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Village Voice Brooklyn Pour Craft Beer Festival

Posted by chica on Oct 18, 2011 | Comments Off

Greetings all you beer lovers!!!

I attended the Village Voice’s Brooklyn Pour Craft Beer Festival this past Saturday, October 15th, 2011, in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and it was wonderful! Both the event and the venue were equally as wonderful and worth the trip.

First, please allow me to rave about the facility itself. It was the wonderful Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower, at One Hanson Place, built in 1927, it has 37 stories and it is the 2nd tallest building in Brooklyn. It is Art Deco in design and has a 63′ high vaulted banking hall with 40′ high window bays on the left side. Its interior walls are covered with limestone and marbled and decorated with silhouetted iron cutouts with vignettes of workers, students etc. The architect of Halsey, McCormack and Helmer, Robert Helmer, wrote at the time of the building’s opening that he wanted the building “to be regarded as a cathedral dedicated to the furtherance of thrift and prosperity.” Everywhere you look, you will find something to marvel at.

Managed by the Manhattan-based venue management firm, Skylight Group, and winner of the Bizbash award for Best New Venue of 2010. The venue is now used for charity events, weddings, staged concerts to photo and film shoots. In June 2011, the impressive room hosted a secret concert with headliner Kanye West. It is also the winter home of the treasured Brooklyn Flea.

Over 100 vendors from all over the world were present with all kinds of goodies and lots and lots of beer. Everything from locally brewed cider; to imported beer from small breweries producing fruity beers; to large, very established and well-known companies that produced rich, dark malts. There was even a brew master to teach you what to look for in a good brew. I never knew that there was so much to know about beer!

Just to name a few companies, here’s a short list of who was present:

For all of us foodies, they had a wonderful food court stationed in the basement across from the very impressive vault. They served sliders with exotic meats like wild boar and elk from BareBurger, at 170 7th Avenue, corner of 1st Street, Brooklyn, NY, www.bareburger.com, that were quite tasty.

And then I had the opportunity of meeting one of the owners of Pizza 33 at “thoity-thoid and thoid” (that’s Thirty-Third Street and Third Avenue for you non-New Yorkers) who claimed to have New York’s BEST pizza… now you know we New Yorkers have heard that a million times and we are just like, “yeah, yeah, yeah…” But I tried their Margherita and I loved it. It had a super thin flaky crust and it had real fresh flavor. It was so good that I actually found my way back to their table just to thank them. I would suggest you try it for yourselves.

And if you ever get a taste for great spreadable fruit and condiments, try any of the products from SchoolHouse Kitchen. I had the pleasure of trying their Horseradish-Dill Mustard and their Sweet Smooth Hot Mustard and LOVED THEM! They have all kinds of interesting flavors like Strawberry Black Peppercorn, Squadrilla Chutney, Bardshar Chutney, Peach Rosemary, and even vinaigrettes with flavors like Balsamic Vinaigrette Basico and Ginger Lime. Literally made me want to buy the entire line. They are definitely getting a thumbs up from me!

So if you are into beer, definitely ink the Village Voice’s Brooklyn Pour Craft Beer Festival into your calendars for next year. It will be worth the wait!

Happy Drinking!

~Chica