Beer Hero: Ben Grace By: Eric Sturniolo I like beer. My friend Ben Grace really likes beer. He just had his 1,000th unique beer in a 2 year span. If you’re thinking “I can do that,” remember, it’s 1,000 unique beers. That’s 1.37 different beers every single day. 9.6 unique beers every single week. For…
What’s Brewing: Alan Sprints of Hair of the Dog By Eric Sturniolo On my trip to Portland (read about it here), I fell in love. Hard. With Hair of the Dog Brewery. Alan Sprints opened HotD in 1993, and quickly became a pioneer in the old world, barrel-aged process. The beer is amazing, and unlike…
Beer Hero – Greg Avola of Untappd By Eric Sturniolo If you drink craft beer, you’ve used the mobile app Untappd. If you haven’t, get it. From their site: “Untappd is a new way to socially share and explore the world of beer with your friends and the world. Curious what your friends are drinking…
By: Eric Sturniolo As far as jobs go, Mike Lovullo is living a beer nerd’s dream. As the specialty brands manager at Union Beer Distributors, he gets to spend his day in New York City’s best bars and restaurants, talking about and selling beer. I caught up with him recently at Astoria Bier and…
By: Eric Sturniolo Here in New York City, we’re not so familiar with Prairie Artisan Ales (Tulsa, Oklahoma). I made sure to head to Torst for the release party of their collaboration beer with Evil Twin called Bible Belt, and luckily they had lots of other Prairie stuff on tap. Since Bible Belt is a…
By Eric Sturniolo and Andrew To close out NYC Beer Week 2014, we ventured to the Lexington Armory for the NYC Craft Beer Festival. With 75 breweries and over 150 different beers to taste, we had our work cut out for us. We started in the Connoisseurs Lounge, where great passed appetizers put some much…
Our Desert Island Beers Andrew – Heady Topper, The Alchemist, Waterbury, VT I almost didn’t want to pick this beer because I wanted to be more “original” with my choice, but it’s the beer that gave me the idea to do this post in the first place. I was drinking a can of this super…
By Eric Sturniolo Navigating the world of craft beer can be a struggle. Stouts, India pale ales, pale ales, porters, lambics, guezes, wet hopped, dry hopped, bourbon barrel aged… it goes on and on. So let’s concentrate on a very important beer word: Imperial. You’ve probably noticed a lot of beers are called Imperial. Any…
By Eric Sturniolo Ramen has taken over NYC. But finding a place with traditional taste and a great craft beer lineup isn’t easy. Luckily, you can follow the red glow to Ganso in Downtown Brooklyn. Chef/owner Harris Salat knows what he’s doing. After working in restaurant kitchens in Japan, and writing four Japanese cookbooks, the…
By Eric Sturniolo Evolution states that over generations, entire species, individual organisms, and tiny molecules all change. Beervolution happens much more quickly, and is much more important. This is my story. When I was about 16, my dad let me have my first beer, Becks. It was disgusting. But most adults seemed to like beer,…
A delicious porter made with 997 glazed doughnuts (would have been 1,000 but the brewer ate 3)! Tastes of chocolate, coffee, vanilla, butterscotch, sugar, glaze, dough… doughnuts! Doughnuts from Glazed Gourmet.
Imperial IPA (8.3%ABV) with strong citrus and pine, along with Bear Republic’s signature malty backbone.
Sold at the brewery only. Low ABV (4.5%) coupled with light and crisp hops and yeast make this easy to drink all day long.
Eric : I spent a few hours at one of the most aptly named places in NYC…Astoria Bier and Cheese. I learned a lot. Most importantly, beer goes great with cheese, even more so than wine does. But that’s mostly because beer is better than wine. The space is bright, airy and relaxing, with table…
Eric: The first time I saw Billy Durney was weeks after Hurricane Sandy. He was standing next to a meat smoker on a sidewalk in front of his still-under- construction restaurant on Van Brunt Street in Red Hook. As I drove past him in my car, the aroma of juicy beef penetrated my car and…
By: Eric Sturniolo The Gate 321 5th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11215 (718) 768-4329 Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Gate/68409593032 Twitter: https://twitter.com/thegatebrooklyn @thegatebrooklyn I visited The Gate in Park Slope during the Bell’s Brewery Launch week. 11 of their 25 taps were Bell’s, and I got a flight (4 pours for $10), then a Two Hearted Ale. The non-Bell’s…
“Sporting a GoPro mounted on his head — amongst other places — Oxbow Brewing head brewer Tim Adams shows you what it’s like to brew up a batch of their American Farmhouse Pale Ale.” http://devour.com/video/pov-beer-brewing/
Eric: I win.
By Eric Sturniolo Three heirloom tomatoes. One bushel of kale. Four amazing beers fresh from the tap. That was my day (minus the tomatoes and kale; I can’t cook) at the new Whole Foods in Gowanus, Brooklyn. In the huge, shiny store, I focused on the beer and the cafe. To start your beer…
By Eric Sturniolo Photography by Annie Shustrin (http://travelshus.com) Sometimes life needs a little Brooklyn magic. After unknowingly growing up 5 miles apart in the Black Forest region of Germany, Ayana and Tobias Holler met here, in Fort Greene, and married. This is lucky for us, since together they opened Black Forest Brooklyn. The interior is…
Eric: Lagunitas Sucks is back in NYC after what seems like a year-long wait. An imperial IPA, it’s extremely hoppy and bitter. This year’s batch actually tastes more bitter than before. Like most of my favorite IPAs, I taste grapefuit, citrus, and pine with a huge citrus smell. Open it and walk a few…
Eric: I love Maine Beer Company. Their IPA Lunch is one of my favorite IPAs (and favorite beer) of all time. Finally, I had it on tap at Pony Bar -UES. I taste orange, citrus, and pine. It’s more bitter and not as juicy as Heady Topper or Jai Alai. If you’re in NYC…
Eric: Can you guess which is which? Start with a good glass. Clean it so it will have nice lacing. Hold the glass at a 45 degree angle and pour. Halfway through, hold the glass upright and pour the rest right into the middle. This was Dog Fish Head My Antonia, an imperial lager. It…
Eric: Apparently, The Jeffrey is my new favorite bar. Good, cheap food, lots of space, and a consistently amazing draft list. Today’s list had a lot I wanted…. But I settled for two: Oxbow Beer Farmhouse Pale Ale (6.0% ABV): This was my first beer from Oxbow, located in Newcastle, Maine. Yet ANOTHER amazing Maine…
Andrew and Eric: When a bar has 15 taps of Founders, you go. When one of those taps is pouring Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout, you put your life on hold and drink it. That’s what happened at Founders Brewery Night at The Jeffrey. The Jeffrey, a new-ish bar on the lower Upper East Side (on…
Eric: Shake Shack is on my block, but I try not to go all the time so I can live to at least 34. But I went last night, planning to do a story about their beer selection. Alas, it was crowded and there was nowhere to sit. So, I took it back home and…
Eric: The Jack’s Abby frenzy continued with two more new (for me) beers. First was Lashes Hopbock Lager and I totally loved it. Bocks are usually not hoppy at all, and this one didn’t have the extreme hops like the IPAs we love, but it had just enough. The bit of hops combined perfectly with…
Eric: Ah. The Friday after Thanksgiving. When you eat leftovers for dinner, then go stand outside in a dark field in 20 degree weather while your dog runs around, then come inside and realize you forgot to bring home any leftover dessert! So, I had a beer instead. As we’ve written before, Jack’s Abby started…
Eric: I like to drink beer and eat potato chips and eat beer potato chips. Luckily for me, Kettle makes Cheddar Beer chips. Ingredients: Potatoes, safflower and/or sunflower and/or canola oil, whey, salt, Cheddar cheese (pasteurized milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), natural flavors, yeast extract, torula yeast, sugar, lactic acid, citric acid, spice, paprika…
Eric: Approximately once a year, I have a birthday. This year, my BrewParentz got me two sets of beer glasses. My beer glasses used to suck, but they don’t anymore! The set is made by Libbey (you can get them at Bed Bath and Beyond for $19.99 here), and includes 6 different glasses: 15 1/4-ounce…
http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1522304 More women getting into craft beer, not just as drinkers but also as brewers Long Islander Lauri Spitz co-founded Moustache Brewing Co. with her husband Matthew.Beer-loving ladies are rallying for a woman’s right to brews. A feminist movement is bubbling up in the beer industry, as more women lean in to the bar to…
Eric: Pie and Beer. A classic pairing. They go together like goat cheese and crack. Lucky for me, a great Brooklyn beer bar, Mission Dolores, had a Pie Beer Night! There were six different pies, made locally by Four and Twenty Blackbirds, with recommended beer pairings. The bar is in Park Slope/Gowanus on 4th Ave…
Eric: If you’re like me, you don’t like to learn or read or listen to things. But I came across this podcast, and who knew…learning can be fun! This is an interview from The Leonard Lopate Show. “Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster of The Brooklyn Brewery, editor-in-chief of The Oxford Companion to Beer and author of The Brewmaster’s…
Eric: It was a typical Wednesday night in BrewBoyz land. We went to Top Hops for a Goose Island sour ales release party. They had brand new bottles called Halia and Gillian, as well as a great tap lineup inlcuding Lolita, Sofie Paradisi, Bourbon County Stout, Bourbon County Coffee Stout, Bourbon County Cherry Rye, and…
Eric: I finally got to have a Bell’s Two Hearted Ale, and it lived up to the hype. Bell’s is in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and never distributed anything around here before. On October 1st, they started shipping to certain areas in western and upstate New York. You can read about it here. Unfortunately for us, not…
Eric: Last night I was lucky enough to have some really rare and incredible Hair of the Dog beers. But first, some other stuff I’ve had recently: Friday night was IPA night (with a sour break)- Stone 17th Anniversary Götterdämmerung IPA is made with German and German-inspired hops and malts. Maybe because of that, it…
Eric: Oh, hello. This weekend was a pretty great one… this was mine: Friday night I FINALLY drank my (very old) Stone Enjoy By 9.13.13. It was still great. Saturday the BrewBoyz went to The Jeffery, a new bar on the lower Upper East Side. It was their official opening celebration (even though it had…
Eric: Usually my Tuesday nights consist of gently sobbing in a dark corner of my bedroom, but last night I went to a bar! Spitzer’s Corner is on the Lower East Side, and turned out to be more of a restaurant than a bar. They had 40 taps and a few cool bottles/big bottles. I…
Eric: Apparently it’s pretty popular, but I just had my first Stiegl Radler (Grapefruit) today. They claim it’s half Stiegl Goldbrau, and half fruit soda. It tasted exactly like Grapefruit Pelligrino, which I love, but I have trouble considering this a beer. Especially at only 2.5%. If I drank 10 of these, I’d be more…
Eric: Living in New York City is great. The constant noise, traffic, crowds, tourists, rats, pigeons, garbage, and cripplingly high cost of living all contribute to a very stress-free life. The one bad thing about living here is the lack of space and storage. My apartment pretty much looks like this: Andrew is lucky. He…
Eric: Brewboyz drink beer together, but sometimes Brewboyz drink beer seperately (my spell check wanted to change ‘separately’ to ‘desperately’. There’s some truth to that). Last night, Andrew thought he was so cool drinking a Maine Beer Co. Lunch (one of our favorite beers ever). But little did he know that I was EVEN…
By Eric Sturniolo Simply put, Portland is beer heaven. Tons of breweries, great bars and bottle shops, local and inventive food, and mountains, hiking, parks, and hot springs. If you head west, use this as a guide to squeeze every last drop of beer from the city. I went straight from the airport to Apex,…
Eric: Lots of blogs make ‘top ten ____’ lists. But we’re not most blogs, mostly because we can’t count to ten. So here are an unknown number of old-timey and new-timey songs that mention alcohol that you might enjoy. Or hate. Whatever, it’s a free country. Add yours in the comments!
Eric: Bears are wondrous creatures. They can climb trees, catch fish, hibernate, and apparently, brew beer. I’ve liked Bear Republic beers ever since I was a BrewCub. Their Racer 5 was one of the first IPA’s I fell in love with. I’ve also had and liked their Red Rocket Ale, Hop Rod Rye,…
Eric: Ah, Yom Kippur…that magical time of year when a young man’s fancy turns to atoning for sins and getting inscribed into the book of life. And what better way to get on God’s good side than buying beer! In NYC, the BrewBoyz are spoiled by all the great beer stores with tastings/taps like Top…
Eric: Sour beers are one thing. I can even handle beer with spices. But a sour beer made with spices and salt? No thank you. What’s that? You enjoy drinking salt water? But you’d like it even more if it also had the sourness of 10,000 lemons? Then this beer, a gose is for you!…
Eric: There are some important moments in life. Being born (done), becoming a man (Bar Mitzvah:done), having beers on tap for the first time… DONE. My first stop tonight was Strong Place, where I had an Ithaca Flower Power and a Stone Enjoy By 9.13.13. Both were great hop punches to the face. Then I…
Eric: Maine Beer Company. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but I suspect it’s a beer company, although I have no idea what state it’s in. Whatever and wherever it is, they make some of my favorite beer. At the Goose Island Takeover at Top Hops, I bought a bottle of their two new…
Eric: It was a typical Thursday night in BrewBoyz land. We went to Top Hops for a Goose Island takeover. All their taps were Goose Island beer, including some rare stuff. I’ll talk about my night… Here’s the menu: I started with a glass of Matilda Lambicus, a Belgian Pale Ale fermented with brettanomyces. The…
Eric: Like Andrew’s 11 Madison Park/Ithaca Brewery collaboration, I had my own less fancy restaurant/brewery beer last night at Habana Outpost. Spread Love is a collaboration with Kelso, a 6% ABV pale ale. Kelso made it exclusively for Habana, and their restaurant in Ft Greene, Brooklyn is the only place it’s sold. It had an…
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