Good Beer Seal

Last night was a great event at the South Street Seaport Museum (if you’ve never been, the place is appropriately decked out like the inside of a ship!). We were drinking beer with Shmaltz Brewing, Long Trail, Thomas Hooker, Beer Hear! and the Brooklyn Brewshop (among others); and ate food from Jimmy’s No. 43 and Sigmund’s Pretzels. All while hanging out with a great group of beer media. Be sure to see all the latest on our Facebook page (and, please, “like” us). A special shout out goes to the Beer Union team of Giancarlo and Sarah Annese, who did manage to get to all 41 Good Beer Seal Bars in a month (they started a week early and finished with a week to go, so we say it still counts). We’re guessing they are the only non-GBS members to make it to every bar on our list, so huge congratulations to them!

What’s the connection between craft beer and micro-distilleries? Quite a lot. From craft brewers who are adding distilling in their business to distillers who got their start in brewing, the ties between brewing and distilling are defining how micro-distillers make inroads into the market.

Michael Kinstlick of Coppersea Distillery – a recently licensed distillery in West Park, NY, and will be selling in the fall –  updates us on the progress of the craft spirit movement. Gregg Glaser (Yankee Brew News and Modern Distillery Age) calls in to help connect the dots between the two industries. Plus regular guest Jen Schwertman of Blind Tiger weighs in on micro-distilleries, alongside Matt Barclay and Justin Israelson from Sycamore Bar and Flowershop.

The movement for craft brewers to add a distilling element is spreading world wide, from Japan (Hitachino) to Europe (Mahr’s Bräu) and everywhere in between (Warwick Valley/Doc’s Cider, McMenamins, Rogue, Dogfish Head, Triple Eight/Cisco Brewing, and Dutch’s, among others). Join Beer Sessions Radio and hear what’s happening in micro-distilling with this great beer-loving crowd.

As a preview of July Good Beer Month’s Beer Book, Blog & Video Fest at South Street Seaport on July 25th, several beer media personalities joined Beer Sessions Radio™ for Episode 122: Beer Books & Blogs. In the studio are Christian DeBenedetti (The Great American Ale Trail and The Weekly Pint), Seth Wright (Beer Nation), and Erica Shea and Stephen Valand from the Brooklyn Brew Shop.

From the future of beer media (including the difficulty of launching a beer-tv show) to the evolution of home brewing as a catalyst for the craft beer movement, this group is looking ahead to the Fest by celebrating the “soul and spirit of beer.” By the end of the episode, you’ll be ready to brew some Peach Cobbler Ale. Or maybe just buy tickets to the Fest here, where you’ll meet these beer celebs and more. Slated to be in attendance:

• Authors—Christian DeBenedetti (The Great American Ale Trail), Joshua Bernstein (Brewed Awakening), Horst Dornbusch (Asst. Editor, The Oxford Companion to Beer), Erica Shea and Stephen Valand (Brooklyn Beer Shop’s Beer Making Book), Lew Bryson (Pennsylvania Breweries), John Holl (Massachusetts Breweries), Jeremy Cowan (Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah), and others TBA;
• Filmmakers—Seth Wright (Beer Nation Tours The GABF), Jimmy Ludwig (The Happy Hour Guys), Paul Kermizian (American Beer), Laurie Delk (100 Beers in Thirty Days), Roberto Serrini (The Brewhaha), Anat Baron (Beer Wars), Jeff Cioletti (Beerituality), John R. Richards (Beer Hunter, The Movie), and Ian Jenkin (Brewery Show);
• Beer Bloggers— Beer Sessions Radio™, The Good Beer Seal, Bear Hear!, Beer Union, Beertography, New Jersey Craft Beer, SuperNeat Beer Adventure, Private Tap, Win Bassett, and Where and Back.

Our friends over at LocalBozo were nice enough to write up last night’s Hopfest: Backyard Hops In Support Of BK Farmyards at Brooklyn Brewery. Read what you missed (or relive the event):

The Good Beer Seal’s “July Good Beer Month” continues on in 2012, with more exciting events day after day. Throughout this steamy month, exciting ale centric programs will be held at each of the 40 Good Beer Seal bars throughout the city. The LocalBozo crew has been out celebrating these events, while learning a great deal about our favorite adult beverage. On Monday night we headed back to Williamsburg’s “Brooklyn Brewery,” a venue that has become our regular stomping ground for “Hopfest: Backyard Hops In Support Of BK Farmyards.” The large brewing room was literally transformed into a “House of Hops,” allowing event goers the opportunity to walk around to taste the brews and smell the miracle flower produced by “backyard” hop growers throughout New York.

Read the rest of the article here.

This Monday, July 16th, July Good Beer Month™ and the Good Beer Seal present Hopfest: Backyard Hops In Support Of BK Farmyards from 6:30-9:30 p.m. at Brooklyn Brewery. Hopfest will feature a three hours of unlimited walk-around food and beer tastings with local “backyard” hops growers throughout New York City. Teaching you how to grow hops will be:

• The Bronx Brewery, in collaboration with the New York Botanical Gardens and the Cornell Cooperative Extension, whose Urban Hop Project is growing hops at community gardens throughout the Bronx;
• Jeff O’Neill (Peekskill) and John Segal (Segal Ranch Hops);
• Ben Granger (Bierkraft – Edible did a great story about Ben a couple years ago);
• John Liegey (Greenport Harbor);
• Host Brooklyn Brewery with more hops growers TBA.

In addition to plenty of beer, food offerings include dishes from Parish Hall, Jimmy’s No. 43, East Village Meat Market, and Sigmund’s Pretzels, among others. Tickets available now.

The gauntlet has been thrown. Beer Union has decided to undertake an effort to visit all 40 Good Beer Seal Bars for July Good Beer Month (full disclosure: they’ve gotten a jump start, having visited four of the bars starting last week). We hope you’ll join in (or join them) on a quest to visit the Good Beer Seal Bars (lots of events will be added to the calendar, here).

This week on Beer Sessions Radio™, there was a New Jersey take-over! Surprisingly, NJ is no longer swimming in the wake of the NYC beer scene, having its own Craft Beer movement, lead by several key brewers and New Jersey Craft Beer owner, Mike Kivowitz. Joining host Jimmy Carbone is Michael Kane from Kane Brewing, along with Augie Carton and Jesse Ferguson from Carton Brewing. Kane is a draft-only microbrewery that is certainly making waves among NJ’s craft beer lovers. As many New Yorkers already know, Carton Brewing is the leading brewer whose reach is gaining inroads in the city.

Just as NJ itself is defying simple compartmentalization, so its beers aren’t easily categorized. Kane and Carton blend styles to create unique beers, including those brought to the studio: Carton’s 0077XX and Boat Beer and Kane’s Single Fin and the Head High IPA. Tune in and you’ll also find out the real reason the monkey ran all around the mulberry bush!

If you want to take a tour of NJ breweries and craft beer bars, join Mike on the Monmouth County Bus Tour next month. Guess what? The PATH runs in both directions? Who knew?! Now you’ve got a great reason to visit Jersey: cool craft beers you just can’t find anywhere else.

It took awhile, but the Good Beer Seal has now reached the fifth and final Borough! Tonight at Jimmy’s No. 43, it was announced that Staten Island’s very own Adobe Blues and Killmeyer’s Old  Bavaria would be the first Good Beer Seal bars in the fifth Borough. The night celebrated new Good Beer Seal bars in Manhattan and Brooklyn, as well. It was a very competitive ballot, and in the end a simple majority of votes meant that a lucky eight new bars will now join the ranks of Good Beer Seal bars in New York City. So, as they say, “the envelope please…”

From the Island of Manhattan:

• Earl’s Beer and Cheese – This pub at 1259 Park Avenue is “a small neighborhood joint where the craft beer flows with the force and volume of a surging river and the sublime cheese-related concoctions of Chef Corey Cova get churned out like it’s gourmet chow time for the hungry Navymen of the USS George H.W Bush.”
• Dive Bar – The original Dive Bar (732 Amsterdam) has been an Upper West Side haven for great beer and good grub for years, and we welcome her into the GBS ranks!
• Idle Hands – This EV/LES bar (25 Avenue B) has long been an entertainment hot spot, and co-owner “Rev” David Ciancio has been a fixture in the burger world of NYC.

From the Island of Long (okay, we mean Brooklyn):

• 61 Local – A big part of the Good Beer Seal bars is community, and 61 Local embraces that one-hundred times over. You can find them in the heart of Cobble Hill at 61 Bergen Street.
• Sycamore – You want flowers with that? The owners of Sycamore Bar and Flowershop (yep, you read that right) took a big risk combining two seemingly disparate businesses. Then again, what is a hop other than a flower? Find them at 1118 Cortelyou Road.
• Pine Box Rock Shop – In Bushwick (12 Grattan Street), this bar offers rotating taps and vegan-friendly food options. Did we mention it’s in Bushwick?

And, finally, the Island of Staten:

• Adobe Blues – You can enjoy Southwestern-style eats and an old west saloon atmosphere at 63 Lafayette Avenue.
• Killmeyer’s Old Bavaria Inn – An old-style bierhaus that hosts craft beer tastings in its summer garden, the owner was a co-founder of Adobe Blues before opening the new bar on the south end of the island at 4254 Arthur Kill Road.

We congratulate the class of 2012! Welcome to the Good Beer Seal.