Something brewing

Since Marathon Man’s dream job would be a brew chemist, we made a date out of touring the Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg. Now Williamsburg is a neighborhood in Brooklyn, but it may as well be I don’t know...Bulgaria. Seriously, the place is inhabited by Hipsters who patrol the area in skinny black jeans, vests, and suspenders.

Not wanting to drink fruitful amounts of beer on an empty stomach, we stopped in a Mom & Pop diner on Bedford Ave. I think it was called Breakfast stop or Kitchen stop, but I am not sad about not remembering the name because the food SUCKED! We both ordered a grilled cheese sandwich only to have it arrive as a slice of American cheese melted between two hamburger buns. Ummmm, it basically was a cheeseburger minus the meat right. We looked at each other warily as if to say “no….you try it first”. We should have trusted our first impression because later that evening we both had upset stomachs.

We arrived at the brewery in time for the free tour which consisted of one room and a twenty minute long explanation. I zoned out a bit during the lecture, so my memory tells me the key points were: 1) the guy who designed the I heart NY logo also designed the Brooklyn Brewery logo, 2) they have a random hops paddle that has absolutely no purpose other than act as a prop for the speaker, and 3) the giant vat of pee is really iodine…and urine. The only thing lively about the tour was the barn/brewery cat who walked around thinking (with a French accent) “uck, what are you people doing here, can’t you see this is MY place”.

Although the tour was free, the beer was not. Most other breweries let you binge for an hour or so before kicking you out, but this place needed the extra $4 a beer to remain the #34 beer distributor in America. The beer was pretty fresh though (or as MM put it, “straight from the teat”). The brewery was also the place to be in Brooklyn on a Saturday afternoon because the line was practically out the door. On our way back to Manhattan, we stopped into the retro resale clothing store Beacon’s Closet if only to take this random ski mask picture.