One of the Best Beer Bars in NYC is NOT a Beer Bar!

The photo above was taken at Brouwerij Lane in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. They started off as a quaint beer store with a few taps for growler fills. But now they have a full 19 taps, and as you can tell from the photo, there are some great choices. Now, this tap upgrade was primarily done for NY Craft Beer Week, but thankfully (and obviously) the taps are permanent!

In addition to the great bottle selection and 19 full taps, you can also DRINK BEER IN THE STORE! Yes, that's right. You can drink any of the beers on tap right there in the store. Now, realize that its still a somewhat small place, so you could very well end up standing, but its well worth it for the good brews. Also, the staff is very friendly and knowledgeable, willing to chat with anyone about beer.

Since the photo was taken, they had a few more events that rotated the tap list around. Check out their current (9/21) list:

1. Gaffel Kolsch
2. Gösser Austrian Lager
3. Jever Pilsener
4. Gruut Belgian Wit Beer
5. Stone Levitation Red Ale
6. Stone Arrogant Bastard
7. Stone Sublimely Self Righteous Black IPA
8. Stone Vertical Epic ‘09 Imperial Belgian Porter
9. Stone Ruination IPA
10. Keegan Old Capital
11. Victory Yakima Twilight
12. Keegan Mothers Milk
13. Keegan Joe Mama’s Imperial Coffee Milk
14. Sixpoint Apollo Wheat
15. Victory Wild Devil
16. Lagunitas Lucky 13 Imperial Red Ale
17. Boulder Flashback India Brown Ale
18. Victory Festbier Octoberfest
19. Victory Golden Monkey

NY Craft Beer Week 2009: The Aftermath

NY Craft Beer Week '09 was both the best and worst thing ever. It was the best because hundreds of places around the city were chock full of good beer, some of which being rare, high caliber stuff. On the other hand, I gained at least 5lbs, got next to no sleep and entirely lost the ability to concentrate at work. In addition to that, even though I went to as many bars and events as I could, I didn't feel like I could fully take advantage of the $35 beer passport.





Pictured above are just a small fraction of the firkins at Rattle'n'Hum, which this week solidified itself as THE premiere beer destination in NYC. Their cask ales throughout the week were unmatched. Coupled with visits from anywhere between one and three brewers every night of the week, not even the wonderful Blind Tiger could hold up to RNH's beer geekness.

But that brings me to my gripe about the Passport. You pay $35 for a booklet of information about events and discounts at bars across the city. Sounds good on the surface, but the passports were printed in July. Not one bar that I visited had all 3 beers advertised as the discounted beers in the booklet. I understand the difficulty of planning this out, but there needs to be a better system. In 2008, Craft Beer Week sold tickets to beer crawls of individual neighborhoods. And while somewhat limiting, this worked for me in that it forced me to check out new bars that I wouldn't ordinarily visit. At the same time, there were WAY more bars involved this year, so I don't see an obvious solution.

So in conclusion, NY Craft Beer Week was a great week celebrating good beer in the best city in the world. BUT, its far from perfection. I'm sure as they continue it, it will improve exponentially. I have faith.

Ithaca Brewfest 2009

Here are a few photos from the Ithaca Brewfest which took place on 9/4/09. We did the VIP experience which cost $35 more. Going VIP was definitely worth it, but it would have been much, much better if we didn't get a flat tire on our 3 hour drive to Ithaca, causing us to miss the initial VIP-only first hour and the following 2 hours. We still were able to sample a ton of brews that no one else in the brewfest got to have though, so hey, whaddya gonna do?


The VIP tent.

VIP Selections

The Non-VIP Area.

Ithaca Beer Company

The Ithaca Beer Company in Ithaca, NY. Small, but excellent beers. Funny thing, I spent four years at Ithaca College, and a few weeks ago was the first time I'd visited the brewery. Guess that speaks to my beer renaissance not occurring until after college. Oh well. Ithaca Brewing offers free samples and free tours.



Another great thing about visiting the brewery is that they have a bunch of homebrew supplies for sale right there. This should be done at more breweries and if we ever open a brewpub, we'd love to be able to sell homebrew supplies as well.



On our tour we got to see the relatively small operation. True fact - Only 7 people are actually involved in every single bottle of Ithaca Beer that is out there. And 2 of those are the brewers!





This is their two-row silo. That's a lot of malt!

More Photos from the Wedding

Homebrews awaiting their wedding imbibers.



The beertographer grabbing some more cold homebrew!



Heather made special, simple tags so that the wedding guests would be able to tell what they were about to try.



good beers, bad pours, awesome masonic jars!



Gratuitous homebrew foam shot.