You OK? You've Barely Touched Your $10 ESB

A trip down NYC Beer Memory Lane and a visit to a very small brewery

This beer, from Mighty Squirrel in Waltham, Mass., did not cost me ten bucks

Hello, New York. After a weekend in the Boston area, it’s great to be back home in the City That Never Sleeps, a city where I know I’m not going to be completely ripped off almost every time I order a beer in a brewery taproom.

Speaking of, hey, Boston — can we talk? What is your problem? Your beer pricing continues to be really, really screwed up. Every time I come back, I am astounded by the way your city does business.

I remember on a visit in 2012, I walked into a craft beer bar in Cambridge and saw Maine Lunch on tap. I love that beer, so I ordered it without thinking twice. I received a 12-ounce pour and handed the bartender a $20 bill. I received a $5 bill, a $1 bill, and some spare change and was shocked — did I just pay over $13 for a beer that was going for $6-7 in New York? Yes, yes I did. This was the first place in my beer-drinking career that I ever had legitimate beer sticker shock. Even more egregiously, it came to light two years later that this bar’s ownership group was engaged in illegal pay-to-play, so they were charging this exorbitant price while also allegedly accepting thousands of dollars in cash under the table to carry that beer.

A couple years later, I stopped by a brewery taproom in Boston, excited to drink a fresh pour of their flagship IPA. The taproom was charging $8 for a pint at the time. Later that night, I went to a dive bar near South Station, where the same beer was being served from a keg that was trucked from the brewery to the distributor, then from the distributor to the bar, with the distributor charging a markup on the beer. The pint of the same IPA at that dive bar? $6.50. It defied logic.

One night in 2017, I went on a bit of a social media tirade about brewery taprooms and bars in Boston who list their prices without tax. Not only did it confuse me, but it was particularly frustrating at places that deal mostly in cash and have to break change — it makes paying for a beer take longer as a bartender makes change, and those coins have a bad habit of being the only tip some patrons leave on the bar, shortchanging those tipped employees. After waiting nearly 20 minutes to order a beer as a bartender had to make change for nearly everyone at the bar, I made a plea to one brewery in Cambridge to change their pricing structure to include tax and round up. They, surprisingly, took my advice, but many others have yet to follow suit.

Fast forward to this past weekend. I visited a brewery and taproom in a low-slung building in a working-class suburb of Boston. I took a look at their chalkboard menu and saw an ESB on the board, and excitedly ordered a pint. The bartender recommended the Saison next. It was a perfectly competent Saison, but nothing special — just a Saison fermented on stainless served in a 10-ounce goblet. When I went to close my tab, it was $20. Yes, each of those two very unremarkable beers were $10 each. That Saison was a dollar an ounce. At the brewery, served at the bar mere steps from the brewhouse where it was brewed. Ten goddamn dollars. I’m not even mad, I’m impressed. No, I take that back — I’m actually mad, too.

It’s also worth noting that the places that seem to charge the most exorbitant prices have something in common: they don’t put their beer prices on their menu (let alone on their website or even their Untappd menu as a verified venue). It’s like they’re actually ashamed how much they’re charging and know that if we saw those prices ahead of time, we wouldn’t order as much beer. Take a freaking hint: if you actively hide your prices from customers, you’re probably overcharging them!

Now, look, Boston. I need you to stop making excuses. Your real estate is expensive, but so are New York and San Francisco and countless other American cities where the going rate for beers in taprooms isn’t in the double digits of dollars yet. Massachusetts has some of the lowest excise taxes on beer in the country and a modest sales tax, so you can’t chalk it up to being in “Taxachusetts.” So just admit it, Boston: the only reason you charge these absurd prices for beer is because you can. Because you decided we beer drinkers are rubes and will pay whatever price you charge. And because once one bar or brewery started to get away with it, you figured you could follow suit.

Anyway, Boston, I’m done drinking in your city for a while. I grew up an hour from there and have fond memories of visiting and attending Red Sox games and causing mayhem around town in my teenage years. But you’re not going to get another damn dollar from me for a while. I’m voting with my wallet and drinking beer somewhere else.

Well, at least until I’m craving some Trillium IPAs again.

Remember When…? 2014 Edition

The logos of New York City’s 20 breweries that were in operation in 2014

Last week was New York City Beer Week, a celebration of this city’s beer scene, but also a time to reminisce with other members of the beer industry at events across the city. This year marks a big milestone for several of New York’s breweries: 10 years in business. In fact, you might say that 2014 was one of the most significant years in modern beer in the city. Many noteworthy breweries — Other Half, Finback, Threes, Gun Hill, Transmitter, Bronx, Flagship, Keg & Lantern, and Greenpoint Beer & Ale Co., plus dearly departed Folksbier — launched that year. And looking back on the things that happened in beer that year, it might have truly represented craft beer’s peak in New York City. Let’s take a look back at our city’s beer scene in 2014…

Bell’s launches in New York

The tap list at a Bell’s launch event at Valhalla in Hell’s Kitchen in 2014

It didn’t take long for us to take it for granted, but in 2014, Michigan-based Bell’s Brewery launched their beers in New York after years of waiting. New York was late to the game in the the brewery’s East Coast expansion, and the rumor at the time was that Bell’s management held a grudge against our city because bars like XXX XXXX XXX and XXXXX XXXXX XXX XXXXX were illicitly selling Two Hearted Ale and Oberon in the late 2000s (bar names have been hidden to protect the… uh, very much guilty). There was a lot of excitement around the launch, but like many big out-of-state launches in those days, eventually Bell’s faded into the background here in New York… and ultimately sold to Japanese beer conglomerate Kirin in 2021.

Anheuser-Busch acquires Blue Point

A giant cask of Blue Point No Apologies at their 2014 Cask Festival, their first after being acquired by Anheuser-Busch

Speaking of breweries selling to big conglomerates, the sale of Blue Point to Anheuser-Busch sent shivers down the spine of New York beer nerds in February of 2014. It was the second small brewery that A-B had swallowed up in the 2010s — Chicago’s Goose Island had been acquired three years earlier. The move was a sign that the beer giant was serious about investing in the craft beer, and it was a taste of a buying spree to come: in the following twelve months, A-B would acquire Portland’s 10 Barrel and Seattle’s Elysian to expand their foothold where they had lost market share to smaller brewers. Years after building a portfolio of over a dozen craft brands, the King of Beers started selling them off, and last year, Blue Point was sold to Tilray Brands along with several other ex-A-B brands.

Chelsea Brewing Company shutters after two decades in business

Back when a closure was an anomaly, New York lost their oldest brewery in 2014 when Chelsea Brewing Company closed in March that year. The writing was on the wall when the 20-year lease on their huge space off of Pier 59 at Chelsea Piers was ending, so its end seemed to come with a whimper, not a bang. The award-winning Chelsea was at one point in 2000s the only functioning brewpub in New York City, being the lone survivor of the 1990s brewpub era. It was the first brewery closure in New York in ten years, but its impact is still felt today — eventually, Chelsea would reopen in the Bronx for a short-lived stint far from its namesake neighborhood, and today, that brewery is home to the production facility for Torch & Crown Brewing Company.

Other Half makes a splash

The top 10 beers brewed in New York City according to Untappd in October of 2014.

Not even ten months into their existence, Other Half Brewing was making four of the top ten rated beers brewed in New York City, according to Untappd. This was before the era of hazy IPAs, so you could actually see through these beers at the time. It wouldn’t be long before this list would be dominated by hazies with little room for much else (part of the reason I stopped tracking this data a couple years later). Just two months into the following year, Other Half would host their first can release, and within weeks, beer nerds were lining up to carry out cases full of their IPAs.

The Beer Headline Time Capsule from 2014

The scene at the New York City Beer Week Opening Bash at Vanderbilt Hall in 2014

Sarene Distribution launches with Thirsty Dog, Port City, Central Waters in portfolio … Bondurants opens on Upper East Side … NYC Beer Week Opening Bash held at Vanderbilt Hall at Grand Central … Covenhoven opens in Crown Heights … Brooklyn Brewery opens New Carnegie Brewery in Stockholm, Sweden … State hosts second Wine, Beer, and Spirits Summit, announces liquor law reforms … First-ever Queens Beer Week is held … Finback releases first edition of BQE Chocolate Coffee Imperial Stout … Transmitter Brewing launches in Queens with Community Supported Beer program … Fools Gold opens on the Lowest East Side … Barcade celebrates 10 years and opens two Manhattan locations … Seasonal Creep reaches peak with Southern Tier Pumking launching in June … Will New York hop-growers and maltsters supply enough for brewers to comply with new Farm Brewery Law? … Sixpoint launches beer for three-day Phish residency on Randall’s Island … US eclipses 3,000-brewery mark … New York City Brewers Guild hosts first-ever Blocktoberfest block party on Waverly Avenue in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn … The Bruery hosts tap takeover at The Ginger Man featuring 36 draft offerings … Gun Hill, Grimm win first medals at Great American Beer Festival … Beer Street in Williamsburg transforms from beer shop into beer bar … Threes opens Gowanus brewpub with ten-day residency from Roberta’s … Brew York marks 5-year anniversary with party at One Mile House (yeah, I’ve been at this for 15 years now.)

Brewery Tracker

Total brewery count: 3,349
Total breweries visited in 2024: 65
Total breweries visited in New Jersey: 76

Brewery Visit of the Week

Brewery #3325, The Druery Brewery, Lawrenceville, New Jersey (Visited 10-Feb-2024)

There are plenty of very small breweries out there. By the textbook definition as far as annual production volume goes, it’s a brewery that makes fewer than 1,000 barrels of beer per year. But there’s also some very small breweries that are quite literally very small. Like, so far from a square footage perspective that you have to wonder how they manage to make it work. The Druery is one of those breweries. It’s wedged into a storefront that’s barely wider than your average compact car is long. It seems unfathomable that a space this small could host both a brewery and a taproom, and yet… it works. There’s definitely use of the vertical space (particularly for double-stacking tanks), and the coldbox top doubles as a storage area for raw materials… not to mention the coldbox itself is about as wide as the seating area in front of the bar.

The Druery opened last December and was drawing as much of a crowd as a space like this can hold on the Saturday afternoon when we visited. Perhaps incredibly given the size of their space, the beer list was long and varied, with ten beers on tap ranging from IPAs to Lagers to Stouts. They’re closed Monday and Tuesday, unsurprisingly, so they have room to brew. I’m hoping for them that their early success means eventually they’ll have room to grow.

The Doom and Gloom Tracker

At least 2 breweries I’ve visited closed or announced their closure this week:

• Brewery #1854, Red Tank Brewing Company, Red Bank, New Jersey (Visited 24-Jan-2020)

• Brewery #3064, Golden West Brewing Co., Subiaco, Western Australia (Visited 19-Apr-2023)

The Weekly Reader

• Celebrate St. Paddy’s Day with Flagship’s Nitro Irish Red [Pamela Silvestri, SILive.com]

• Western New York breweries are making beers for next month’s solar eclipse [Will Cleveland, Cleveland Prost]

• Pennsylvania is yet another state whose liquor laws desperately need reform [Kiki Aranita, Good Beer Hunting]

• …and Georgia failed to reform theirs this cycle [Brittany McGee, GPB]

• The origin story of my favorite Argentinian brewery [Grace Lee-Weitz, Hop Culture]

One Last Thing

I’m soon going to be making my first trip to San Diego in nearly three years to revisit the beer scene. Believe it or not, despite having visited 78 breweries in San Diego County, there are still many unexplored pockets of the scene for me — and I’m packing my passport with the intention of a brief day trip to visit some breweries in Tijuana for the first time, which will help get my Mexican brewery count above its current pathetic total of 1. If you’ve been recently, let me know in the comments what’s new and exciting!

Cheers,
Chris