Last week we took a week off – mainly because we were deep in the Beer Friends Vault searching for a gem of a video. This weeks video was recorded quite some time ago for Victory’s Hop Devil. A good beer in it’s own right – however a certain Beer Friend purchased a six pack that was all over a year expired. This was the first of many Beer Friend Fails. Please be kind – we were still green under the ears, getting our feet wet, and all those other excuses for purchasing AND reviewing a year old beer. We’ve learned from our mistakes and just don’t record the expired beers we drink anymore. Victory! Reading Labels! Drink by date!
Every year, like clockwork, right around this time a question comes up: What does one do the week after NYC Craft Beer Week? It’s a tough question. Craft Beer Week was incredible, as always, with the Beer Friends hitting up at least one event every day. What do we do now that there isn’t quite the dozen or so beer events to choose from every day? Well, we’re going to help you answer that question. There is life after NYC Craft Beer Week. Here it is:
Tuesday, September 27 – Fermented Craft Beer Crawl @ The East Village, Manhattan:
In the spirit of competition, Beer Friends would like to invite everyone to our NFL season hashtag battles! Using hashtagbattle.com we will pit two breweries against each other when their NFL counterparts are facing off on the gridiron. Are you ready for some football? And drinking? And #hashtag battle?!?!?!
What’s a hashtag battle? When you’re drinking a beer of a brewery competing in the battle (#sixpoint vs #yardsbrew), throw a #hashtag of the brewery and tweet it (or setup your foursquare or untappd to push to tweet and include the #hashtag) and we’ll use hashtagbattle.com to declare a winner after the Monday Night football game on ESPN. And because football needs beer, we’re starting on Saturday morning to include the brews consumed during College Football Saturdays. Support your team, support your beer, drink local and hashtag battle!
Week Three – New York Giants vs Philadelphia Eagles (#sixpoint vs #yardsbrew)
The Finale of New York’s Craft Beer Week is here and it’s a double edged sword. It’s sad that the week is coming to an end, but the all that’s happening is definitely worth looking forward to. We’ve enjoyed the events this week quite a bit – hit up Idle Hands – Two Brothers, Two Boots, Two Dollar Bourbon, checked out Rattle n’ Hum – Empire Brewery Tap Takeover and enjoyed the Strong Island Event at the Stag’s Head. We hope to see you all out at the finale events this weekend – we’ve got several double brewery events on Friday, an NYC Beer Week officially sponsored send-off party that includes 35 rotating drafts and free 2 oz. samples all night and a whole Sunday filled with beer fueled brunches. Cheers! (more…)
Craft beer week is in full swing and Beer Friends are hitting up some of the awesome events (we wandered from the Jimmy’s 43 Cigar City event – put Maduro Tiramisu on your bucket list, trust us) and enjoying the craft beer abound in the city. Next up: Strong Island at The Stag’s Head. Long Island has always been a weird beer destination (see Blue Point) but recently has stepped it up (see: Greenport Harbor and Southhampton) in which the Beer Friends have enjoyed and are going to continue enjoying tonight.
Brad’s 1st: Greenport Hopnomi – this is a delicious and hoppy beer. No aftertaste and a hit of bitterness at the front – this is a great taste.
Phil’s 1st: also Greenpoin Hopnomi. Very good and hoppy. Not as bitter as you would think. There’s a small small bit of malty sweetness that just curbs the bitterness enough to take it off your mind. A definite yes from me.
In our never ending quest to improve the overall quality of everyone’s beer drinking experience we try and find little tidbits of knowledge that might help you out in a jam. To that end we present to you a video that our colleagues over at Lifehacker found showing you how to open a beer bottle using one simple sheet of 8.5″X11″ regular printer paper. A perfect piece of know-how, in my opinion, if you find yourself in the office with a sixpack, your bottle opener on your keychain broke last night and Bob (the other guy in the office with a bottle opener keychain) already left. Take a look, you never know when it might come in handy to either impress a cute girl or win a bar bet, to say nothing of opening your favorite brew.
We had a great time at Rattle n’ Hum last night at the Empire Brewing Company event. Being a fan of the Empire Cream Ale I was excited to try some of the brewery’s other offerings. Of course, they did not disappoint. The “Dragons” were the standouts to me. I tried both and am interested to try these, and more like these, again. The addition of the basil to the Belgian style was great, and it almost got Phil to call a Belgian ale delicious…
If you missed out last night, NEVER FEAR! Empire is hitting NY Craft Beer Week hard and you should make sure you don’t miss it.
They have 2 events scheduled tonight; one at Spring Lounge and at Puck Fair. If you miss those, then you can hit up Dive Bar tomorrow night.
I suggest you try to get out to one of these events, and check below for what Phil and I thought of the night as it unfolded.
What a kick-off weekend! The Beer Friends enjoyed quite a bit of craft beer this weekend in honor of the 2011 New York City Craft Beer Week. Rattle n’ Hum threw a great Barrier and Greenport bash Friday night, the Smuttynose pouring at Mudville on Saturday was fantastic (especially that Homunculus) and we’re still not sure which is better – the Concoction or the Penicillin that we tasted on Sunday.
Because there is so much to do this week and weekend, we’re going to be breaking up the Beer Friends event listings for the week. Today we’re throwing at you the events happening from Monday to Thursday. You can then check back on Thursday for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday events – a.k.a. The Grand Finale of NYC Craft Beer Week. We’re hitting the streets, bars and breweries this week with a feverish devotion and we sure hope to see all you NYC Beer Friends out there with us!
Monday, September 19
Got a case of the Monday’s after such a fantastic craft beer fueled weekend? We understand. We also know how to help.
In the spirit of competition, Beer Friends would like to invite everyone to our NFL season hashtag battles! Using hashtagbattle.com we will pit two breweries against each other when their NFL counterparts are facing off on the gridiron. Are you ready for some football? And drinking? And #hashtag battle?!?!?!
What’s a hashtag battle? When you’re drinking a beer of a brewery competing in the battle, throw a #hashtag of the brewery and tweet it (or setup your foursquare or untappd to push to tweet and include the #hashtag) and we’ll use hashtagbattle.com to declare a winner after the Monday Night football game on ESPN. And because football needs beer, we’re starting on Saturday morning to include the brews consumed during College Football Saturdays. Support your team, support your beer, drink local and hashtag battle!
Week Two – Chicago vs New Orleans (#twobrothersbeer vs #theabitabeer)
Chicago, the Windy City, is full of footballs in the air with Jay Cutlers arm and Mike Martz offensive scheme. They got off to a great start last week taking out Peter King’s Superbowl pick Atlanta Falcons and now continue their NFC South tour with former Superbowl Champion Saints. Chicago is also home to a few great breweries that aren’t purchased by large corporations – enter Two Brothers Brewing. Two Brothers Brewing is kept in the family by Jim and Jason Ebel and producing quality brews since 1996, will the new combo of Cutler and Martz help the old combo of Jim and Jason win this weeks Hashtag Battle?
New Orleans has been in the news for the right and wrong reasons: the horrific hurricane and the rise and rebuilding efforts of the Saints football team and more specifically Drew Brees. Abita also has it’s own rebuilding efforts with their S.O.S. Weizen Pils (Save Our Shores). So New Orleans plays the heart strings card and plays good football, produces good beer and (hopefully) wins this (very) important hashtag battle.
It’s here! It’s here! It’s here! It’s finally here! I feel like a child on Christmas (Hanukkah, Quanza or Atheist Hate-On-Everyone Day – we’re equal opportunity here) – if Christmas was 10,000 times more magical and filled with beer than it already is. The 2011 New York City Craft Beer Week has arrived! From Friday, September 16 to Sunday, September 25 (Yes! I know it’s more than a week! Two extra days!) we here in NYC will be inundated, not by deluges of hurricanes or the shaky grounds of earthquakes, but floods of delicious craft beer at an incredible number of establishments – so many that you literally couldn’t commute to work each day without bumping into at least one event venue.
The NYC Craft Beer Week website has the full list of events (along with opportunities to obtain a passport with boatloads of craft beer deals) and it is immense and impressive. To help you sift through the dozens of craft beering happening each day we picked out the events that were the most intriguing, from our favorite breweries, pouring the rarest of brews and in general, a guaranteed damn good time. This edition covers the weekend on Monday. Check back in Monday morning for our take on next week’s events.
We hope you agree with our list and, as always, can’t wait to see you out there in the jungle…the 2011 New York City Craft Beer Week jungle that is!
Friday, September 16
Friday night starts the whole shebang off with a lip smackin’ range of events. You can choose to hit up the Official NYC Craft Beer Week opening festivity at Southpaw in Park Slope (the tickets are $50 and include a tasting glass for free tastings and some pretty kick-ass music). Check out their website and see if it’s in your sights. If tickets aren’t your flavor then check out these pay-as-you-go events:
dingerc
Brad
Corporate Kerouac
Phil
