Entries Tagged 'Beer Events' ↓

As seen in the nyc beer events section,

Nov. 27 .: 6PM / Downtown Bar & Grill [map] / Brooklyn, NY / Dogfish Head
3 NEW Dogfish beers
Official Site

Come check out an impressive selection of the Dogfish Head Brewery!

The Brazen Head, located in Brooklyn, will be having a Fall cask beer festival this upcoming weekend (November 2,3,4).  The event is tri-annual, but a cask ale festival in general is quite unusual.  The event will have 11 types of cask beer on tap throughout the weekend. 

The Pour, the NY Times blog about all things related to beer, wine, and spirits, recently included a post that is quite informative on cask ale.  For those of you who are not sure exactly what cask ale is or do not know as much as you would like to know, this post is chock full of information.  Many say that cask ale is the only “real ale” …so you better recognize!  Some highlights that I was not aware of regarding cask ales..

“Cask… is really a sort of archaic word as only a few rigidly authentic brewers in England still insist on using actual barrels. Most casks today are metal.”

“If you are curious about cask ale, I have one important piece of advice. Always call ahead to your destination to make sure they are serving cask ale. Each cask has a life of around two to four days, and if the bar or restaurant has not planned well, there can be a void in between casks. Call ahead to avoid disappointment.”

Read this very informative article here

Last weekend I attended the afternoon session of the Brewtopia World Beer Festival on Chelsea Piers.  The festival was set up like a runway that never ended with tons of stations representing breweries, beer bars, and beer organizations.  If you are interested in becoming part of the craft beer movement, beer festivals like the Brewtopia World Beer festival are the place to go.  You can find local homebrew groups, talk to actual commercial brewmasters who have often recently made the transition from homebrewer to commercial brewer, you can meet other craft beer enthusiasts, and you can drink 100 types of beer in an hour.  As my brother says, “It’s like an adult candy store.” 

If you want to go an extra step, I would highly recommend trying to volunteer at these events.  When you do this, you can arrive early to meet the brewery reps and VIPs before the rush of thirsty beer drinkers.  I myself volunteered this year and got to talk to several brewery reps.  

I specifically spoke with Ray Hill of Hill Brewing.  He brews a Pre-Prohibition Pilsner that was a completely new style of pilsner for me and it was quite delicious.  I spoke with him about how he got into brewing, which was quite interesting to me because I have always had dreams of being a successful brewer.  He said he started out brewing as a hobby and as more and more of his friends kept asking him if he sold his beer, he eventually decided to make the leap of faith and quit his IT job to buy the equipment and start brewing commercially. 

I asked him how he initially started to come up with recipes for homebrewing because to date I have mostly used the homebrewing kits and exercised very limited improvisation.  He said that his best strategy for developing a beer that he liked was to brew a clone recipe that mimmicks a commercial beer that he likes and then brew the clone several times altering certain components of the process to single out the specific part that he likes.  Essentially you start out with the framework of a commercial beer that you like and you accentuate the flavors that you like through trial and error and go from there.  I asked Ray Hill what books he would recommend to an amateur homebrewer like me and he said there is a book with clone recipes, which I found on Amazon here.

As always, people in the craft beer industry were incredibly friendly and interested in helping out anyone interested in taking part in the craft beer movement.  Mr. Hill inspired me to experiment with brewing a hefeweizen last night, which I made sure to improvise with.  Time will tell how it turns out. 

Coming soon will be a guide to homebrew stores in NYC.

The Great World Beer Festival: Brewtopia V

Pier 92
Friday October 26th 2007
7:00 PM to 11:00 pm

Saturday October 27th 2007
Session I 12:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Session II 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM

There will be an event at Blind Tiger Ale House on October 17th at 4PM.

Brooklyn Brewery’s brewmaster Garrett Oliver will be present tapping “17  of Brooklyn’s finest.”

This Thursday at the Heartland Brewery learn about the cultural history of beer and also learn about the new trend of beer pairing.

“Beer 101 Reception at Heartland Brewery (between 6th Ave. & B’way), 127 W. 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.  Cost  $20.00 per person includes food, beer, wine and a lecture on the cultural history of beer, beer making techniques, and the pairing of food and beer, along with a free Heartland Brewery pint glass. ”

Check it out here (it says its too late to sign up but they seem to still be offering spots, reserve a spot now!)

With special guest SAM CALAGIONE, founder and president of Dogfish head brewery.

Details:

Wednesday, October 3rd, 6 PM

@ George Keeley’s

Full description

According to nycbeer.org, on September 15, 2007, there will be an organic beer festival:

“Counter Organic Wine & Martini Bar will host NYC’s first-ever Organic Beer Bash on September 15, 2007 between 12 - 4 pm. Sample 35 organic beers and hard ciders from around the world. Savor finger food made with beer, such as Peak nutbrown beer battered corn fritters, Wolaver’s chocolate stout cake and Pinkus pilsner panisse. If you prefer cocktails, Scarecrow Bloody Beer, Butte Creek Grizzly Beer (whiskey, lemonade, brown ale) and J.K. Scrumpy’s Snake Bite (hard cider, Orlio common ale, organic rum) will hit the spot. The cost of the event is $25. Profits will be donated to Farm Aid, a non-profit group devoted to saving family farms and League of Humane Voters of New York City.”

 Check out the restaurant’s (annoying Flash) website: http://www.counternyc.com/

Meet Market Adventures is a company that organizes events for active singles “who don’t have the time to play as hard as they work.”  I’m not sure what what their events are like, but they are offering a brewery tour.  Check it out…

Singles Brewery & Beer Tasting Tour **Only 8 Spots Left
Starts: Saturday, September 22, 2007 @ 4:45 PM
Cost: $19.99
Location: Chelsea Brewing Company, Manhattan

Other Music presents… 

“FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 - 6 to 8:00 p.m.
Madlib Beat Konducta in India (Vol. 3 & 4) Release Party featuring DJ sets from Egon (Stones Throw) and Mahssa (B-Music), plus free Indian beer and food, and lots of give aways”

Free beer and great music.  You can’t go wrong.