played, Pig Pounder. On a weekend of visits to a lot of generic industrial taprooms, you truly shined as bright as your chandelier.
Opening Bash will whisk you away to Pastrytown
It’s February, and you might have been wondering when Other Half Brewing was going to announce this year’s Pastrytown. Well, you might already have tickets to it without even knowing: this year’s NYC Brewers Guild Opening Bash next weekend will be the home for OH’s Pastrytown celebration in 2023. The event takes place next Saturday, February 25th, with VIP and General Admission tickets still available.
Other Half will be pouring its lineup of Pastrytown beers at Opening Bash, along with some of their friends, like Burial, Fidens, Vitamin Sea, Tripping Animals, Weldwerks, and more. Expect some rich, filling beers, offset by plenty of other great beers from breweries near and far.
The full lineup of breweries is set and below. Next week, I’ll preview some of these breweries that you rarely see in the five boroughs.
• 18th Ward • Alewife Brewing • Arkane Aleworks • Back Home Beer • Barrier Brewing Co • Big aLICe • Bottle Logic Brewing • Bridge and Tunnel Brewery • Bronx Brewery • Brooklyn Brewery • Catskill Brewing • Circa Brewing • Coney Island Brewery • DaleView • Deep Fried Beers • Destination Unknown Beer Co • Dyke Beer • EBBS • Eighth State Brewing • Endless Life • Evergrain • Evil Twin Brewing • Fidens Brewing • Fifth Hammer • Finback • Five Boroughs • Flagship • Forest & Main • Greenpoint Beer • Greenport Harbor • Grimm Artisanal Ales • Gun Hill Brewery • Harlem Brewing Co • Homage Brewing • Human Robot • Iconyc • Interboro • J. Wakefield Brewing • Japas Cervejaria • KCBC • Keg & Lantern • Kills Boro • Kings Brewery • LICBP • Mast Landing • Modist • Mortalis Brewing • North Park Beer Co. • Ology • Other Half • Phase Three • Prison City Brewing • Randolph • Resident Culture • Rockaway • Root + Branch • Salud Cerveceria • Schilling • Singlecut • Sixpoint Brewery • Southern Grist • Strong Rope Brewery • TALEA Beer Co. • Threes Brewing • Timber Ales • Torch & Crown • Transmitter Brewing • Tripping Animals Brewing • Twin Elephant • Upper Depot Brewing Co. • Upward Brewing • Vitamin Sea • Voodoo Brewery • Wayward Lane • Weldwerks • Wild East
Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 2,934
Total breweries visited in 2023: 39
Total breweries visited in North Carolina: 88
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #2931, Lesser-Known Beer Co., Winston-Salem, North Carolina (Visited 12-Feb-2023)
Good beer takes time — time to brew and time to pour. But when I saw my bartender at Lesser-Known call out my order to someone working in the brewery space, I was a bit puzzled as to what I had just gotten myself into.
Lesser-Known has been around less than a year — opening last July — and it was regularly mentioned by other brewery employees around town on my visit last weekend as the Winston-Salem beer scene’s young darling. Co-founder Will Loring was behind the bar pouring me beer when I mentioned I was visiting from New York, and he rattled off a whole host of well-respected beer people we both know. His other co-founder, Ryan Gramlich, came to Winston-Salem from Triple Crossing in Richmond, Virginia. Both were outsiders opening in a relatively obscure place for great beer, so to make a splash, there had to be a niche.
That niche will make even the geekiest beer geek geek out more. They’re focused on old-school brewing — decoction mashes, open fermentation; old-school styles — a Dunkel, Czech Dark Lager, and Stout were on tap; and old-school serving — that Dunkel I ordered came straight off of their lagering tanks. The menu is short and simple, the setting is clean and uncluttered, and if you’re somehow bored by the house beer selection, there’s also draft pours and bottled beers in an adjoining room from some of the founders’ favorite breweries, like Brasserie de la Senne, Allagash, Drie Fonteinen, and de Garde.
This spot is a true gem for a relaxing afternoon over a lager, and I’m already looking forward to my next visit.
Long Read of the Week
“You have to go down to Lewes and visit Beak,” several friends in London have said on my trips across the pond. I regretfully still haven’t done this, but Lily Waite has transported me there with this wonderful piece in Good Beer Hunting. Now I know why I have to go, and it’ll be my top priority on my next visit.
One Last Thing
If you’re like me and having a rough go of things lately, remember that it could always be worse: you could be the people on Air New Zealand Flight 2 today, who departed Auckland for JFK Airport at 8pm Thursday (New Zealand time) and are expected to land just after noon Friday… back in Auckland, because the plane turned around near Hawaii after a fire at JFK Terminal 1. That’s 16 hours of their lives that they’re not getting back, and it’s my worst nightmare about my upcoming trip to Australia and New Zealand.
Cheers,
Chris
Red Bull 🤝 Instagram-trap breweries
Give you wings
Love these short little quips. Kept my short attention the whole time lol. Great info. Can’t wait to check out these breweries