…And lived to tell about it in this here video. They were one team amongst 23 Austin amateur chefs that gave it their all at the first of Brooklyn Brewery’s Presented Food Experiment Tour. Nick Suarez and Theo Peck of The Food Experiments pulled off a funtastic party at Club DeVille on Sunday. The Austin chefs really set the bar high, with totally impressive cooking. They wore costumes, they took vows, they brought rubber pig snouts. We had a rambunctious crowd of Brooklyn Lager enjoyers and food devourers. A good time was had by all. Even celebrity judge Abbie Broyles said so.

Also a big thanks goes out to DJ Jester The Filipino Fist. As Theo said, “He’s Filipino and he has a fist.” ‘Nuff said.

From Theo at thefoodexperiments.com:

The Austin chefs brought it! They did not mess around. They had an incredible familiarity with swine. The cooks created dishes that were as diverse as the city of Austin. Thank you to all! (click here to read more at thefoodexperiments.com)

Special thanks to Eric Schwortz for the photos.

All photos by Eric Schwortz

We gathered at The Boathouse in Prospect Park with Ovenly and The Meathook to celebrate the arrival of Brooklyn Detonation Ale. Friends, family, the beer bloggeratti, all showed up for mirth and merriment.

All we can say is that Detonation worked. Not for free either. Tickets sold plus tips collected earned the inimitable Prospect Park Alliance $3,262.

Mad Hops over at BeerGoggins had this to say about the party:

Brooklyn Brewery’s Detonation Ale Explodes Onto The Scene

On Monday, August 16, the skies opened up and some heavy rains washed down over New York. Walking toward the Boathouse at the Audubon House in Prospect Park, a park official cut us off. “Can’t go this way,” he said. “It’s flooded down that way.”

The reason? Brooklyn Brewery’s newest creation blew a hole in the sky.

Damp and overlooking a pond rife with fallen leaves and paddling ducks, bloggers and beer lovers gathered under gray clouds to celebrate Garrett Oliver’s newest brewmaster’s reserve, aptly dubbed Detonation Ale.

Taking their BLAST! IPA and upping the ante, Detonation Ale features seven – count ‘em, seven – different kinds of hops. As my sudsy pseudonym suggests, this pleased me very much. This hop-heavy pale ale is a dark copper in color, heavy on the citric aromas and very, very easy to drink.

(read more)

More photos here.

Brooklyn Brewery happily supports the creative writing center, 826NYC. 826NYC happily enjoys BINGO with beer.  If you don’t know 826NYC is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6-18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. Our services are structured around our belief that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success. With this in mind we provide drop-in tutoring, field trips, after-school workshops, in-schools tutoring, help for English language learners, and assistance with student publications. All of our free programs are challenging and enjoyable, and ultimately strengthen each student’s power to express ideas effectively, creatively, confidently, and in his or her individual voice.

Oh, it’s also a superhero supply store. So if you need a cape or a bucket of gravity now you know where to go.

Like The Brooklyn Brewery, Slideluck Potshow was born in New York City and now travels freely around the US and throughout the world. And we’re happy to support her as she does so. For those who don’t k now,  Slideluck Potshow is a non-profit organization devoted to building and strengthening community around food and art. Slideluck Potshow sponsors exhibitions of artistic works, each produced in an entertaining slideshow format, designed to showcase works created by novice, undiscovered, and established artists.

Thanks to Edible and Jimmy Carbone for putting on another terrific evening of the finest suds and grub. Go here for an Examiner slideshow by Clay Williams.

Frieda Lim recently invited press and public to her incredible rooftop vegetable garden. Lim grows beets, eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes and a host of herbs using a technique called “sub-irrigation agriculture.” The plants grow from a shallow tray of earth that is nourished by water wicking through a plastic tube from a plastic tub below. The veggies are delicious, and they were even better when paired with Brooklyn Lager and Pilsner, donated by The Brooklyn Brewery. “Sub-irrigation is a way for anyone to have a fresh box of vegetables for a $20 investment,” said Lim.  Pictured above are Lim, at right, and from left, Barbara Kariya, Ellen Foote and Sabine Hrechdakian. Also attending was Rachel Wharton of Edible Brooklyn magazine.

– Steve Hindy, Founder & President

Click here for more photos.

Edible came by The Brewery and tested everyone’s alcohol knowledge. The Meathook was there serving up the fanciest cheese dogs we’ve ever seen and assorted pulled meat sammies. It was fun. To visit Edible’s website click here.

(photo by Gabi Porter)

On Monday, one of our brewers, Chris Basso, paired up some of our finest beers with delectable bacon selections from Zingerman’s. The beer and bacon event went down at Back Forty. Check out Metromix’s coverage and photos here.

Find more photos like this on SLIDELUCK POTSHOW

Brooklyn Brewery is happy to sponsor Slideluck Potshow (SLPS) here at home and around the world. SLPS is a NYC-based arts non-profit, operating in many cities globally, that aims to bring people together around food and art, and to give people an interesting, engaging, and fun platform for sharing art with their community.

photos by Eric Schwortz

Brooklyn Brewery recently sponsored a fundraiser for the American Folk Art Museum’s Young Patron’s fundraiser. That’s all.

Our photographer friend Louis Siegal took some great shots of the party in between various samplings.

Relive the magic here:

Since the early days of 1988, The Brooklyn Brewery has striven to support the myriad of arts in New York City. When the brewery in Williamsburg opened up, we regularly hosted shows for neighborhood artists. Among many others, institutions like BAM, Brooklyn Museum and Dia Arts Foundation all receive financial and beer support from The Brewery. We are proud to support some of our favorite artists as Brooklyn Brewery’s distribution and the borough’s sphere of influence continue to grow throughout the country and the world.

One of our favorite homegrown art phenomenons is Casey Kelbaugh’s Slideluck Potshow. A combination photo exhibition and D.I.Y. feast, SLPS embodies so much of what Brooklyn Brewery values: community, collaboration, local arts and good, locally made food. We are thrilled to provide our beer for these art parties as they continue to grow and pop up around the globe. The most recent SLPS occurred in Washington D.C. to great acclaim. Check out the slideshow.

Find more photos like this on SLIDELUCK POTSHOW

photo by Paul Crispin Quitoriano

Our gal pals (why is this post already starting to sound like The New York Post?) who bout with the best of ‘em over at Gotham Girls Roller Derby had their annual bash last weekend. We helped the non-profit out with some beer and they used it properly.

Check out the slideshow from The Village Voice here.

From BaristaNet.com

Amanti Vino’s wine vs. beer competition dinner on March 23 at the Woman’s Club of Upper Montclair wasn’t the buttoned-up affair I expected. Thankfully. Au contraire, it was casual, friendly, fun and partying on a Tuesday night seemed positively decadent. The five-course dinner was punctuated by friendly and comical sparring between the master wine wonk (Fred Dexheimer) and the master beer brewer (Garrett Oliver). Between the two of them, who were vying for top dog for their wine and beer pairings, they had Amanti Vino staff (Will, Amelia, Thad, Wes and Tim) busy pouring a selection of eight micro-crafted beers and seven wines produced in countries from Greece to Uruguay.

The pairings were going fine, and our table we even got seconds of the fantastic Robert Sinskey Vin Gris (Napa). But we all almost lost it at the cheese course, which featured three cheeses each paired with a brew and a cru! That’s right, the cheese plate brought 6 more glasses. Not that we didn’t enjoy it.

I went to the dinner thinking, I’ll just humor Amanti Vino owner Sharon Sevrens, because really, BEER pairings? To my astonishment, the fine brews provided by Brooklyn Brewery and picked by Oliver were on target complementing the meal. Our table, for the most part, favored the brew pairings over the wine. Several of the beers, complex and spicy, are only available at brewery headquarters in Brooklyn.

(read more)

From Metromix.com

You’re a judge today. What do you look for in a pork dish?
I’m looking for a blend of deliciousness, originality and use of the entire animal. If somebody only used the tenderloin, that wouldn’t be very interesting.

Have you ever had a McRib?
When was I was nine years old I had my first, and last, McRib. They used to say “parts is parts.” Lord knows what that means.

Click here for a slideshow of all that tasty pork.

It was great to catch up with old friend, Austin AV Club Editor Sean O’Neal down at the extravaganza that is SxSW. Click here for his recap of our music, beer, coffee and pancake filled day party at The Mohawk.

From I Drunk That

Last night, New York received another great opportunity to visit the Brooklyn Brewery for the invite-only release of Dark Matter, their latest in the Brewmaster’s Reserve series. Brewmaster Garrett Oliver was on hand along along with a laundry list of the city’s finest pub owners, food editors and beer bloggers. Once again, the tap room flowed with some of brewery’s best drafts: Cookie Jar Porter, Monster ‘09, Blast, Black Chocolate Stout ‘09, Pilsner and more. The Bedford Cheese Shop and The Meat Hook were on hand to supply a nice meat and cheese compliment Dark Matter’s vanilla-oaked, sweet palate of flavors.

(read more)

photo courtesy of megalomediac

From SeriousEats.com

On Saturday, at a church on Russell Street in Greenpoint, over 300 people gathered to hang out, drink some beer, and eat a locally sourced meal of homemade tamales while raising money for emerging art and community projects. This was FEAST, a non-profit event that sits at the intersection of foodie culture and arts fundraising, using an interest in food to raise money for a good cause.

FEAST (Funding Emerging Art with Sustainable Tactics) works like this: attendees pay a sliding scale donation to gain admission to dinner, which includes homemade food and beer donated from Brooklyn Brewery. While eating, drinking, and schmoozing, the attendees check out artists’ proposals, eventually voting on the project they think should win funding. Proposals range from funding local rooftop farms, to creating “site specific wearable sculptures,” to the manufacture of beauty products benefitting the Yucatan peninsula. The door money is awarded to the winning artist in the form of a grant, and the resulting work is presented at the following FEAST. The grant winner at last month’s feast was an organization called Green My Bodega, a project that is “inventing the Bodega Supported Agriculture (B.S.A.) Model” by finding ways to get locally sourced produce into the bodegas that already serve huge parts of the communities of New York City.

(read more)

Thanks. I guess.

Tap it

Gathering The Courage

Love. Relief.

Brewmaster Oliver and Jimmy

Karl, looking ruggedly handsome and cheerily helpful.

All photos by Philmadelphia via Flickr.

Here’s some photos of a recent party in support of Carrotmob, taken by Lindsay Comstock. I don’t know why mobs are so often referred to as ugly.

To learn more about Carrotmob go here.

Here in New York City, Hot Bread Kitchen is a non-profit 501c3 social enterprise that enhances the future for immigrant women and preserves baking traditions. Brooklyn Brewery was happy to support their latest fundraiser with plenty of beer.

For your munching pleasure, they offer fresh breads baked with traditional recipes from around the world. Hot Bread Kitchen makes it a priority to use local and organic ingredients.

Hot Bread Kitchen also honors the culinary traditions of peoples from all over the world. Preservation of diverse techniques and ingredients is crucial in the face of corporate globalization that tends to homogenize diversity. (Did you know, for example, that Maseca, a processed corn flour is now used widely in both tortillas in Central American and West African starches like kenkey?  Its too bad, but no one is grinding corn anymore.)

As part of HBK’s mandate to “Br-educate” New Yorkers, they create a compelling record of the many diverse breads that are being baked here in the city. Looking for Ghanaian kenkey bread, Punjabi allo parantha, or lahoch flatbread baked by Yemeni Jews–all freshly baked within the five boroughs? Stay tuned and you’ll find out where!

Hot Bread Kitchen makes great bread, celebrates diversity, and builds better lives for people who are an integral part of the city’s future.

From NYTimes.com

Liam McEneaney, the floppy-haired Comedy Central and VH1 regular, will host “We’ll Kick Cancer’s Butt!” tonight at Comix. The fund-raising event, sponsored by The Onion, will help raise money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. It will feature sets by John Oliver of “The Daily Show,” Kristen Schaal from “Flight of the Conchords,” Caroline Rhea of “The Tonight Show,” Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and others. A nerdy raffle is also on the lineup featuring such special prizes as a new iPod Touch courtesy of TekServe and an autographed script of Fox’s “The Family Guy.” Stay for the free beer afterparty sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery.

If you want, you can buy tickets here.

Not to brag (okay, to brag), but Brooklyn Brewery has a long history (stretching back to 1988) of helping to support those organizations that improve the lives of our community in New York and beyond. A new friend of The Brewery, Acumen, has an exciting mission aimed at using entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. Checkout the video above of a fundraiser we teamed up with them on.

From AcumenFund.org

On July 30, 2009, Young Professionals for Acumen Fund (now New York for Acumen (NYfA), Acumen’s official New York volunteer chapter) partnered with the Nuru Project on DIGNITY: a photo auction and benefit for Acumen Fund. The event was planned in a 2-month period by over 40 volunteers. 30 prints were donated by renowned photographers for the event. $25,000 was raised on the evening.

To get involved, visit http://community.acumenfund.org

To learn more about Nuru Project, visit http://www.nuruproject.org

Thanks to everyone who made Oct 1st’s Art of Caring Happy Hour a resounding success. By the end of the night after all the raffle prizes were given away, the music died down, and the revelers dispersed, the event raised an astounding $16,000. This money will enable more volunteers to teach children how to read, help at-risk youth get into college, feed the homeless, and much more.

Jill, over at WinedAndDined.com did us a solid with this nice review of last week’s beer dinner at Per Se.

During NY Craft Beer Week, Andy and I were most anticipating the Brooklyn Brewery Dinner at Per Se, a “Zagat Presents,” seven course feast created by Per Se Chef de Cuisine Jonathan Benno and paired with some true Brooklyn Brewery gems (including the much talked about “Bacon Beer”). The recent news that Chef Benno would be leaving at the end of the year to spearhead a new Patina restaurant project meant this could be one of our last opportunities to taste his Per Se mastery. Andy and I had eaten at Per Se in the past, and it has always topped my list of  favorite restaurants (for a splurge, of course).  I was wondering whether a seven course beer pairing dinner would live up to my very high expectations and my very fond dining memories at Per Se.  Well, it did.  Just as I remembered, Per Se exudes culinary excellence, and Brooklyn Brewery really pulled out all the stops to deliver a beer pairing that lived up to Per Se’s three shining Michelin stars.

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Gaze upon this slideshow of the MetroMetro scavenger hunt revelers and winners.

All images by Mark Sullivan Bernal

–Steve Hindy, Founder & President