Brewery Tour: Sixpoint's Craft Ales

Vacation is over and it's time to play catch up and so here is the long overdue recap of Sixpoints!

The Deacon and I started with a glass of Gorilla Ale at the steadfast Bar Great Harry in Carroll Gardens. Enjoying our favorite blend of coffee and beer, we met Ben and Mike (brothers and owners of BGH) playing pinball with Andrew, a co-founder of Sixpoint's Craft Ales.

With just a few minutes to drink while they rallied the troops, we polished our beers and got into minivans for the short drive to Red Hook where the Six Point Brewery sits behind an unsuspecting garage door. Once there, we gathered in the company's headquarters for a quick QA with our guide Andrew and a big plastic cup full of Bengali Tiger.

The "headquarters" is a small studio apartment space with two desks, a kitchenette, two dining room tables, a piano and a custom built kegerator. It was recently renovated and a big change from the office/garage below which they moved out of to make more room for grain. While standing in the office (which felt more like a living room) we learned about the founder's (Shane Welch) market testing via parties at the University of Wisconsin and his trip to NYC to start a brewery out of his car. Like many good things, Shane got connected with our guide for the evening (Andrew) over a glass of homebrew and the rest is history. Check out BaseNow for a colorful interview with Shane on the origins of Sixpoints.

The garage below the living-room-turned-office now houses several 2-ton bags of grain, a motorcycle, a cat's litter box and the Sixpoint Enterprise (a homebrewer's dream machine for creating new beers). Adjacent to the garage is the actual brewery (I use the term loosely while smiling), which consists of one boiler, a mash tun, 5 fermenting tanks and a keg cleaner. Grain is fed into the process from a small chicken-coup-like space built on the roof and the whole brewing process happens in this one cozy space. Because of storage constraints, all the beer is packaged into kegs and shipped out as quickly as possible. To say the least, the operations are modest for such a well known and highly respected New York beer.

Keeping things casual, Andrew richly explained where different beer flavors come from and proved himself to be far from a beer snob providing us several memorable quotes such as: "People ask what type of beer Righteous Ale is. They say, 'Is it a pale ale or something else,' and I just tell them it's a really good beer that people like to drink a lot."

The tour ended with a full cup of double IPA (11% ABV straight from the fermenting tank) and a leisurely, yet frigid, walk back to the comfort of BGH. Several beers deeper than we had left, we made friends with our fellow tourists learning of breweries they had visited and how to get there. It was a night full of learning about how to make good beer, the growth of a small brewery, entrepreneurship driven by passion versus money and how many people love this stuff.

Pics-

More Beer in Williamsburg

My roommate's parents visited town this weekend and were looking for some interesting places to have a beer in Williamsburg Saturday afternoon so we ventured to the tried and true Brooklyn Brewery and then on to the not-yet-explored Radegast Hall & Beer Garden (click warning: obnoxious website music).

As always on a Saturday afternoon, the Brewery was packed with card playing, cup stacking, pizza eating twenty-somethings cashing in their wooden beer dollars for the latest selection of Brooklyn's most infamous libation. We were 5 drinkers in total, so we bought 12 tokens (the 6 beer tokens for $20 is too easy to turn down) and tasted the core favorites always on tap:

East India IPA (6.8% ABV)
Brooklyn Brown (5.6% ABV)
Brooklyn Lager (5.2% ABV)
Brooklyn Pennant Ale (5.2% ABV)
Brooklyn Pilsner (TBD)
Brooklyn Weisse (TBD)

Favorite beer of the afternoon: Brooklyn Brown, because it went well with the chilly wet weather.

The only disappointments of the Brewery stop (other than getting there with less than hour before the famous 5:30 last call) was the 8% Brooklyn Blast tap running dry and the short stature of the cup stacks (I propose a cup stacking challenge this spring at the Brewery).

From the Brewery, we strolled to Radegast Hall and Beer Garden on the corner of N 3 and Berry Streets. A little bit the weary after our 12 beer dash at the Brewery (myself taking it particularly slow after being sick for a few days), we settled for a pitcher of something light, a pitcher of something dark, a Bavarian pretzel, and a cheese platter, all severed amongst a quieter, more mature crowd than the one we had left at the Brewery.

The beers (Hofbrau Lager and Kostritzer Dark) were just as expected - delicious, but it was the cheese platter than stood out a true delight. Thanks to Murray's Cheese, for that.

The constraints of our energy, our livers and time prevented us from testing Radegast for it's true "beer hall" worthiness, but it's first impression warrants a second visit, without doubt.

deacon's funtime pick of the week

I'm obviously not a good enough person to make the 7 hour trek cross state to The Southern Tier/St. Susan OktoBENEfest, so for selfish reasons I'm doubling up on this week's pick: Brooklyn Bowl, the (somewhat) new bowling in Williamsberg that aims to compete with the always jampacked Gutter, where the deacon will watch righteous jersey rock band Gaslight Anthem tonight. Apart from being a bowling alley and rock venue, Brooklyn Bowl's restaurant is a venture from the ridiculously tasty Blue Ribbon, and like any self-respecting hipster venue their beer list is hardcore local: three Sixpoint taps (Sweet Action, Righteous Rye, Bengali Tiger IPA), five Brooklyn taps (Lager, Pennant Pale Ale, Weisse, Oktoberfest, and and the recently debuted and totally punkrock awesome DIPA Brooklyn Blast), and two Kelso taps (Nut Brown Lager, Pilsner). I also appreciate the small touch on the menu in describing their localness:

Six Point: "just down the way in Red Hook"

Brooklyn: "right through the wall on n. 11th"

Kelso: "a stones throw away in Clinton Hill"

Totally subjective points for not having Sixpoint's fabulous Brownstoner on tap. Ave maria, mate, it's fall, why's no one carrying this brew anymore!? Hopefully it'll be back in the winter...

Anyhow, I've been delinquent in throwing on my skinny jeans and pretending to like PBR for too many months now, I'm psyched to get back to Billyberg for a cool show and some fresh local brews.

Finally, weather alert: the last (and largest) free ride of the NYC cycling season, Transporation Alternatives "Tour de Bronx" on Sunday, is still open to registration...though Weather.com is calling for rain and a high of 47. Hmm. That should help me shake my hangover?

Just a quick note...

...that I'm now on the Brooklyn Homebrew email list and sooooo happy about it...love that there's finally a local who can get me all my holiday ale spices!

Trivia at Black Sheep Pub tonight. Not a magical brew selection, but I'm quite happy drinking Lagunitas IPAs and Anchor Steam all night.

Speak and ye shall see thy reward

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled"

--Matthew 5:6

Perhaps this interpretation is wee out of context, but just yesterday I inquired into the existence and nature of the Brooklyn Blast, an American style double IPA or Strong Pale (BA grades it an A-) from Brooklyn's Brewmaster's Special Reserve line. And lo and behold, I stop by BGH on my way home and there it is on tap. Ummmmm: strong, hoppy, fruity. Divine intervention? Maybe not...BGH is just one fine beer bar.

Speaking of BGH: Speed dating next Tuesday, 10/13 for all you single hopheads out there. Details here (all proceeds go to benefit the East Africa Center, who put on the event)

Wednesday's homebrew shop of the day

It's a common complaint among New York's ENORMOUS population of homebrewers, that dangerous class of amateur basement chemists who more often than not have never taken a science class and yet churn out delicious ambrosia, that the city with everything lacks even one homebrew storefront. Ordering online is expensive, and chains one to the one preferred brand of malt of a given website. Well fear not city dwellers, there are new kids in town, and they reside over a comfortable and comprehensive apartment storefront in Sunset Park.

the deacon took a bit of an R train pilgrimage to the fledgling Brooklyn Homebrew (12 weeks old) and found the lovely co-owners, Benjamin and Danielle, to be friendly and helpful w/out a hint of beer snobbery. We talked barley malts and gypsum salts, and the deacon came away with a new starters kit, an extra glass carboy, salts, bottle caps, grain bags, and all the malts, barley, hops, and yeast needed for a dandy chocolate stout, all for a startlingly affordable $152.

They're new and already thriving, which isn't a surprise, so if you live in NYC and want in on the homebrew game it's a perfect place to start. That's a selfish request for me (a thousand ave marias): the more business they get, the more diverse a selection of malts and hops they can afford to carry. But they're super friendly, open 12pm to 7pm Tuesday - Sunday, and will gladly answer your questions about stock or availability at brooklynhomebrew@gmail.com. Hallelujah.

EDIT: Curious about the recipe?

6.6 lbs Briess Liquid Unhopped Traditional Dark Malt Extract ($12/3.3lbs)
1 lb Muntons Chocolate Malt (400L) ($2.50)
1 lb Weyermann's Caramunich (Crystal Malt) 60L ($2.50)
2 oz Willamette Hops (AA 5.8%) ($1.50/oz)
2 packs Coopers Dry Ale Yeast ($2/pack)
5 lbs DELICIOUS CHERRIES (bought separately)

= One delicious Cherry Chocolate Stout

["But wait! Chocolate malt + Crystal 60L doesn't make a stout, that's a porter!" yells Beer Kid in all his high-pitched ignorance.]

Chillax, homefry. As Arthur Guinness would say, "Stout IS Porter!" And then he'd say, "Hey deacon, want a personal tour of the brewery? I left the taps on..." and then we'd ride down the streets with no names on matching black stallions. At least, that's how all my dreams end.