It’s not an alternative fact: New York City Beer Week is back! (So, then it’s an ale-ternative fact?)
Organized by the New York City Brewers Guild, the ninth annual festival celebrates the city’s thriving beer scene and starts tomorrow (with a simultaneous SMaSH event) and runs through March 4. It includes more than 400 events throughout the five boroughs; here are five we’re particularly geeked for:
NYC Fermentation Festival
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ1l3uyhIbu/
Saturday, February 25
11:00 a.m.—3:30 p.m.
Brooklyn Expo Center
72 Noble St., Brooklyn
$20
This first-ever fermentation fete includes an expo with over 30 vendors (Mama O’s Premium Kimchi, Crown Finish Caves, Barry’s Tempeh); seminars like “Vinegar Vanguards”; local beer, wine and spirits sold by the glass; kid-friendly exhibits; and a homebrew competition of beers made with surplus bread. The best part: All proceeds from the festival benefit the New York City Brewers Guild and Just Food.
Beer + Yoga, Triple Can Release
https://www.instagram.com/p/BO8XloGAewG/
Saturday, February 25
Hour-long sessions at 11:00 a.m. and noon
Finback Brewery
7801 77th Ave, Ridgewood
$20, PAYG
Beer Fit Club’s traveling yoga class flows to Finback Brewery in Glendale, Queens, for an hour-long session incorporating traditional yoga poses while balancing and drinking a pint of the host’s beer, which is included with the ticket.
After the namaste, stay for Finback’s namas-IPA: a non-ticketed release of three new IPAs in cans including Stop Collaborate & Listen (a double IPA made with Northport’s Sand City Brewing, whose canned hop-heavy offerings have become the most coveted on Long Island); Hip Hop Airhorn (an elderflower-tickled IPA made with Søle Artisan Ales, a Pennsylvania-based gypsy brewery); and Oscillation 8 (the latest installment in Finback’s rotating-hop series of IPAs). Faster Than Light, an imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels, will also be released in bottles.
Opening Bash Invitational
Saturday, February 25
6:30–9:30 p.m. (VIP at 5:30 p.m.)
Brooklyn Expo Center
72 Noble St., Brooklyn
$12–$70
Last year, Beer Week’s official kickoff party was aboard the Nautical Empress for a brews cruise around New York Harbor. The setting for 2017’s edition is stationary, and the city’s breweries have invited their favorite comrades from around the world—like Sweden’s Nya Carnegie—to pour their beers alongside them.Given the festival’s name and new format, I’ve also invited someone: the Bash Brothers. Expect a stirring Flying V with a cacophony of quacking to commence the unlimited sampling of 50-plus brewers.
Jimmy’s Homebrew Jamboree
Sunday, February 26
Noon—3:00 p.m.
Jimmy’s No. 43
43 E. 7th St., NYC
$35
For nearly a decade, Joshua M. Bernstein has led tours inside the homes of New York City’s amateur brewers, some of whom are now professionals with their own breweries in the metropolis (Transmitter, SingleCut Beersmiths). But for this event, in its fifth year, the setting is Jimmy’s No. 43 in the East Village. Bernstein, a beer writer who lives in Crown Heights, and who is the author of Complete IPA: The Guide to Your Favorite Craft Beer, assembles 16 of the city’s best homebrewers and their small-batch works for a tasting at the inimitable subterranean bar, which provides grub.
Tap Takeover with Suarez Family Brewery, Threes Brewing and Hudson Valley Brewery
https://www.instagram.com/p/BMcp5nDhc17/
Sunday, February 26
Noon
Beer Street
413 Graham Ave., Brooklyn
PAYG
It’s set to be a Delightmare at Beer Street when these acclaimed New York breweries gather to showcase their inspired creations from the bar’s ten taps. Suarez Family, recently named the 10th Best New Brewery in the World by RateBeer, and its oak-aged country beers of mixed fermentation—like Call to Mind, brewed with locally grown chamomile, lemon balm and lemon thyme—are the focus. The lineup also includes Hudson Valley‘s Animal Balloon, a Simcoe-hopped sour ale conditioned on passion fruit, lemon balm and vanilla.
