Brothers Ben, Seth and Mike Wiley have built a small beer geek empire in Brooklyn, running three successful bars in the borough starting with Carroll Gardens' popular Bar Great Harry, which they opened in 2007. Since then, the brothers have opened two more nightlife spots in Park Slope (Mission Dolores and The Owl Farm) and as of Monday they added their fourth operation in Bed-Stuy. Glorietta Baldy, named for a hiking trail in New Mexico, follows a similar formula to the sibling's other bars, offering American and European craft beers poured in a laid-back atmosphere—oh, and pinball!
The new bar takes over a space previously occupied by a hair salon, and though some serious demo took place to remodel the interior to fit their needs, the brothers saw fit to keep an interesting architectural element. After tearing down a closet, they discovered the underside of the staircase to the apartment building above. "We decided to build the section where the bartender stands," Ben Wiley explained. "Make it feel cozy."
Their opening week draft brew lineup includes some seasonally appropriate brews like Barrier MooChelle Milk Stout and Abita Fall Fest, plus new additions to the menu starting either tonight or tomorrow: Virtue Red Streak cider and Smuttynose Pumpkin. Expect the beer lineup to change frequently, as the bar only purchases one or two kegs of each brew to keep things new and fun.
They're also offering a Bottle of the Month, usually something difficult to find and in a large format. For the opening they're offering Sagra Bohio, a Spanish Imperial Stout with notes of coffee and chocolate, which Wiley tells us "doesn't get much press" within its home country but he wanted to "open with a really, really well-made beer from a place that people don't think of as making beer." As a bonus, a second large-format beer will be on offer: AK Alive—a collaboration between Danish brewery Mikkeler and Alaska's Anchorage Brewing Company—that's fermented in Alaska, yielding a sour ale that's very difficult to find in NYC. The bar offers both bottles at $20.
An oft-changing menu of small bites will be available in the coming weeks, which the brothers will curate with help from a chef. The opening menu will be a selection of four types of chili—beef, chicken, lamb and veggie—plus some accompanying sides. Besides the eats, show off your heavy metal pinball skillz with Metallica and AC/DC games, a hallmark of all Wiley brother's operations.
502 Franklin Avenue, Bed-Stuy, (347) 529-1944; 502franklinbar.com. Open 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. on weekdays, noon until 4 a.m. on weekends.
