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If you've been looking for the silver lining in the recession, here it is: Thanks to plummeting industrial real estate values, the Brooklyn Brewery will be able to stay in Brooklyn. Just last summer, the Williamsburg-based lager-makers feared they couldn't afford to stay in their increasingly costly neighborhood when their lease expired, but dwindling property values and receding interest from non-manufacturing interests allowed the Brewery to sign a 15-year lease.
Though the Brewery is located in one of the city's Industrial Business Zones, the area had faced encroachment from non-industrial tenants like a planned hotel and the bowling alley/restaurant/nightclub combo Brooklyn Bowl that had driven property values sky-high, Brooklyn Brewery founder Steve Hindy told the Times. “When the recession hit in, like, August or September last year, all of a sudden the landlords here in Williamsburg were looking much more favorably on us as a long-term tenant."
Details about the new lease — which at an average cost of about $15 per square foot is far higher than the Brewery had been paying, but only about half as much as peak prices in the midst of the boom — come on the heels of last week's announcement that the Brooklyn Brewery won an $800,000 government grant to help its $6.5 million expansion in Williamsburg. This is all well and good, but one question remains unanswered: How long until bacon beer hits the taps?
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I'm glad there's a Brooklyn Brewery, and I've met Steve Hindy and he's a nice guy and all. I'm also big on beer, good beers that come in 500 ml bottles from Germany, not shit beers that come in 18-packs. But I'm just not a fan of Brooklyn Brewery beers. Their wheat beer is good but that's about it.
eh, no accounting for taste. IMO germany and euro points east produce flimsy skunk beers. meanwhile american craft brews favor robust flavors and are not scared to experiment, producing rich delectable beers more often than not.
oh man, it's beer thirty already...
Saranac beers are very good and as hoppy and robust as almost anything, especially their Black Forest (and reasonably priced I might add). But taste is taste.
totally agree on the black forest, rich with coffee notes and not too filling. saranac has some incredible varietals and they also produce most of brooklyn brewery's beer, if you didn't know that already.
I have a distributor a few blocks from my place and I can say with semi-pro authority that American brewmasters can crank out just as good..if not better beer than what you find from Europe.
Also, like Hotstepper said, American microbrews are more willing to be daring which counts for something.
Also, I have little faith in people around these areas and beer. Most snots I know in the city think Stella is actually an example of 'classy' Belgian beer. Yeah.
the bklyn weisse is my favorite too.
Can we call Mr. Hindy on something? While he's been bitching about high property values and the way gentrification has negatively affected affordable manufacturing space, he's also been vocally supportive of both Atlantic Yards and efforts to move American Stevedoring from Red Hook. I'm glad he got his lease cleared up, and as far as I'm concerned a brewery doing well is a good thing for Brooklyn, but there is a very good reason you can't buy his beer in Prospect Heights or Red Hook.
I am *so happy* Brooklyn Brewery is staying in the neighborhood. And the Brooklyner Weisse is my FAVORITE beer! It's great from the bottle, a keg and best when served fresh at their facility. Oh Brooklyn Brewery, I love you so!
PS I have been trying to buy a 6 pack of the Weisse for weeks in the Greenpoint/Williamsburg area. Has anyone seen it anywhere? If it's seasonal, I'm going to cry...
Oh hey, I just noticed you used one of my pics for the story. Thank you :)