This month in 1996, NY1 did a story on the revival of beer making in the borough of Brooklyn, starring a young(er) Steve Hindy, less trim Garrett Oliver, and more Bohemian Tom Potter. Enjoy!

I’m at the Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego this week. The 4,500 participants could not be more excited or confident about the future of craft beer in America. Craft’s share of market has doubled to about 6% since the conference was last held here in 2004.

Virtually all of America’s 2,000 craft brewers are expanding capacity in numbers that will easily push us past 10% share in the next decade. And there are more than 1,000 wannabe brewers busily honing their business plans.

That is a very exciting prospect for the hundreds of equipment fabricators and other industry suppliers in attendance. There also is a huge contingent of distributors at the conference, all of them enthusiastic about the fastest growing segment of the alcoholic beverage industry.

This year’s CBC includes the World Beer Cup awards, to be announced Saturday. There are more than 4,000 entries this year from 29 countries. That is a river of beer for the 215 judges, including our brewmaster Garrett Oliver, to taste. A tough job, but somebody has to do it.

– Steve Hindy, President & Co-founder

Business News Daily talked recently with Steve Hindy about his life before Brooklyn Brewery, and some of the challenges he and partner Tom Potter faced as their vision developed along the way.

The good folks at Brewbound met up with Steve at the tapping of a keg of Brooklyn BLAST! to celebrate the victory of the Giants defeating the Patriots in the Super Bowl, and between sips of the strong IPA chatted a bit about the beer business.

A river runs through it.

Steve forwarded me an email last Friday with the above photograph attached and “Wwwrrooowlllll!!!!” as the subject line.

Later that day, over dropped bits of lunch I was munching off the floor, Steve explained that the picture is of his friend’s cat, Henry Hudson, and in turn I taught the perplexed brewery founder that the term wwwrrooowlllll is north African in origin and historically used to announce the sudden approach of a challenger. We deduced that Henry Hudson must believe his floating around in an empty Brooklyn mixed case is reason enough to justify an unsolicited application for my succession (not the first to try). My response to Henry Hudson:

From: Monster
Sent: Friday, January 27, 2012 3:07 PM
To: Henry Hudson
Cc: Steve Hindy
Subject: Re: Fwd: Wwwrrooowlllll!!!!

Dear Henry Hudson,

My advice to you is twofold:

[1] Ask your owner what “no vacancy” means.
[2] Get the hint.

Warmest regards,
Monster

Victor Blue for The New York Times

Steve recently welcomed The New York Times into his Brooklyn abode to give them a glimpse of his Sunday routine, which includes a considerable dose of caffeine, some preternatural tennis skills and one particularly dashing apron. Read on to learn more about the man behind the beer.

Today is the birthday of one of Brooklyn’s great writers and one of my personal favorites, Norman Mailer. I had the honor of meeting Mailer in the early years of the brewery. He was attending a production of “The Cherry Orchard” at BAM and I was there serving Brooklyn Lager at a pre-theater reception. I was introduced to Mailer and he tried a sip of my beer. “It’s a bit heavy for me,” he said in his gruff voice. “I’m not a big beer guy.” I guess I looked a bit crestfallen. Mailer said, “Well don’t brood about it man, I don’t know shit about beer. I’m the last guy you should worry about.” He then asked how I got into the beer business. I told him about my past life as a Middle East correspondent for AP. He leaned toward me and said, “You are probably the only person here I want to talk to.” We talked about the Arab-Israeli conflict and other Middle East issues. He introduced me to his wife and kids. As we parted, he said, “See you around. The Brooklyn establishment is not that big you know.”

– Steve Hindy, Co-Founder & President, Brooklyn Brewery

Brooklyn Brewery’s fearless leader will “address thousands” of beer industry professionals at the 2012 Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego on May 3. A beer biz veteran of nearly 25 years, Steve has amassed a trove of knowledge, insight and great stories about our favorite beverage, and has delivered countless speeches to fans, media entities, business partners and industry insiders. All of this is to say we’re confident he’ll shine on the CBC stage.

We interviewed Steve today about the art of public speaking:

Brooklyn Bloggery: What do you generally think about when giving speeches? What’s on your mind as you address the crowd?

Steve Hindy: The most important thing about giving a speech is having something to say, having a message. Seems to me that many people who give speeches, particularly business executives and politicians, studiously avoid saying anything. This is very frustrating, and boring, for their listeners.

BB: What is your favorite kind of crowd to address?

SH: I like addressing my peers in the industry and other entrepreneurs. I like talking to young people about entrepreneurship.

BB: What are some of the things that make a beer-lover crowd unique, aside from the obvious collective interest? What characteristics tend to define this audience?

SH: Beer lovers are intensely interested in beer, and breweries and brewers. They want to know about our beers and us. But their attention tends to be inversely proportional to the volume of beer they have consumed. So if they have had more than two beers, end the speech.

BB: Do you think you are more or less of a better speaker when you yourself are drinking beer during your speech?

SH: One beer enhances my speaking ability. Beyond one, the benefits diminish.

BB: Where did you give your best and worst speeches? What’s the most memorable speech you gave?

SH: My most memorable speech was at 6pm on the day we celebrated the opening of The Brooklyn Brewery [Williamsburg, Brooklyn facility] in 1996. There were a couple of thousand people at a two-block party on N11th St. I announced there would be FREE BEER until the kegs ran dry. This resulted in a mad rush. My partner Tom Potter then announced the free beer would end at 6:30pm.

BB: Do you still get nervous addressing crowds?

SH: Yes I do get nervous. But you have to channel that nervousness into positive energy. A calm speaker can be a blah speaker.

BB: What topics will you be addressing during your CBC speech?

SH: In San Diego, I plan to celebrate the role of the Local Brewer and outline some of the great challenges facing our industry in the next 25 years.

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”:

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

The “Brooklyn Night Bazaar” planned for Dec 15-17 at 149 Kent Ave with DJ James Murphy, and bands Fucked Up and The Hold Steady takes me back to a similar extravaganza on the Brooklyn waterfront in 1989, the Cat’s Head*. Of course there are significant differences. The Cat’s Head was completely illegal. As I recall, it was created by a group of early Williamsburg settlers –Robert Elmes, Jessica Nissen and Fred Valentine. They squatted in an abandoned industrial building on the waterfront. No one had insurance; no one had any official approval from the Building Department or the Fire Department or the Police Department. No one had a beer license, but they somehow managed to buy and sell Brooklyn Lager. There were radical art installations, towering sculptures, exploding watermelons, nude performance art, even a tennis match between Paul Campbell and Reggie Hodges in a grain silo, when the event was held in the Mustard Factory on Grand. There were great bands. It went all night. It was utterly raw. As I recall, there were two such Cat’s Head happenings. The shadowy organizers took the profit and went to Berlin and did a Cat’s Head there.

The Brooklyn Night Bazaar will be much more buttoned up, but it continues a great Williamsburg party tradition.

– Steve Hindy, President & Co-founder

*I seem to recall a severed cat’s head on the property gave the event its name.

If you have been to the brewery lately, you could not fail to notice our new mural. The Egyptologists among you will appreciate the hieroglyphs that translate: “Beer has dispelled the illness which was in me.” Our translation was done by Dr. Kent Weeks, the world’s leading Egyptologist. I met Kent in Egypt in 1981, when he was a visiting professor from UC Berkeley. Kent resigned his cushy job at Berkeley and took a seat at American University of Cairo to lead the Theban Mapping Project, an ambitious effort to map all the tombs in the Valley of the Kings and Tombs of the Queens in Luxor, Egypt, using the latest remote sensing equipment. In the course of those explorations, Kent uncovered important new tombs in Luxor, making him the most prominent archaeologist since Howard Carter dug up King Tut.

Kent now divides his time between Upper Egypt and Connecticut. Indiana Jones has nothing on this guy.

– Steve Hindy, President & Co-founder

From Beer Sessions Radio:

“On May 3, Beer Sessions Radio (TM) was able to sit down with Brooklyn Brewery founder and local beer historian Steve Hindy. To say that Steve is an interesting fellow would be a gross understatement. He’s Brooklyn’s own International Man of Mystery and we’re pretty sure he could take the Dos Equis guy down in under 5 seconds.”

Listen with your ears here, and read with thine eyes, here.

Watch the video here:

Last week, Brooklyn Brewery President Steve Hindy along with Brand Manager Mike Ferry presided over what we believe to be the first organized beer tasting in the history of the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Steve arrived Wednesday night in a Pea Soup fog at the 49er Lodge to the delight of Company E-3, “Where Eagles Dare”. Beers tasted in order were Summer Ale, Lager, Pilsner, Local 1, Brown Ale and Black Ops. The respect and interest Company E-3 showed for Brooklyn Brewery and Steve’s experience in the Middle East was much appreciated. The feeling was mutual as Steve and Mike were each given plaques and the company patch as a thank you.

Brooklyn Brewery President Steve Hindy and Brooklyn Brewery logo-creator Milton Glaser were both honored earlier this week at the annual Library Dinner of The Brooklyn Historical Society. Although Milton was under the weather and unable to attend, Steve read the following endearing words on his behalf:

Please excuse me for not showing up tonight. If there was any chance of me being able to stand up, I would certainly be here, particularly because I wanted to apologize to Brooklyn on this lovely occasion. Let me explain…

When I was growing up in the Bronx, there were only two countries that mattered: the Bronx and Brooklyn. They were long-time rivals, not over material goods, but rather which borough best represented the soul of New York. This all must have started with the Dodgers and the Yankees. As we know, competition can be stronger within the family than outside.

I once made the mistake of becoming romantically involved with a girl in Brooklyn. On Saturday nights, I would pick her up at her home (2 hours), subway into Manhattan for a movie (1 hour), take her back home (1 hour), and then return to the Bronx (2 hours). A total of 6 hours traveling. When I became aware that I could be arriving in Paris in the same amount of time, the relationship began to falter.

Some years later, I was given a 3-year art scholarship to Pratt Institute. I took the entrance exam and was notified that I had failed. I spoke with the dean about what to do, since I hadn’t applied anywhere else, “I can’t give you a scholarship if you can’t pass the entrance exam, but I have an idea. Take the night school examination, go to Pratt at night for a year, then transfer into day school and I’ll give you the balance of the scholarship.” I then took the night school examination and failed it. As far as I know, I am the only one who ever failed the night school exam. For a brief time, I went to Brooklyn College. But even without a girlfriend, I was spending 4 hours a day underground. Then I applied to Cooper Union, got in and continued my life. But I never got over the feeling that Brooklyn had betrayed me.

Many years later, about a quarter of a century ago, two guys came to see me at my studio – Tom Potter and Steve Hindy. They seemed nice enough, but had a completely wacky idea. They wanted to build a brewery in Brooklyn. They had a name for their beer, Brooklyn Eagle, perhaps for the venerable and respected newspaper that reflected Steve’s background working in journalism. I said, “Call it Brooklyn! Why do you want to be represented by a bird, when you can own the whole borough?” The rest is history.

Tom left Brooklyn to pursue other passions. The Ottaway Brothers, the brilliant Brewmaster Garrett Oliver, and Steve have continued and their success has been astonishing. The business has grown 20% each year. But more importantly, it has played a role in the transformation of the borough into one of the most desirable and lively parts of the entire city. From my point of view, the elevation of food and drink does more to improve life than your average museum. Finally, the best benefit of working with Steve on making Brooklyn Brewery useful was the development of a friendship, quite apart from our professional relationship. I can’t think of anyone that I would rather sit down and have a conversation (with or without a glass of beer) with than Steve.

Our friendship and work together has changed my perception of Brooklyn and I apologize for all my previous resentment. I now see Brooklyn as another dynamic fragment of the glorious urban tapestry called New York City. And feel that we are all fortunate to be living here and now.

Below is Steve at The Four Firkins in St. Louis Park, MN (the hometown of our Midwest Brand Manager Mike Maraghy):

CNN, and The Brooklyn Brewery, would love for you to “watch in the weeks to come as Hindy joins our Michael Wu, CEO of Maxim’s Group in Hong Kong, and Sarah Curran, CEO of my-wardrobe.com in London, as part of our yearlong, in-depth look at what it’s like to be ‘The Boss.’”

Please enjoy the first episode here:

UPDATE 4/13/2011 :: photo shows (left to right) Lt. Gen. Jay Paxton, Brooklyn Brewery Rep Jeff Perkins, Steve Hindy and Maj. Gen Carl Jensen.

Friday, April 1
Paradise Point Officer’s Club
Camp Lejeune, NC
(Private party on the base, not open to the public)

Brooklyn Brewery President Steve Hindy visits the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base tonight for a very special beer dinner with Service Men and Women.

Crispy Soft Shell Crab Slider
w/Brooklyn EIPA

Braised Lamb Shank with Smoked Cheddar Grits

Grilled Asparagus Salad with Aged Gouda Cheese Sauce
w/ Brooklyn Local 1

Applewood Smoked Bacon Wrapped Chicken Roulade
w/ Brooklyn Brown Ale

Mississippi Mud Tart Bar
w/ Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout

Beer Tasting w/ Steve Hindy
Thursday, March 31, 6:30-8:30pm
Total Wine & More
1600 East Woodlawn Avenue
Charlotte, NC
$5/person

Main Engine Start Tapping Party w/ Steve Hindy
Thursday, March 31, 9-10pm
Duckworth’s Bar & Grille
560 River Highway
Mooresville, NC

We have two special events in North Carolina with our President, Steve Hindy. At Total Wines in Charlotte, we’ll be doing a tasting of some vintage Brooklyn Beers (and offering a special 10% off discount during): vertical tasting of Black Chocolate Stout from ’04-’05, ’06-’07. ’10-’11; the original and latest batch of Local 1; 2007 Vintage Monster Ale; and Brooklyn Lager, Brown Ale, EIPA and Pennant Ale.

Following the tasting, we’ll head over to Duckworth’s Bar & Grille to tap Main Engine Start, a limited release burnished gold ale in the “Abbey Singel” style, and the first beer to be brewed on our new brewhouse in Brooklyn.

Wednesday, March 9, 6pm
Rats
Grounds for Sculpture
18 Fairgrounds Road
Hamilton, NJ

Join us for “Beer Maker’s Dinner” featuring Brooklyn Brewery President Steve Hindy at Rats Restaurant (and sculpture garden) in New Jersey.

[Filmed and edited by Scott Foreman]

And on this bright note, in the afternoon Darren Rovell of CNBC interviewed Hindy about the rise of the overall craft beer business. See below for photos (by Heather Gallagher) and video from CNBC:

“It’s a great time to be a craft brewer in America” – Steve Hindy, President, The Brooklyn Brewery

Roger Clark and the good folks from NY1 paid us a visit bright and early this morning to talk about our expansion and see the new space. Check it out HERE.

Read more about PopRally HERE.

Tuesday, January 25, 7pm
Monk’s Cafe
264 South 16th Street (@ Spruce)
Philadelphia, PA
Cost: $65
For tickets, call 215.545.7005

From Monk’s: “We’ve been honored to host Garrett Oliver for a few dinner over the years.  This dinner will have Brooklyn Brewery founder, Steve Hindy, on hand to discuss his startup back in 1987. Steve is an interesting man, a former Middle Eastern correspondent, business man, beer lover, and all around good guy. Here’s the menu. As always, beer & food subject to change:

TRIO OF BROOKLYN LOCAL 1
AMUSE TRIO
2006 Local 1 – Scallop Ceviche
2009 Local 1 – Braised Short Rib w/asian slaw
Wild 1 – Salmon Cake w/orange, soy ginger sauce

BROOKLYN SORACHI ACE
CHICKEN CONFIT SPRING ROLL
lemon basil sauce

BROOKLYN LOCAL 2
GNOCCI & SWEETBREADS
exotic mushroom sauce

2003 BROOKLYN BLACK CHOCOLATE STOUT
PORK LOIN MOLE
candied sweet potatoes

2001 BROOKLYN MONSTER BARELYWINE
CHEESE
w/dried apricot compote

2009 BROOKLYN BLACK OPS
BREAD PUDDING
w/hard whiskey sauce

Dear everyone: Happy New Year! Here’s to a great year ahead, and the best of luck with our resolutions, no matter how fantastic or far-fetched. Let’s hit the ground running in 2011 with some exciting news from our President, Steve Hindy:

I am pleased to say I have been elected to the Board of Directors of The Brewers’ Association. Many craft beer fans may not be aware of the good work the BA does in promoting craft brewing and beer, and protecting it from those who would like to limit consumers’ access to beer and raise beer taxes. Based in Boulder, CO, the BA runs the Great American Beer Festival, the Craft Brewers Conference and SAVOR, an annual beer and food tasting that has been held in Washington, DC, for several years. The BA gathers statistics on the industry and serves as a resource for journalists writing about craft beer. It also runs the American Homebrewers’ Association. The BA is led by Charlie Papazian, the father of modern American homebrewing. I served on the board of the brewers association from 1998 until 2007, and then stepped down for three years. I am hoping that the Craft Brewers Conference will come to New York City sometime in the near future.  And I also would like to see SAVOR move to other cities around the country.

Before 2011, Pamela Anderson, Chloë Sevigny, and Brooklyn Brewery President Steve Hindy and Brewmaster Garrett Oliver had little in common. But in January, we can see a bit more* of all these fine folks in Playboy as they grace the magazine’s first issue of 2011.

Let us not forget to old adage, “I read Playboy for the articles,” as we flip through to learn more about the founding of the company and both Hindy and Oliver’s professional beginnings. And, of course, any profile of The Brooklyn Brewery would not be complete without mention of Monster the cat.

[*not literally, mind you]

At the Inc. Magazine CEO Forum in Scottsdale, AZ last week, Steve was interviewed by Lewis Schiff, executive director of the Inc. Business Owner’s Council about the origins and development of The Brooklyn Brewery. He then took questions from the assembled CEOs, all owners and managers of fast growing companies that made the Inc. 5000 list this year. Also featured at the conference was Norm Brodsky, our neighbor here in Brooklyn and owner of the CitiStorage company. Norm writes the “Street Smarts” column in Inc.

We’d like to correct the reports that The Brooklyn Brewery is in negotiations to replace some beloved Coney Island institutions such as Ruby’s and Shoot The Freak with our own beer garden. This is completely untrue. We are not in talks with anyone about Coney Island. L Magazine has correctly reported the truth and The New York Times and other media outlets have since corrected their online articles.

We can only assume the source of this confusion is a source that mentioned a Brooklyn brewery, not The Brooklyn Brewery. There may be another Brooklyn-based brewery planning to open a beer garden but it certainly isn’t us.

We’re sad to hear the news of these long-time businesses coming to an end.

- Stephen Hindy, co-founder and president

photo by Tom Callan

Our favorite borough periodical, The Brooklyn Paper, offers news and opinion on Brooklyn Brewery’s expansion, Hindy’s place in New York’s craft beer legacy and the looming NY Craft Beer Week.

From The Brooklyn Paper

Brooklyn Brewery expansion keeps a-‘head’ of the borough’s beer scene

by Kristen V. Brown

Brooklyn Brewery’s Steve Hindy may not be the father of craft beer in New York City, but he is certainly the cool uncle.

And now, after 23 years in brewing, the former foreign correspondent is about to expand his Williamsburg brewing complex — an announcement that couldn’t be timed more perfectly, what with New York Craft Beer Week about to pop the cork next Friday.

When Hindy’s space becomes operational in December, the brewery will be 14 times larger — able to accommodate more experimental blends as well as produce more of Hindy’s beer in Brooklyn (most is currently produced upstate).

Just as when he worked for the Associated Press, Steve Hindy knows what he’s doing. The rest of the country may be experiencing a downturn — hell, even beer sales were down two percent last year — but Hindy, and the craft beer movement of which he is at the vanguard, is certainly experiencing a boom. Craft beer sales rose seven percent last year, and Hindy’s sales were up 20 percent, he said, riding a wave of growing appreciate for fuller-flavored suds.

So Brooklyn Brewery is the ultimate 15-year overnight success — and perfectly located in a borough that has had a long history with brewing.

In the 19th century, German immigrants brought a taste for good beer to New York — and from 1870 until the 1950s, Brooklyn was one of the largest producers of beer in the country. The borough was once home to 48 breweries, but by the time Hindy and partner Tom Potter founded Brooklyn Brewery in 1987, there wasn’t a single successful commercial brewery left.

It seems odd today, but Hindy and Potter struggled in their quest to bring “good beer” to New York, as bar owners were skeptical of the full-flavored lager.

(read more)

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

Steve Hindy, Brooklyn Brewery founder & president, actually told me that this was one of his favorite recipes. L Magazine provides a colorful step by step guide to preparing a delicious whole chicken with a can of Brooklyn Lager firmly positioned in its largest orifice.

By Brett Stetka for  L Magazine

My wife and I debated the point all weekend: Is the cavity in a chicken the neck opening or the butt? Turns out it’s the butt. Once that was settled we procured a fresh chicken from Marlow and Daughters, fired up the grill and lodged a can of beer in its ass. Hence: Beer Ass Chicken. Or as it’s more often known, Beer Can Chicken.

I felt a certain evolutionary guilt about sticking a metal can up a fellow creature’s exit hole, and wished things had turned out differently in the neck vs. ass debate. But what’s done is done, and the incredibly moist and tender result eased my conscience.

My recipe is a modified version of Pat Neely’s, of Memphis barbecue and Food Network fame. Because yes, I have a thing for cooking shows with painfully canned banter (we all have our embarrassing vices: Conklin has golf; I have the Down Home With the Neelys [Ed.—I also count Down Home With the Neelys as a vice, for what it's worth.]). But do the Neelys use dark brown sugar and ground mustard? No they don’t, because doing so would be too extreme for the Food Network. Ok, it’s actually not that extreme, but I needed to make this recipe my own, and the brown sugar gives the chicken a nice charred and crispy caramelized crust. So without further ado, go make a Beer Ass Chicken this weekend:

INGREDIENTS:

For the rub:

Keep in mind these are rough estimates.

-1 tablespoons smoked paprika (careful – stuff’s powerfully smoky)

-2 tablespoons salt

-2 tablespoons onion powder

-1 tablespoon dark brown sugar (go easy here, otherwise the sugar can burn)

-1 tablespoon garlic powder

-1 tablespoon cayenne pepper

-1 tablespoon ground mustard

-1 tablespoon cumin

-2 teaspoons dried thyme

-2 teaspoons dried oregano

-2 teaspoons black pepper

For the Chicken:

-1 4 pound chicken, give or take a pound

-Vegetable oil

-1 12-ounce can of beer*

*A note on the beer: I like to use a medium-bodied lager with some malty sweetness to it for extra flavor; something like Brooklyn Lager, which does come in cans if you look hard enough. In reality it probably doesn’t matter what you use since the beer is mainly just a water source to help steam the chicken and keep it moist. But beer is more fun than soda, so you know, stick with beer.

Click here for directions and photos.

(above) Steve greets a soldier in the Middle East

For years now Brooklyn Brewery has been selling Lager in Israel and Turkey. Even before that, though, the story of Brooklyn Brewery really began in the Middle East, when founder Steve Hindy first picked up home brewing as a foreign correspondent for the AP. The Atlantic now reports that Steve’s success  story of crafting good beer has inspired the Lebanese microbrewery 961.

From TheAtlantic.com

“One of the books (Mazen) Hajjar read, in the summer of 2006, was Beer School, an autobiography by Steve Hindy, the co-founder of Brooklyn Brewery. In the early 1980s, Hindy was a correspondent for the AP in Beirut, covering the civil war in Lebanon. (He later moved to Cairo, where he first encountered homebrewing, before graduating to the real thing back in New York.) More than anything, it was Hindy’s improbable tale, Hajjar says, that convinced him to try his hand at a homebrew. When he went to the States for the beer festival, Hajjar also scheduled a stop in Brooklyn, where he met his unwitting mentor.”

Read the whole story here.

Steve Hindy, Brooklyn Brewery’s co-founder and president, received a special honor at last week’s Craft Brewers Conference in Chicago. He was celebrated with the F.X. Matt Defense of the Small Brewing Industry Award for 2010, as presented by the Brewer’s Association. That’s right. Steve’s a defender! Read all about it below.

Also from the BA, comes the 2010 list of top 50 Craft Breweries. Brooklyn clocks in at number 17. See the whole list here.

Brewers Association honors Brooklyn Brewery’s Steve Hindy at World Beer Cup 2010 in Chicago

From Examiner.com

By William Loob

The Brewers Association, the trade group that represents the interests of craft brewers, honored Steve Hindy, co-founder and president of Brooklyn Brewery with the F.X. Matt Defense of the Small Brewing Industry Award for 2010. Hindy accepted the award last week at the Craft Brewers Conference, in Chicago. The F.X. Matt Award recognizes people distinguished service to the craft beer industry. Hindy has played an active role in regulatory issues throughout his career atBrooklyn Brewery. Among his efforts to benefit the industry, the association noted his testimony before Congress on the effect of state franchise laws on small brewers. 
At the end of the conference, Hindy also got to see one of the Brooklyn Brewery entries, Local 2, win the bronze medal in its category in the World Beer Cup competition. He took a moment to share his thoughts with Examiner.com about this year’s conference and the state of the craft beer business today. 
Conference attendance was an indicator of the overall health of the craft beer business, he says. “It was the most exciting conference to date. We had 3,400 attending, last year it was about 2,200, and the keynote speaker was a member of Congress,” he says. (That Congressman is Peter DeFazio (D-OR), who was a co-founder of the House Small Brewers Caucus in 2007.) “The enthusiasm for craft beer is starting to take hold in America.”

(read more)

Through the miracle of a video/audio hook-up with Skype, I recently gave a talk and answered questions from business students and professors at the Kharkiv Polytechnical Institute in the Ukraine.  BEER SCHOOL, the book I wrote with brewery co-founder Tom Potter, has been translated into Russian.  Some of the students had read the book, and some had heard it on audible.com.

It was a fascinating hour and a half.  The students spoke very good English.  Each one came on camera and asked a question and a follow-up.  They asked about business plans, partnerships, raising money, corruption and competition.  I talked about a few run-ins with rough characters in Brooklyn.  They assured me that corruption in the Ukraine was much more pervasive, and dangerous, than in America.

I don’t think they completely understood Brooklyn Brewery’s support for not-for-profit and arts organizations and its word-of-mouth marketing.

Their instructor, an American named Maryann McGuire, warned me that the mindset in the Ukraine was quite different than in America.  I didn’t know what she meant until she translated the poster they produced for my appearance.  The headline read:

ASK A MILLIONAIRE ABOUT SUCCESS!!!!

Video-conference with a successful American businessman and millionaire from Brooklyn, NY.

Well, two out of three ain’t bad.  I am successful, and I am an American businessman from Brooklyn.  The millionaire label is a bit premature.

–Steve Hindy

Attentiveness Is A Universal Virtue

Teaching From A Laptop

CraftBeer.com Brew Stories – Brooklyn from Brewers Association on Vimeo.

The Brooklyn Paper interviewed Brewery Founder, Steve Hindy, and did an little piece about the rapid change in Williamsburg over the past 20 years.

From The Brooklyn Paper

Brooklyn Brewery beer is now a premier Friday night lubricant for hipsters and other young people who flood the bars and clubs that glut the major avenues of Greenpoint and Williamsburg.

But when the brewery opened more than 20 years ago on Meserole Street in nearby Bushwick, things were different.

“The trucks delivering beer to the warehouse would not come after dark,” said Steve Hindy, co-founder of Brooklyn Brewery. “They were afraid.”

Crime was crippling in the late 1980s, and it was still lurking in 1991 when Hindy and his company moved to N. 11th Street and Berry Street in Williamsburg. He remembers the junkies. He remembers being robbed at gunpoint at the brewery when a bandit made off with $30,000 in 1995.

Gradually, things improved, following a course of gentrification that has since become nearly cliché. Artists and creative people pushed out of SoHo were taking up residence among the established black, Latino, Italian, Polish and Orthodox Jewish communities in the northernmost Brooklyn neighborhoods by the early 1980s. They made the neighborhood cool and, after a decade or so, the artists were pushed aside by the trustifarians, or hipsters with a wealthy background. They made the neighborhood hot for bars and clubs and restaurants and Starbucks and luxury condos.

But the hipsters’ disposable income, along with that of the yuppies and professionals who followed them, also inspired reclamation of the area’s decaying waterfront, bringing the prospect of new parks and open space, along with luxury dwellings that popped up like mushrooms after the 2005 upzoning of the waterfront.

“It’s been a revolution here,” Hindy said.

When Brooklyn Brewery started, in an area of the borough once known 100 years ago as brewers row, Hindy delivered to five customers. The only one in Williamsburg was Teddy’s Bar and Grill, which is still open and is one of the oldest continuously operated bars in the city. Now there must be more than 300 bars, restaurants and clubs in the area, Hindy said.

Despite the “tremendous influx of young people” into the neighborhoods, many of the traditional communities survive. The Orthodox Jewish community is going strong, and Polish is still the dominant language of Manhattan Avenue. Italians can still be found along Union Avenue, though that population is aging.

With the influx of young people and the high rents they brought with them, Hindy worried he, too, might be pushed out of the neighborhood. But the economic downturn was a blessing in disguise as Brooklyn Brewery not only renewed its lease, but has plans to expand.

“We’re glad to stay here,” Hindy said. “In the gold rush, it looked like we might not be able to.”

— Michael P. Ventura

From YourNabe.com

Brooklyn Brewery receives state funds

Plans to expand, add jobs and green technology

By Stephen Witt
Monday, October 26, 2009 9:14 AM EDT

The bootlegging barons of the prohibition era must be smiling in their graves.

The state government last week awarded $800,000 to the Brooklyn Brewery to jump-start their $6.5 million expansion in Williamsburg.

The company, along with its signature Brooklyn brands of ale, lager and beer, is converting 13,500 square feet of vacant distribution space into a beer fermentation facility, and increasing brewing capacity from 8,000 to 50,000 barrels per year.

The plant is located at 79 North 11th Street.

The grant came from a competitive process, yielding a total first-round $7.8 million that will eventually total $35 million to revitalize the downstate area, and grow the job and tax base.

Municipalities, non-profits and businesses receiving the money also had to provide an ecological or green compnonent in their application.

“We are grateful to Governor Paterson and Empire State Development for this grant from the Downstate Revitalization Fund,” said Brooklyn Brewery Founder and President Steve Hindy. “Support like this is vital to growing manufacturing jobs in New York City. These funds will enable us to complete a six-fold capacity expansion, adding 15 full-time jobs with benefits, and further expanding the Brewery’s green initiatives.”

Hindy said the first phase of the expansion involves purchasing a new brew house from Germany, along with 12 new fomenters and a new grain handling system.

The state funding will enable the brewery to do a new grain handling system in a way to make it very easy for a company that produces animal feed to pick up the spent grain in bulk, he said.

“We’re also doing solar panels on the roof to preheat our water for brewing,” said Hindy. “Brewing lends itself to a lot of green technologies, but it’s expensive to get going.”

The money comes as the brewery has been looking to expand, and at one point, even considered moving out of the borough.

“For five years we were looking for more space, but the downturn in the economy had a silver lining for us as landlords began to view us as a pretty good long-term tenant,” said Hindy.

The Brooklyn Beer brand continues to grow, and is currently distributed in 24 states and the District of Columbia. Additionally, 10 percent of the business is in exporting with the largest amount being shipped to Sweden, said Hindy.

In announcing the allocation, Paterson said it is crucial that the state utilize its assets to foster sustainable growth and create jobs,

“The Downstate Revitalization Fund focuses on the interests of the small business community that is at the heart of our economy. The road to fiscal recovery begins by building on their successes and by keeping our entrepreneurs, workers and families in New York,” he said.

Also getting a grant through the fund was the The Brooklyn Navy Yard, which received $1 million to develop a Green Manufacturing Center. Ultimately, the facility is expected to add 300 full-time jobs.

“Support from Governor Paterson and ESD will not only allow the Navy Yard to continue to grow and meet the enormous demand for light industrial space, but also leverage significant private sector investments,” said Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation Chairman Alan

On an idyllic Saturday afternoon, one of the last days of summer, we hosted 20 lovely mermaids at a barbecue in my backyard in Brooklyn.  Many racks of ribs were consumed and a keg was kicked.

For the last three years, these creative beauties have represented the brewery in Coney Island Present’s MERMAID PARADE.

The brewery is proud to contribute to Dick Zigun’s annual production, one of Brooklyn’s finest festivals and probably the closest you get to a Mardi Gras scene in New York City.  (Right up there with the West Indian Day Parade and the Halloween Parade in the Village.)

–Steve Hindy, Founder

Brock back in TX

St. Arnold Brewery owner Brock Wagner dropped in to Brooklyn to say hello today.  A few years back, Brock and I served on the board of the Brewers Association together.  We had a good talk.  Brock’s cellphone was ringing constantly because he released Divine Reserve #8 today, a special limited volume beer that is much in demand in Texas.  St Arnold is in Houston.

Brock said he hoped to open his new brewery with a 127-barrel German brewhouse in November.

Garrett gave him a tour of the Brooklyn Brewery and a preview of Brooklyn Rheinschweingebot.  I showed him around the conditioning rooms across the street where Brooklyn Black Ops and Brooklyn’s Manhattan Project are gestating.

Brock was in town serving his fine beers at Fashion Week.  (I kid you not.)  It was some sort of boondoggle organized by the powers that be in Houston to showcase a Texas designer.  I never pictured Brock as a fashionista, but craft beer is opening many doors these days.

–Steve Hindy