Summer Sour Beers at Brouwerij Lane

The sour and wild beer obsession continues on in New York with Brouwerij Lane’s Summer Sour event this weekend in Greenpoint. From June 28 to 30 the bar will serve up flights of sour beers for $25. The flights are great for getting an introduction to sour beers or for getting your hands on these beers without committing to spend the money required to buy bottles of these beers. The beers will be served all weekend long or until they run out. Here is the beer list: Tilquin Gueuze Loverbeer D’Uva 3 Fonteinen Zwet.be Freigeist Sauer Porter De Struisse Weltmerz…

Homebrewklyn

21 homebrewers will come together Saturday, June 22 for Homebrewklyn, an event sponsored by the Prospect Heights homebrew shop Bitter and Esters. A $30 ticket grants you entry into one of two sessions with samplings of the beers and a vote for the peoples choice award. Judges Peter Salamond, head brewer at Kelso Brewing, Scott Simpson, brewer at Chelsea, and Mary Izett, co-host of Fuhmentaboudit will select the first prize winner who will take home a $500 gift certificate to Bitter and Esters and another $500 for the charity of their choice. Sessions run from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.…

Brooklyn Brewery Launches Greenmarket Wheat

On Wednesday evening the Brooklyn Brewery launched the Brooklyn Greenmarket Wheat beer, a collaboration with environmental non-profit GrowNYC, a group that’s aimed at improving NYC’s quality of life with environmental programs, such as the city’s greenmarkets. Inspired by Governor Cuomo’s 2012 Farm Brewery License legislation, which went into effect in January, Greenmarket Wheat is brewed in a Belgian Wit Style from 70 percent wheat grown in New York State at North Country Farm in Watertown, NY. Wildflower Honey from Tremblay Apiaries in Chemung County, NY and  Pilsner Barley Malt from Valley Malt in Hadley, MA were also used in the…

Start Kegging. Here’s How.

A homebrewer’s journal, by John Kleinchester One of the best upgrades a homebrewer can make to their setup is to start kegging. Bottling is a long and arduous process made even more difficult if you’re doing it solo. Kegging, on the other hand, is not hard for one person to handle. Not only is it an easier process overall, it can also provide beer that’s ready for drinking much sooner than the few weeks it can take for bottles to carbonate. The homebrew standard for kegging is five gallon cornielius or “corny” kegs. These used to be the soda industry’s…

Urban Oyster: Cultivating Neighborhoods

Use the promo code beerunion for 20% off Urban Oyster beer tours! __ In June 2009 David Naczycz founded Urban Oyster, a company that offers tours in New York CIty, named so because of “the belief that, like oysters, the neighborhoods of New York are treasured resources that require nurturing and cultivation in order to survive and flourish.” Its inaugural tour: Brewed in Brooklyn. “We knew we wanted to start in Brooklyn,” says Naczycz (pictured above and below, giving tours). “We researched five or six different stories to start with. Beer was the most exciting. It was the Best story no one was telling”…

Beer Hunter Premiere in NYC

On Tuesday evening the Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan’s East Village hosted the New York City premiere of Beer Hunter: The Movie, put together by Beer Nation‘s Seth Wright and Jimmy Carbone of Jimmy’s No. 43. Beer Hunter is a documentary about the venerable Michael Jackson (left), a beer and whisky writer who transformed the craft beer industry. His 1977 book, The World Guide to Beer was the first book to characterize beers in terms of style. Michael is responsible for saving certain beer styles from extinction, and basically inventing beer journalism, before his death in 2007. The World Guide to…

The Blue Dot BeerUnion Hops Pendant

It’s always awesome to have talented and artistic friends. This year for my birthday my great friend Caitlin made me a silver necklace with a hops cone pendant. Pause to think about how amazing that is: a hops pendant! Caitlin designs and makes jewelry out of precious metal clay through her business Blue Dot Jewelry. She forms pieces in the clay and fires them off in the kiln. The clay is made of small particles of silver mixed with particles to bind it together. When fired, the binding particles burn away, and you’re left with pure silver. We’ve decided to…

Beers Gone Wild at Alewife

The focus on wild and sour beers continues to intensify this year and Alewife in Queens is taking it to a new level this weekend with a “Beers Gone Wild” event. The event features some of the best wild beers and sours from American craft brewers and traditional brewers from countries like Belgium and Germany. The list is dizzying with kegs like Cantillon St Lamvinus, Tilquin Gueuze, The Bruery Sour in the Rye, and Allagash Midnight.  The bottle list includes beers like Anchorage Galaxy White IPA, Crooked Stave Hop Savant, and Cantillon Cuvee des Champions. Beers will be available starting…

SAVOR Tickets Still Available

The Brewer’s Association’s top beer and food event, SAVOR, is coming to New York City in just ten more days and tickets are still available. The event, which is usually held in Washington DC, normally sells out quickly. The festival brings breweries from all over the country for two days of beer and food pairings that showcase the creativity and pairing potential of craft beer. Small New York breweries like Newburgh Brewing Company and Port Jeff Brewing will be on hand alongside popular, out-of-market breweries like New Belgium Brewing Company and Bells Brewery, and lesser known breweries like Laughing Sun…

There is great beer in New York.

“I thought starting a brewery was cool, but what you guys are doing, going around trying beer at all these breweries, that’s really cool.” Mark Gillis, founder and brewmaster of Blue Line Brewery in Saranac Lake, said this to us. It is pretty cool. We’ve been having such a great time traveling across our home state for book research, visiting places we’ve never been to. And trying many, many New York beers. Here is what we’ve discovered thus far: New York State is highly under-appreciated for its beer. We get it, we really do. When you think of states with great beer,…