Grimm Artisanal Ales had their ‘grand opening’ Saturday June 30. My friend Em, who doesn’t really drink beer was coming to the city. When I said I want to go to Grimm she said she would come with me. So after she got here we headed to Brooklyn. I have had Grimm before and since I know what she likes, I was sure she would find something to drink she would like. On that Saturday they were pouring 3 sour beers, an American pale ale, a double IPA and a saison de Copage.
It was mad crazy packed. There was a line to buy cans and bottles that went down the side to the back, across the back, down to the front and out the door. People were lined up 3 deep at the bar and they weren’t accepting cash, only cards which Em didn’t like, she prefers to use cash. I told Em she would probably like a sour, since she likes beer with grapefruit and orange in it. She ordered the “Super You” a Sour Gose with Pineapple. As expected she liked it, mainly because it tasted like “A fruity cocktail, not beer”. I had “Air & Light” a dry hopped sour with cherries. I didn’t take any pictures that day partly because Em was with me and also because is was so packed! I bought the growler on my second trip on July 9th.
On that trip I had “Icing on the Cake” and “Double Negative” both stouts. I got the growler filled with “Zero Anniversary”.
Grimm Artisanal Ales is a Brooklyn-based brewery founded in 2013 by Joe and Lauren Grimm after nearly a decade of tinkering with fermentation. Grimm specializes in concise, elegant ales epitomizing the creative, experimental spirit of the American artisanal beer revolution. With each limited edition release, we seek to push the boundaries of style and flavor in order to create beers with the utmost depth and complexity.
When I started researching breweries for my 2017 Brewery Tour I discovered breweries that claim to be NYC breweries that don’t actually brew in the city. These are contract breweries. Most of them actually bring all their ingredients, except water, to another brewery and use their equipment. As part of my ‘brewery tour’, I was going to track down as many of these brewery’s beers as I could. Some are easy, you can find them at places like Whole Foods and the Pony Bar, Six Point, KelSo, Evil Twin, and the above mentioned Grimm. Some are not so easy. One of the not so easy ones is Harlem Blue. I have to be honest and say I wasn’t exactly searching very hard, after all there is so much beer to drink! But I was keeping my eyes open for any mention of them. The Museum of the City of New York had an event, I thought Harlem Blue was going to be there, thought that was what I read but instead the alcohol was Prosecco, not to be deterred I kept the museum on my watch list. Then it happened. I don’t remember if it was e-mail or Facebook but they started a series of events, the one that interested me was, “Unexpected Pairings: Beer & Chocolate” featuring Harlem Blue and Harlem Chocolate Factory, on July 19, 2018. You know which one I was interested in! Julian Riley founded Harlem Blue in 2014, he described himself as a ‘recovering attorney’, specializing in contracts, he stated he wanted to “represent crafting from a Harlem point of view”. Currently brewing in Harrisburg, PA, but stated plans are in the works to open a brewery in NYC. When I asked him, he couldn’t give me a firm date. You can be sure I will set a Google alert for this! There were two beers to sample, “1658 Ale” Pale Wheat Ale, the name comes from the fact the 1658 is when Harlem was founded. I didn’t try it (allergies) but it is ‘approachable’, I can’t explain that, for all the beer I drink I am woefully uneducated about what the terms mean. The other beer was “Hectic IPA” also drinkable. The chocolate was good too.
Another brewery I had my eye on was a brewery named “Radiant Pig, according to Google it was located in Manhattan, but the address looking like a apartment. In a rather weird coincidence, if you believe in them, I stumbled upon some Radiant Pig beer on July 22, 2018. I went to a different grocery store to get my lunch. Most of the grocery stores in Queens have awesome beer selections. I stopped to look at what they had, like I always do and saw “Save the Robots” by Radiant Pig, an American Pale Ale, so I bought a six-pack. Now I can add Radiant Pig to my brewery tour list.
I thought I had found a tap room for KelSo Beer. Turns out it is a bar that features them. They have a nice sign though. I had the “Mosaic India Pale Ale”, “Stone Barns Lemon Verbena Pilsner”, and a pilsner that was just just called “Pilsner”. They also have a ‘small but very good kitchen’, which was not over-hyped, food was delicious!
On the other end of main street from the train station is 
It’s always nice to see a clearly marked sign for the facilities. If I was to give a name to the decor it would be “Micro Brewery Classic”, the tanks are visible and the wooden kegs are stacked nicely. There is one size glass, if you order a small pour they fill the glass half-way. I like that, very conservation minded. A rather small crowd of what appeared to be locals. I had the “Feel No Way” (Pilsner with Sterling and Hallertau Blanc) and “Magnolia” (Sour). Since I haven’t learned all the buzz words for judging beer I will just say, FNW got 3.75 stars on Untappd and Magnolia got 4 stars. This is not surprising as I have always preferred sours over pilsners. Since I had to walk to the train station I didn’t stay long. The brewery seems to have a nice group of regular patrons and while the building is large, the tap room area is not. Most of the space inside is taken up with tanks and brewing apparatus and the taproom is rather spartan, but not unpleasantly so.
It’s Pride month, who knew? Not this girl – embarrassed laugh – and I certainly should! A big clue was Big aLICe released their Bière de Fierté, a Lemongrass, Ginger, Belgium, Tripel (get it? LGBT). It was released 31 May 2018. Then I learned June was Pride month. “Oh that makes perfect sense.” Says I before I hide my face in shame.
Of course I got a flight, their flights are 5 glasses, each 5 ounces. My choices are written on the back of the coaster as you can see. 1. Zombie Eater – a stout; 2. Thousand Year Porter – a porter (duh); 3. Red Ryerson Double IPA; 4. Lock It In – New England style IPA; 5. B-Girl – golden pale ale w/ Vienna malt. They were all amazing. I told the bartender that, including the sentence: “Normally I get a flight and there is usually one or two that are ‘meh’, not this time. They were all pretty good.”
P got Revolution Red, an Irish Red Ale, the beer that “made me decide to give beer another chance”. I got a taste of Wild Ale, a sour ale. When the bartender asked me if I liked it, my answer was Yes, but I don’t think I’ll get it, it’s too sour for a full pint and here is where my mind got blown. She told me she could dilute it. As in mix it with another beer. I looked at P, he grinned at me and said, yeah, they are very accommodating here. So, I got the Wild Ale mixed with Confusion, a Saison, a style I don’t normally drink, but mixed with the sour it was just about perfect. She mixed it half and half, then said she could top it off either way if I preferred. I drank it just the way it was. I have had beer cocktails, but never have had two styles of beer mixed together. I think I might do some more experimenting on my own. They serve food, but since I had already eaten I didn’t look at the menu and free popcorn, which she never brought but in her defense it was rather jammed. It was Friday night and it is right next to the train station.
There were sharpie markers on the bar, and after seeing some others signing the bar, I decided to do a little self-promotion. Hey, advertising is good right?
We got to Lithology just as they were opening and were greeted by an adorable little pupper. Said pupper (I have forgot the name and whether pup was girl or boy), was wearing a very colorful handmade sweater that looked more like a poncho. I ordered a flight, it is pictured to the left and is the only picture I took.
Is small and crowded, and I had to take a freaking bus to get here! That being said, the bus ride was not traumatizing, kind of like best of Bolt Bus and the best of MTA. Not expensive, $9 round trip on Saturday. Not a far walk from the bus stop, of course for a Manhattanite anything less than five miles is ‘not a far walk’. No food – we already had this convo about NJ and food at breweries (hope the taco truck is still there when I get home).
As is my custom, I ordered a flight. At this brewery you pick what beer you want in your flight. As I was trying to decide which beers I wanted, I realized that I really didn’t care, since I had never been here before, this was just the next stop on Bella’s Fabulous Brewery Tour, and I was just here to soak up the experience of a new brewery and try their beer, so I said. “You know what? Let’s just make it easy on everybody and give me the four beers on the left side.” And that is what they did, and I was happy. Here as is the case at other breweries in NJ, the name of the beer is written on the tray the glasses are placed in. You can see this in the slide show below.
Then as I was sitting at the bar, trying to figure out when I needed to catch the bus to go home. I saw the sunset outside the window and decided I HAD to get a picture of it. Sadly, the picture I took does not look anywhere as pretty as the real thing. The end of my day was, frustration and drama queen! Cause the bus was late, and then – YAY – taco truck is still there when I got home.
On the way there I passed Keg & Lantern, which was on my list for last years Brew Tour and I never made it. If I had known how close it was to the G train I would have come sooner.
city girl drinking craft beer 