Category Archives: Brewmaster Oliver

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.

GET THE BROOKLYN BOX SET

Brooklyn Box Set

Come on. It’s too perfect for the beer lover in your life to ignore. Now available for purchase exclusively at The Brooklyn Brewery Company Store is the BROOKLYN BOX SET, featuring 1 copy of The Oxford Companion to Beer signed by Garrett Oliver, and 1 750ml bottle-conditioned version of The Companion Ale – this special Companion Ale bottle is only available as part of the BROOKLYN BOX SET.

The BROOKLYN BOX SET is $80.00, and can be obtained only in person at The Brooklyn Brewery (79 North 11th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY 11249) during our public hours.

With 160 experts covering more than 1,100 subjects, The Oxford Companion to Beer is the most comprehensive book to yet be published on the subject. To accompany the book, Garrett Oliver (Editor-in-Chief), Horst Dornbusch (Associate Editor) and Thomas Kraus-Weyermann (writer and master maltster) brewed our current Brewmaster’s Reserve beer, called The Companion Ale. Made with 55% new floor malts from Weyermann Maltings, The Companion is brewed in an old style called “wheat wine”, a wheat-based equivalent to barley wine. The floor malts give this beer a juicy malt character of considerable depth, 55% malted wheat gives it a surprising lightness on the palate, while our house ale yeast lends a gentle fruitiness.

BROOKLYN BOX SET, aka PERFECT CHRISTMAS GIFT

Brooklyn Box Set 2

Now available for purchase exclusively at The Brooklyn Brewery Company Store is the BROOKLYN BOX SET, featuring 1 copy of The Oxford Companion to Beer signed by Garrett Oliver, and 1 750ml bottle-conditioned version of The Companion Ale – this special Companion Ale bottle is only available as part of the BROOKLYN BOX SET.

The BROOKLYN BOX SET is $80.00, and can be obtained only in person at The Brooklyn Brewery (79 North 11th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY 11249) during our public hours.

With 160 experts covering more than 1,100 subjects, The Oxford Companion to Beer is the most comprehensive book to yet be published on the subject. To accompany the book, Garrett Oliver (Editor-in-Chief), Horst Dornbusch (Associate Editor) and Thomas Kraus-Weyermann (writer and master maltster) brewed our current Brewmaster’s Reserve beer, called The Companion Ale. Made with 55% new floor malts from Weyermann Maltings, The Companion is brewed in an old style called “wheat wine”, a wheat-based equivalent to barley wine. The floor malts give this beer a juicy malt character of considerable depth, 55% malted wheat gives it a surprising lightness on the palate, while our house ale yeast lends a gentle fruitiness.