This is going to be Epic

A Saturday of casks, a beloved beer bar closure, and Irish beer from Staten Island

Well, in the history of this newsletter, I’ve never skipped a week, even in my busiest week. But sometimes, as a writer with a day job (yes, believe it or not, I do have one beyond just traveling to drink beer and occasionally write about it), you have to declare newsletter bankruptcy and take a week off, even when your newsletter is nearly half-written. There was a lot of stress and restlessness in my life last week, and I needed a mental health break. I urge you all to take the time you need to yourself when you can, too. But my apologies for leaving you with some extra room in your inbox last week.

Jet lag definitely took its toll on me, as I’ve been playing catch up on sleep since I landed back in the states from Australia and New Zealand ten days ago, and the recovery last week seemed like it got progressively harder as the week went on. It didn’t help that I missed my connection on trip home due to mechanical issues with the plane, and ended up with a second layover in Detroit as a result. It also didn’t help that a trip to the other side of the world was swiftly followed six days later by a friend’s bachelor party in Philadelphia. Heck, it took almost a week before my body had recovered enough for me to justify having a beer at my local brewery taproom — I highly recommend the Hades Corpses Black Lager from KCBC and Wild East, which was a wonderful welcome back into American beer after 10 days abroad.

Speaking of jet lag, I spent the few waking hours I had last weekend catching up on the latest season of the web competition series by the same name, which I strongly recommend if you like some good jet-setting content.

Now, for some good beer-drinking content.

A Sampler Tray of NYC Beer News

Let’s give you a roundup of beer news from around the city in sippable servings. A sampler tray… or as they call in Australia, a paddle. Here’s a few quick newsworthy beer items for you New York beer drinkers.

Strong Rope’s Caskiversary returns

Can’t believe it’s been eight years. Arguably the city’s largest celebration of cask beer returns to Strong Rope Brewery’s Red Hook taproom this Saturday, February 3rd. The brewery’s 8th Annual Caskiversary is a daylong celebration of beer served on cask from Strong Rope and a host of other breweries across the state. This year, 17 different beers will be poured from the likes of Transmitter, Finback, Kills Boro, KCBC, and many more. In the spirit of cask festivals you might find across the pond, it’s a pay-as-you-go, come-as-you-please event — tokens will be available for purchase that you can exchange for 5-ounce or 10-ounce pours. An unlimited taster wristband is also available in advance for $50. The celebration, which will also have food from Long Toast and live music from the Homebrewsicians, gets underway at noon, so get there early for the best selection.

More brewers announced for Opening Bash

The brewery list is out for this year’s NYC Beer Week Opening Bash, the annual celebration of beer in New York City that kicks off a week of beer events across the five boroughs. It all goes down on Saturday, February 24th starting at 12:30pm at Building 8 at Industry City in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Tickets are still available and start at $85.

Here’s the full rundown:

18th Ward Brewing | Adapt Beer Project | Alewife Brewing | Back Home Beer | Barrier Brewing Co | Big aLICe Brewing | Bridge & Tunnel Brewery | Bronx Brewery | Brooklyn Brewery | Brooklyn Kura | Copper Son Brewing Co | Dancing Grain Farm Brewery | Destination Unknown Beer Co (DUBCO) | Dyke Beer | EBBS Brewing Co | Endless Life Brewing | Evil Twin Brewing NYC | Fidens Brewing | Fifth Frame | Fifth Hammer Brewing Co | Finback Brewing | Five Boroughs Brewing Co | The Flagship Brewing Company | Forest & Main Brewing Co | Fox Farm Brewery | Greenpoint Beer & Ale | Grimm Artisanal Ales | Gun Hill Brewing Company | Halfway Crooks Beer | Harlem Brewing Co | Homage Brewing | Hop Lark | Hop Wtr | Hot Plate Brewing Co | Human Robot | Icarus Brewing | Interboro Spirits & Ales | Kato Sake Works | Keg & Lantern Brewing | Kills Boro Brewing Co | Kings County Brewers Collective (KCBC) | Mast Landing Brewing Co | Miles, The Prince | Niteglow Beer | OEC Brewing | Other Half Brewing | Plan Bee Farm Brewery | Phase Three Brewing | Randolph Beer | Resident Culture Brewing | Rockaway Brewing | Root + Branch | Sand City Brewing | Schenker Beer Company | SingleCut Beersmiths | Sixpoint | Smoldered Society | Sound + Fury Brewing | Strong Rope Brewery | The Seed: A Living Beer Project | Threes Brewing | Torch & Crown | Transmitter Brewing | Tripping Animals Brewing | Twin Elephant Brewing | Union Street Brewing | Upward Brewing Company | Vitamin Sea Brewery | Wild East Brewing Co

Bushwick’s High Low closes its doors

The vibes at High Low were always great

Last night was the final night for the beloved but short-lived High Low Beverage Company on Wyckoff Avenue in Bushwick. The bar announced their closure earlier this month. High Low was a unique and innovative place — an all-day bar with coffee and breakfast by day and a stellar beer selection and Vietnamese food by night. The bar lasted nearly four years over one of the most challenging times for hospitality in New York City, opening officially in May of 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Personally, as a resident of Bushwick, it’s a big loss for the neighborhood, especially with nothing else to truly compare. We’ll miss you, High Low.

From the Emerald Isle to Staten Island

I didn’t really have a place to put this in the newsletter back when I visited Ireland in December, but when sitting at The Porterhouse Temple Bar in Dublin, the birthplace of one of Ireland’s longest-running craft breweries, a manager told me, “you know, we’re making beer in New York City now.” This flew under my radar, but it’s worth noting that if you visit some bars in the city that have been pouring their beers, rather than getting Irish-brewed Porterhouse beers that had poured in the past in New York at venues like Fraunces Tavern, you can instead drink New York-brewed versions of their Dry Irish Stout and Nitro Red made on Staten Island in partnership with Flagship Brewing Company. The Irish-brewed brand partnered with Flagship and guided the brewery through perfecting their nitrogenating methods to create the beers just as they’re made in Dublin. The beers are also available on tap at Flagship’s taproom on Minthorne Street in Tompkinsville on Staten Island.

Brewery Tracker

Total brewery count: 3,320
Total breweries visited in 2024: 36
Total breweries visited in New Zealand: 40

Brewery Visit of the Week

Brewery #3317, Epic Beer, Auckland, New Zealand (Visited 20-Jan-2024)

It is cliche to say that I visited Epic Beer on an epic day? When I had booked my trip to New Zealand last fall, I discovered just a day later that the Foo Fighters were playing in Auckland on the day before I was scheduled to fly home. I immediately booked a ticket to the show. About a month before the show, I stumbled across Epic’s Instagram page and discovered that they were throwing a pre-show party at the taproom at their warehouse, which happened to be just a 10-minute walk from the venue. A party at a brewery I hadn’t visited for a concert I was going to? Count me in.

Epic is probably one of the better-known breweries in New Zealand, having an international reach that’s grown over its 18 years in business, including a stint of exporting their beer to the U.S. Like several other of their New Zealand peers, the brewery fell on tough times in 2023 and went into liquidation due to a variety of factors — rising materials costs, a CO2 shortage, and delays in construction of a new brewery. Thankfully, a new buyer was quickly found and you’d hardly know that Epic was on the ropes less than a year ago. And this party, which featured a jam-packed taproom and outdoor tent on a hot, sunny day, brought beer drinkers back in droves.

The beers here lean heavily on hops during the summer, but there’s also extensive barrel-aging that goes on — not my cup of tea for a 90-degree day. I enjoyed the Crush, a low-carb, 4.8% Hazy Pale Ale, and the Hop Zombie, a 8.5% Imperial IPA brewed in that slap-you-in-the-face-with-hops West Coast style. I left for the concert while the party was still going strong, and if I wasn’t heading to see one of my all-time favorite bands, I probably would’ve stuck around long into the night.

The Weekly Reader

• Five Boroughs parent company Finestkind has acquired a Massachusetts brewery [Marco Cartolano, Worcester Telegram]

• The fate of Anchor Brewing should be more clear soon [Joe Kukura, SFist]

• As Dry January ends, where the hell is all the hop water? [Dave Infante, Vinepair]

• A profile of Rwanda’s first craft brewery — women-led, women-brewed [Lucy Corne, Good Beer Hunting]

One Last Thing

There are plenty of ways to use a brewery Instagram account — updates on beer releases, posts about special events, pretty photos of beer — but I was reminded this morning just how creative and funny Mountain Culture’s Instagram account is. They were the first brewery I visited in Australia last year, and while I do long to go back and enjoy their outstanding Status Quo Pale Ale (the #1 beer in Australia on the GABS Hottest 100 two years running), I feel connected to the brewery just watching their hilarious videos. (Brewers in particular will appreciate this one.)

Cheers,
Chris