A Beer Grows in Brooklyn, Part II

Having just come back from Brooklyn, I thought I’d use today’s post to talk about the beer that really did grow in Brooklyn: Brooklyn Lager

There’s actually a cool story behind this beer: Steve Hindy was a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press who learned to homebrew in the early eighties while on assignment in Saudi Arabia, where the sale of alcohol is illegal. When he came home to New York, he shared his new passion with his friend and neighbor, Tom Potter. In 1984, the pair quit their jobs to pursue their brewing dream. At first, they paid a Utica based brewery to produce their beer but by 1996, were able to purchase an old Williamsburg matzah ball factory and turned it into the first functional brewery in Brooklyn in decades. These guys are the Jim Kochs of New York and deserve some major respect for laying it all on the line for their dreams.

Brooklyn Beer Co.’s flagship is an amber lager that packs a powerful malty punch. You get the nice cascade hop aroma on this beer but, once you take a sip, the malts take over. These are heavier malts than you would normally expect in a lager but it’s still nice and smooth all the way down. You get a good taste of the caramel malts in the finish, which is really the icing on the cake for this brew.

(Side-note: I’ve always found it kind of amusing that Boston Lager has such a fantastic hop-dominant flavor while Brooklyn Lager is so malt driven. There’s a part of me that wants to turn this into yet another aspect of the Boston-New York rivalry, but you really can’t do it. I mean, there’s nothing inherently evil about maltiness, so it just doesn’t fit.)

Brooklyn Lager is one of my favorite go-to brews. It matches up well with just about any meal and, while I normally think of it as more of a fall/winter drink, it’s definitely not too heavy for warmer weather. Go pick up a six-pack and enjoy this extremely drinkable beer.