Hipsters revel at the famed Brooklyn Brewery

By Laurel Noble

Asst. Productions Editor

On an unusually hot fall Sunday afternoon, I traveled with three of my roommates to the hipsters’ haven and visited their famed Brooklyn Brewery.

Since the sun beat hot that day, I begged the crew to exit the bowls of the NYC subway system, emerge into the daylight and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. Dodging neon leggings and angry cyclists, we entered into the land of Ray-Ban sunglasses and plaid fleece. I only recommend this option if one has directions from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Brewery. We did not, and found ourselves hailing a gypsy cab from Mike’s Car Service that took a good 20 minutes to find.

Once in the cab, with who I can only assume was Mike himself, we traversed the crooked and oftentimes confusing streets. We passed open-gated garages displaying funky artwork, cute cafes with outdoor seating and thousands of guitar toting teens.

We turned down a small one-way street with huge warehouses on either side. This apparently was it. I was beginning to find that Brooklyn was unlike Manhattan where the edifice of a building dictated the fanciness of the inside. Here it seemed it was the uglier the outside, the cooler it was on the inside.

Entering in through the gaping hole in the wall that was the door, we flashed our IDs to the bouncer and were escorted to the front desk. A very polite woman sold us six tokens for $20. Each beer was allotted a different amount of tokens depending on the alcohol grade. Most were just one, but the beers with an alcohol volume above 10% were two.

We quickly noticed that the seating area where one could sample the beer was the focal point. There were tours of the actual brewery at the top of every hour, but no one seemed to care. The seating area was filled with long picnic tables and large round cafeteria style tables. We found a quiet corner and settled in.

The Brooklyn Brewery allows outside food and even offers pizza menus at the door which is always a great pairing with large quantities of beer. The menu of beers was extensive with about 12 different kinds of locally brewed beer. There was the Oktoberfest, Post Road Pumpkin Ale, Monster Ale with an alcohol content of 10.3% and my favorite, the Brooklyn Brown Ale which had a nice caramel malt flavor.

But my favorite part was a cool pamphlet that I ended up stealing. It listed all of the beers offered at the Brooklyn Brewery including a description of the taste and exactly what foods each beer should be paired with. This was perfect when the pizza arrived and we all ordered the Brooklyn Lager.

Everyone in attendance was in their late twenties and traveled in groups of eight to ten. There was one birthday party which is definitely recommended.

The Brooklyn Brewery is a great place to go with a large group of friends. Definitely bring a deck of cards and hang out for the day. Just make sure to wear your Chuck’s and skinny jeans, and a checkered scarf wouldn’t hurt.

Tags: beer, brewery, Brooklyn