Category Archives: Brewmaster Oliver

Introducing Mary’s Maple Porter

Mary’s Maple Porter is available February-April 2012, draft only.

It’s true….when he was a kid, Garret used to actually believe that the stuff he was putting on his pancakes was maple syrup. Well, everybody called it maple syrup. Later, he discovered the truth – that stuff he was eating was just sugar syrup with “maple flavoring”, various gums, and caramel coloring. Then he discovered actual maple syrup, the stuff from trees, and became enlightened. Hey, everyone evolves.

Brooklyn Brewery has evolved a lot lately too. About a year ago, a brewer named Mary Wiles joined our brewery team after spending 30 years brewing and doing quality control for a Very, Very Big Brewer. Mary evolved into a craft beer brewer, and now she’s doing our quality control, having fun while helping us make sure that Brooklyn beers are tasting great and ready to make you happy. But Mary has a bright thing lurking in her past, present and future – Mary has maple trees. A lot of maple trees. Actually, a ridiculous number of maple trees, acres of them, right northwest of us in upstate New York. And her family farm makes 100% real New York State maple syrup.

Real maple syrup tastes great on pancakes and waffles, but it’s awfully good in beer too. Porter is a classic British ale style that traveled to the United States, sustained George Washington during the Revolution, and later built London’s great breweries. Mary’s Maple Porter is a rich, dark ale featuring a large portion (50 gallons!) of her maple syrup in the kettle. After fermentation by our house ale yeast, the syrup is no longer sweet (yeast likes to eat maple syrup too), but the maple flavor shows through in a complex interplay with caramel, chocolate, and coffee flavors from our blend of roasted malts. An earthy hop note rounds it all out. It’s really tasty, especially with bacon.

Beer Dinner w/ Garrett Oliver @ The JakeWalk

The JakeWalk, part of a foodtastic triumvirate including cheese and artisanal provisions outlet Stinky Brooklyn and wine/liquor outpost Smith & Vine, rolled out a scrumptious 3-course beer dinner earlier this evening including a delightfully odorous cheese finale, all paired with some of Brooklyn’s most illusive imbibables, and each introduced in detail by Brewmaster Oliver:

You’ll find that all the doors are locked, and the windows are barred. There was no escaping the bottle-conditioned, vintage, barrel-aged and funky-yeast beers to come.

Bottle-conditioned Radius, at a highly sessionable 4.8%, stretches its legs.

Arguably the best course of the night, the chicken liver crostini drenched in kabocha squash soup and paired with the original batch of Local 1 was the edible equivalent of running the game-opening kickoff to a touchdown (sorry, football on the brain).

This trio of goat cheese ravioli displayed a mild hint of wasabi, the perfect accompaniment to Sorachi Ace.

Hold on to your butts: this beef sirloin and Brussels sprouts loved to publicly display its affection for Cuvée Elijah, Cuvée Noire aged in Elijah Craig barrels.

And last, but certainly in no way least, we reveled in the raucous, funky, downright stinky flavors of Grayson, paired up with “Wild 1″ — an adaptation of Local 1 aged in the same barrels from which a certain classified imperial stout develops its riotously delicious character, and then refermented with wild yeast.

Brooklyn In The News | Dec-Jan, 2012

The Italian bureau of Vogue – arguably the most fashionable of the fashionable — recognizes One Brewers Row as a Brooklyn “Hot Spot” (pictured above).

NY Post talks with Steve Hindy about Brooklyn the brand, and features the Brooklyn Box Set in its holiday guide:

The Washington Times names Sorachi Ace one the Top Beers of 2011.

Brooklyn Lager wins 3rd Place in the Lager/Pilsner category in CraftCans.com‘s 2011 reader poll:

El Vocero  Escenario reports on the arrival of three new artisanal beers in Puerto Rico:

Michael Fassbender (of Inglourious Basterds fame) enjoys a Brooklyn Lager in Shame:

Garrett talks “beerology” on Canada radio waves courtesy of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

AMA Bionda, The Companion Ale and BAMboozle all get some love in Yankee Brew News.

Finnish daily Ilta-Sanomat names Black Chocolate Stout the second best selection in their Christmas beer tasting:

Garrett jumps the pond to promote The Oxford Companion to Beer, pictured below at the Hook Norton Brewery in (the appropriately named) Oxfordshire.

CNN International bids farewell to “The Boss”:

From The President: Taking a Chance on Big Beer

It’s been 17 years since we brewed the first batch of Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout. It was the first beer Garrett Oliver brewed for us, and it was inspired by a homebrewed stout that I used to make. Garrett did it much better, of course. I recall my partner Tom Potter was nervous about making 6,000 cases of a stout beer. Tom noted that our distribution company, The Craft Brewers Guild, only sold a couple of thousand cases annually of stout beers, from Samuel Smith’s, Grant’s, Sierra Nevada and others. Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout was bigger and stronger than any of them. We believed that it would be a winner and we took a chance. It sold out by January 1995. This year, we’ll sell 12 times that much. It’s a winner.

– Steve Hindy, President & Co-founder

Spend Some Time With Beer This Holiday Season

NPR’s “Tell Me More” was recently host to our venerable master brewer, who with him brought a few beers into the studio for the producers to taste on air and in their minds envision the awesomeness that is the interplay of holiday foods and the diverse flavors of ale.

Although we often have dinner on the brain, we tend to enjoy it a bit more on the plate aside a glass of good beer. And so it shall be this holiday season.

DRAFT MAGAZINE NAMES THE CONCOCTION A TOP 25 BEER OF 2011

BB Concoction Draft Mag Top 25 2011

We’re happy to announce that Draft Magazine seems to enjoy The Concoction, our second latest Brewmaster’s Reserve beer, just about as much as we do, naming it one of their Top 25 Beers of 2011.

In other Top 25 news, we’re happy to announce that people who like to read interesting things seem to enjoy The Oxford Companion to Beer, Garrett Oliver’s latest literary endeavor, just about as much as we do, as it is currently one of Amazon’s Top 25 Best Sellers.

Congratulations to the Brooklyn team, and writers across the globe, respectively, for drafting these beery successes.

MONSTER’S LOG: TUESDAY, NOV 8

Garrett Atop Monster 2

[Occupy Monster's head.]

Gothamist reports that the new fashion trend this year is petware — there’s really only one attention-starved person participating in this phenomenon at the moment, wearing a cat atop his grizzly dome as he strides the city streets. Do you see how all of the human faces are blurred, but the luxury of anonymity is not granted to the feline? WTF???

Garrett was equally outraged and after reassuring me, “One cat can make all the difference,” agreed to help me out with a demonstration. We haven’t seen any immediate results yet, but what’s important is that we took a stand… or seat, rather. You get the point.

BEER TUTOR OLIVER TAKES A TOUR OF ENGLAND

Oxford Companion to Beer - UK launch events-1

Across the Atlantic, Garrett Oliver’s Trek in The Name of Beer© continues. In conjunction with Oxford University Press and James Clay Importers, Brooklyn’s Brewmaster is hosting a series of beer tastings and dinners this week in England — the land that first taught him about good beer – to promote The Oxford Companion to Beer.

The Draft House Tower Bridge, London, SE1 2UP
7pm Monday 7 November www.drafthouse.co.uk

Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, OX3 0BP
10:30am Tuesday 8 November www.brookes.ac.uk

Hook North Brewery, Hook Norton, OX15 5NY
6pm Tuesday 8 November www.hooknortonbrewery.co.uk

The National Brewery Centre, Burton upon Trent, DE14 1NG
12pm Wednesday 9 November www.nationalbrewerycentre.co.uk

Port Street Beer House, Manchester, M1 2EQ
7pm Wednesday 9 November www.portstreetbeerhouse.co.uk

The Cross Keys, Leeds, LS11 5WD
12pm Thursday 10 November www.the-crosskeys.com

INTRODUCING BROOKLYN BAMBOOZLE

BAMBoozle Bottle

We remember it like it was yesterday, but that’s because it pretty much was yesterday. Not long ago, Brooklyn was supposedly “Crooklyn”, a strange land where people spoke in tongues, cabs feared to tread, and you couldn’t get a decent piece of cheese. And BAM, the grandly-titled Brooklyn Academy of Music, seemed to stand as a silent sentinel, a remnant of a glorious past few seemed to remember.

Here at Brooklyn Brewery, we remember the real Brooklyn. We remember pioneering beer bars, wild Berlin-style raves at the Old Mustard Factory, the Liveri boys smoking the mozzarella in a little metal box every morning outside Joe’s Busy Corner, prosciutto sliced so thin you could read the newspaper through it, and jerk chicken that made your eyes water. BAM remembers our Brooklyn too, and helped transform it into a place everyone suddenly wants to be.

So, when BAM asked us to make a beer for their 150th anniversary, we wanted to make them something really special. BAMBoozle features a large addition of wildflower honey from the New York family apiary Tremblay Farms – we pick up the honey from Alan Tremblay at the Greenmarket. Blended with golden malts, it is fermented to a dry complexity by our Belgian yeast strain, and then re-fermented in the bottle like Champagne. When the cork pops, the beer shows a shimmering effervescence, a beautifully floral, honeyed nose, and a fresh light zing on the palate that belies its underlying strength. You have not had a beer like this, and neither have we. You can enjoy it now, but it will also age very nicely. Like BAM and like Brooklyn, BAMBoozle is in a class of its own. Happy 150th to BAM, its colorful crown restored, the once and future king of the arts.