Brew's Clues: Episode XII -- Brooklyn Brewery
Walking down a warehouse-lined and graffiti-laden avenue, looking for Brooklyn Brewery, I felt quite the country mouse in the big city. This was nothing like the picturesque bridge-view brewery at Otter Creek, nor even the Lake Champlain-abutting Magic Hat facility. As I opened the door, though, I felt right at home. A bar with eight tap handles lined one wall, large grain bags lined another, and four massive steel tanks took up the rest of the view. “Ah,” I sighed. “This is what I was looking for.”
I met up with Dan Peterson, a brewer there, who showed me around on a private tour of the facility. It was actually more like I watched him work while enjoying a glass of Local 1, a delicious bottle-conditioned Belgian-style ale. (Bottle conditioning, as Dan explained, is an alternative way to store beer and carbonate it. Instead of forcing carbon dioxide into it, a small amount of sugar is added to the bottle for the yeast to consume, leading to a pleasant bubbliness. This is the method used by most homebrewers.)
Brooklyn brews Local 1 and many kegged beers for distribution, while a factory in northern New York makes most of the bottles. With brewmaster Garrett Oliver at the helm, it’s been a leader in traditional beer styles — in stark contrast to the ever-increasing wackiness going on at Sam Calagione’s Dogfish Head. Brooklyn’s lager is its leading beer, and it is are well known for its IPA, brown ale, and its seasonals. These are good, classic beers. No 9th-century Finnish-style white hot river rock-caramelized brews here. Which is a good thing, to some extent. I respect both brewers for sticking to their guns. Without Oliver, we wouldn’t have a great lager to drink, and without Calagione, where would I get my Arctic Cloudberry Imperial Wheat?
Walking out of the brewery into the dark Brooklyn night, I felt a bit more at ease. It could have been the warm welcome I got at the brewery, or it could have just been the hefty glasses of Old Ale (8.2%) I drank at the bar after the tour. Either way, I knew I would be drinking Dan’s parting gift, a Local 1 for the road, while still in Brooklyn. As I always say, Drink Local.
Photos by KC Maloney
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By Sam Chapple-Sokol
Sam Chapple-Sokol is a paralegal at the Department of Justice, but that’s just his day job. By night and weekend he loves to cook, eat, and brew his own beer.
A Vermonter at heart, his favorite breweries are Rock Art and Long Trail. He is currently brewing a Kolsch using homegrown hops. Wish him luck.
About The Humble Gourmand
The Humble Gourmand is published the first Friday of each month, edited by Alison L. McConnell, a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and writer. It is designed to offer straightforward lessons and advice to aspiring cooks, oenophiles, and all other eaters and drinkers.
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Petey
February 6 10:50 a.m. 1I, for one, didn't love the BB facilities when I toured. But the fact that you could order pizza from local restaurants and have it delivered in the bar area ROCKS.