Peekskill Brewery

Our homebrew club, the Malted Barley Appreciation Society, recently took a trip up the Hudson to Peekskill, NY to visit the Peekskill Brewery. The brewpub is located a short walk from the train station and is an easy day-trip from New York City via Metro North.

We started with some liquid refreshment (hey, that hour-long train trip can take a lot out of you) and lunch before touring the brewery. Most everyone chose a sampler of 4 beers to start off.

My first selection was their Hop Common, a nicely hoppy amber California Common, or steam beer, hopped with Segal Ranch, Nugget, and Cascade

Skills Pils, on their rotating seasonal pils tap, was described on the menu as a winter pils with dark German malts and Polish Lublin and Magnum hops. In reality, it was a malty, roasty schwarzbier and not a pilsner.

Styriana, a Gypsy Lager fermented with Brettanomyces and hopped with Styriana Goldings, was described as "a pale rustic beer" and it did indeed have an earthiness to it along with a citrus finish and low level brett character.

Slow and Low, a smoked lager with German malts and Polish Lublin hops and boiled overnight, had a smoke character which was fairly faint, particularly in the aroma. The light smoke flavor was pleasantly complemently by caramel notes from the malt.

Other crowd favorites on tap that day included the award-winning Amazeballs pale ale and the always refreshing Simple Sour.

All of the beers at Peekskill are unfiltered and head brewer Jeff "Chief" O'Neil tends to use very little bittering hops. instead focusing on late addition hops for their flavoring and aromatic properties.

Refilled beer glasses in hand, we then made our way to the brewery with tour guide Ed and assistant brewer Mike Benz. The current brewery, which they've been in since December 2012 having made a short move down the street, is a 15 barrel system with three 15 bbl fermenters and four 30 bbl fermenters. The brewing vessels and fermenters are located on the ground floor but every batch of beer gets pumped up to the top floor and into a coolship to cool for 1-2 hours. Peekskill Brewery has one of only around 10 coolships in the country. Once in the coolship, a plate circulates the wort and then it rests so that the sediment can settle out and heat from the hot wort is vented out. Once cooled, the wort flows back to ground level and into the fermenters.

Benz

The coolship

Most of the beers are fermented with standard ale and lager strains but they also have a dedicated brettanomyces tank. Once ready to serve, the beers are either kegged or put into one of the seven serving tank. The futuristic cool box sends the beer to the downstairs bar and upstairs tap room.

Cool box dispensing beers to both bars

Bill "Salty Dog" Coleman looking happy with his Pruneau

Aside from their regular line up, they plan to have quarterly releases of special beers. The first one in 2013 was with NYC brewery Other Half, Nuggy Num Num and the first release of 2014 will be a pale all, NYPA, brewed with Citra and Mosaic hops. An upcoming release that we were able to try out of the tanks is Pruneau, an IPA brewed with 300 pounds of fruit.

You can find several of the Peekskill beers available on draft at better beer bars in New York City but it's definitely worth the trip to the brewpub to try their other beers that are only available on premise. They do plan to start a barrel-aging program and have a bottle corking machine so hope to have bottles available at the brewpub in the future.

Peekskill riverfront. Not a good day for swimming.

21 Years Of Mugs

  Interview with Eddie of Mugs (Flash version)
  Non-Flash podcast

Mugs Alehouse is a true pioneer of the craft beer scene in New York City. Owner and founder Eddie Berestecki spoke to us about the then and now in Williamsburg on the 21st anniversary of his wonderful neighborhood bistro, which also happens to be one of the oldest fixtures of the modern NYC craft beer scene.

L-R: Bill Coleman of MBAS, Eddie, Warren Becker of MBAS.

As B.R. notes in the podcast, Mugs is a great neighborhood bar -- which also happens to have a great beer list. That's one of the things that sets Mugs apart from the newer breed of beer bars. The place has that warm, authentic feel of the, sadly, vanishing local pub. You can get a solid and reasonably priced meal, excellent and friendly service, along with a great selection of craft beers at a fair price. How many places in NYC, let alone trendy Williamsburg, can you say that about?

Bob, Eddie and B.R. enjoy some Beer Geek Mus.

Eddie has been a staunch supporter and patron of the local beer beer scene as well, hosting the Malted Barley Appreciation Society since its founding, giving up his entire backroom dining area to the club every 2nd Wednesday of each month. He's helped establish and has been host to numerous beer events that bring the beer community together, from the annual Split Thy Skull fest to the yearly Belgium 2 Brooklyn event, and scores of others.

Photo credit: Kristopher Medina of pinballnyc.com.

We congratulate Eddie and Mugs on reaching the age of majority, and we look forward to many more years of friendship and beers!

Noble Experiment Owney's Rum At MBAS Meeting

 

Noble Experiment's Bridget Firtle at MBAS meeting podcast

What would President Herbert Hoover -- who coined the term referring to a certain contemptible constitutional amendment  -- think about Bridget Firtle naming her distillation operation "Noble Experiment"? We're not sure if making rum is particularly "noble", but it's certainly appreciated!

Bridget and Bill.

Bridget was a guest speaker at the June 2013 meeting of the Malted Barley Appreciation Society, which is a slightly funny coincidence, since she, herself, holds an MBA. Until recently, she was using her degree working as a global alcoholic beverage financial analyst for a hedge fund, researching and investing in beer, wine and spirits companies. In that capacity she was introduced to the world of craft spirits and, inspired by some of the finer artisans, she decided that it would be more satisfying to become a maker of fine spirits than simply to invest in them.

Column still on the left, pot still on the right.

Presaging her radical career swing, her childhood home in the Rockaways was also home to a basement speak easy during Prohibition. The original bar still stands to this day -- despite extensive damage to the house during hurricane Sandy! And it was in her Rockaways neighborhood where notorious bootlegger, Gopher Gang member and rum runner Owney "The Killer" Madden had an estate near the water, which facilitated his conveyance of illegal booze from ships off shore to places like the Cotton Club, which he ran during Prohibition.

A homage to Madden, Noble Experiment's first commercial offering, released at the end of 2012, is a white rum called Owney's. White rum is not aged in wood. It's the wood and wood alone that gives spirits their color, unless, of course, caramel or other coloring is added. Hers is made with all natural, non-GMO, grade-A molasses (about 70% sugar content) from Louisiana and Florida, and fermented with a propitiatory yeast strain. It undergoes a five-day cold fermentation in temperature controlled tanks, as opposed to a 48-hour, hot fermentation, which is the common method. Then the beer/wine-like liquor is distilled in a pot-column hybrid still to about 80-85% ABV before being brought down to 80 proof, or 40% ABV in the bottle.

Video About Noble Experiment

During her talk, she explained that rum is the most loosely defined spirit. To be called rum, a distillate need only be made from the sugar cane plant. Rum made from sugar cane juice, as opposed to molasses -- a by-product of sugar refining -- is called "Rhum Agricole". The juice ferments on its own within three days, so it can't be shipped or stored, making molasses a more logical choice for making rum in New York.

Bridget has plans of aging her rum in various different barrels: new whiskey barrels, used whiskey barrels, wine barrels, different types of oak. In addition to the rum, she plans on also distilling whiskey, and already has one barrel of rye now aging in the barrel.

With Noble Experiment, and Owney's in particular, Bridget is trying to bring back good ol' American rum, which was the first spirit distilled in New York in the 1600s on what is current day Staten Island. And she's not the only one trying to revive local distilling. In 2002 -- the first time that New York State even offered a small distiller's license -- four distilleries operated in the City. Today there are at least 10 distilleries in Brooklyn alone!

  Noble Experiment non-Flash podcast

Jakob of Mikkeller, Bill and Bridget.

Big Alice At MBAS Meeting

  [link to podcast page]
Big Alice Brewing podcast

Big Alice Brewing's brewers were the guest speakers at the Malted Barley Appreciation Society on May 8, 2013 at Mugs Alehouse in Williamsburg. You can get the long story about how they got into brewing on their website, but the short story might begin with a homebrew contest hosted by Heartland in 2011. Kyle and Robbie entered two of their homebrewed beers into the contest -- a light Belgian ale and a dark Belgian ale. And while they didn't fare well with the judges' panel, one of the beers won the "people's choice" award, which gave them the encouragement to start talking about brewing professionally.

Kyle and Robbie.

In 2013, they applied for licensing and started up Big Alice Brewing in Long Island City, joining fellow tiny Queens breweries Rockaway and Bridge and Tunnel, and the not-so-tiny Single Cut. They brew on a .333 barrel Sabco system. That's just ten gallons! When planning the enterprise they thought, "we don't need to brew huge quantities, but we want to be able to play around with recipes a lot, and have other people pay for our hobby."

Their concept is to brew unique one-off recipes using organic and local ingredients as much as possible, often incorporating seasonal ingredients in the recipes. Rather than offer one consistent product, they will brew something different each and every time! Operating a ten-gallon system certainly allows for unlimited experimentation. They plan on making 72 different batches this year.

Kyle, Felice and Robbie.

There's got to be some serious hurdles for a brewery that brews a different style each batch, including having to design, print and register a unique label for each 48-bottle run of 25-ounce bottles. The labels alone could be very costly. So they devised an interesting answer to their labeling issues. They have the same exact label for all their beers, except for a blank space in which the batch number is indicated. To find out what kind of beer that batch actually is, one must refer to the brewery's website.

So, batch #0001 is a red ale brewed with Cinderella Pumpkin in the mash, and fermented with Belgian ale yeast. Batch #0002 is a Belgian I.P.A. with the addition of citrus fruit in the fermenter. #0003 uses barley, wheat and rye in the mash, and Flame Raisins, and is fermented with multiple Belgian yeast strains.

Even their sales concept is one of a kind. They operate a community supported agriculture model (CSA) for sales, selling "subscriptions" to their brewing projects direct to individuals, offering 2 bottles per month for six months. Their plan is to sell two-thirds of their production through "beer shares", 30% of which has already been sold to individuals who have been early supporters of the brewery. They're going to release the other portion of beer shares to the general public very soon. They hope to sell another third of their production through retail outlets.

One of the beers they poured at the meeting -- their second batch -- was a Belgian style I.P.A. featuring a unique ingredient: Buddah's Hand. The Buddah's Hand, which is a Far Eastern citrus fruit, is introduced in the fermenter, and imparts an exotic citrus quality to the beer. They also poured a wheat malt based coffee stout (50% wheat), which was dark, rich and roasty, utilizing Gorilla coffee beans ground up and added in the fermenter. 

Wheat malt coffee stout.

By the way, the brewery is named for the iconic Ravenswood No. 4 electrical power station which is located in their neighborhood. The plant was built in the early 60s by the Allis-Chalmers company -- thus nicknamed "Big Allis" -- and was the world's first million-watt generating station. The brewery's homepage has a very comical comparison of Big Allis to Big Alice!

Big Allis.

The brewhouse.

Setting up the system.

This is what nano brewing looks like.

Rockaway Brewing

[link to podcast page]
WFMU's Beer Hear! Rockaway Brewing Podcast

Recently, Ethan Long of Rockaway Brewing was the guest speaker at a meeting of the Malted Barley Appreciation Society homebrew club at Mugs Alehouse in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

 

Though the 2-barrel nano-brewery is located in Long Island City, Ethan and partner Marcus Burnett, had long been homebrewing buddies at their summer bungalows in the Rockaways. That's where they first dreamt up the idea to create a commercial, albeit tiny, brewery.

 

The operation was licensed in April of 2013 and began brewing two months later. Their ESB and Black Gold Stout have been flowing at a handful of NYC craft beer bars since. In addition to being served at Alewife, Proletariat, Sunswick, Jimmy's No. 43, Kickshaw and others, Rockaway Brewing scored big by getting their brew on the menus of reputed local Rockaway eateries Rockaway Taco and Caracas Arapa, as well as LIC-based John Brown Smokehouse. They also serve the public growlers to go direct from their brewery Thursdays through Saturdays at 5-01 46th Ave. in Long Island City, not far from Silver Cup Studios -- which is convenient for Ethan, since his "day job" as an independent set builder is also located there! Marcus also works in the film industry as a cinematographer, filming documentaries for National Geographic.

Ethan of Rockaway Brewing with MBAS president Felice

Rockaway Brewing fires up the kettle in the 1000 sq ft brewhouse on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, delivering their goods themselves on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Aside from always being able to find one of their beers at Alewife and Caracas Arapa, they brew a special nitro-system Oyster Stout for Vinegar Hill House at 72 Hudson Ave.

Rockaway Brewing on Jimmy's No. 43 tap tower

There's a very good piece on nano-brewing, which features Ethan, on American Public Radio, and Jimmy Carbone's Beer Sessions Radio featured them last summer. And, of course, you can hear Ethan's address to the MBAS right here!

In a bonus podcast, Ethan explains that Rockaway Brewing is not located in the Rockaways but in Long Island City near the East River, and that, ironically, his bungalow in the Rockaways sustained less flood damage than the brewery did during Sandy.