I remember walking into a Brooklyn bar in 2010 and ordering a local beer. The bartender squinted at me, then pointed to a single tap handle tucked between the macro lagers. It was a Brooklyn Brewery Pennant Ale, and it felt like a secret handshake. Fast forward to last Saturday, and I’m standing in a Greenpoint taproom with 24 lines, half of them pouring hazy IPAs from breweries that didn’t exist five years ago. The shift isn’t just about numbers—it’s about ambition, identity, and a city that decided to take beer as seriously as it takes pizza.
Since 2010, Brooklyn’s brewing landscape has exploded, contracted, matured, and occasionally stumbled over its own hype. I’ve been drinking through all of it, notebook in hand, palate (sometimes) regretting the tenth sample. This isn’t a nostalgia trip—it’s a look at what actually changed, who drove it, and where the cracks are starting to show.
The 2010 Baseline: A Handful of Pioneers
Back then, Brooklyn’s craft beer identity rested on a few broad shoulders. Brooklyn Brewery, founded in 1988, was the old guard, but it still felt scrappy. Sixpoint, launched in 2004, was the cult favorite—those bright silver cans of Sweet Action and Bengali Tiger were badges of cool. Kelso of Brooklyn, tucked in Clinton Hill, was the underdog making a killer nut brown ale. And that was pretty much the roster of production breweries with any name recognition.
Homebrewing clubs like the Brooklyn Brewsers were active, but the jump from carboy to commercial lease was a chasm. Real estate was already tightening, and the city’s regulatory maze made opening a taproom feel like a quixotic quest. Most “local” beer was actually contract-brewed upstate or on Long Island. The idea of a neighborhood brewery where you could watch the mash tun bubble while eating empanadas? That was a Portland fantasy, not a Brooklyn reality.
The Taproom Revolution (2012–2016)
Then the dam broke. In 2012, Other Half Brewing opened in Carroll Gardens, and nothing was the same. Sam Richardson and Matt Monahan didn’t just brew beer; they brewed events. The Saturday can releases, the lines around the block, the Instagram geotags that turned a warehouse corner into a pilgrimage site—Other Half made beer feel like streetwear. Their hazy, lupulin-drenched IPAs (looking at you, All Citra Everything) rewired local palates. Suddenly, clarity was boring. Bitterness needed a juicy counterpunch. And every new brewery had to have a taproom, not just a loading dock.
Threes Brewing followed in 2014, taking over a former auto-body shop in Gowanus. Their approach was different: a sprawling, wood-accented space that felt like a beer hall crossed with a coffee shop. They programmed live music, hosted pop-up kitchens, and made a lager—Vliet—that reminded people subtlety still mattered. Grimm Artisanal Ales, a gypsy brand since 2013, finally opened their own East Williamsburg spot in 2018, bringing a painterly aesthetic to both their labels and their fermentation tanks. By 2016, you could spend a Saturday walking from Folksbier in Carroll Gardens to Strong Rope in Gowanus to Five Boroughs in Sunset Park, and your biggest problem would be choosing between a foeder-aged saison and a triple dry-hopped DIPA.
This era was defined by hyper-localism. Breweries weren’t just making beer for Brooklyn; they were making beer for their specific zip code. Taprooms became third spaces—remote offices by day, date-night spots by evening. The state’s 2014 farm brewery license reform helped, but Brooklyn’s scene grew mostly through sheer demand and a generation of brewers who’d cut their teeth at places like Dogfish Head or The Bruery and came home with something to prove.
The IPA Arms Race and Its Discontents
Let’s talk about haze. By 2017, it was hard to find a Brooklyn brewery that didn’t have at least one murky IPA on tap. Other Half’s influence was undeniable, but it also created a monoculture. I’ve judged enough homebrew competitions to know that when everyone chases the same style, technical flaws get masked by hop sludge. Some breweries nailed it—Finback’s Oscillation series, Interboro’s Premiere—while others seemed to be throwing oat milk and Citra at a mediocre base beer and praying.
The backlash was quiet but real. At bars like The Owl Farm or BierWax, you’d hear bartenders gently steer customers toward a pilsner or a mild. “You know we have other styles, right?” became a refrain. Wild East Brewing, opening in 2019, made a point of specializing in mixed-culture and barrel-aged beers, almost as a manifesto. They weren’t anti-IPA, but they were pro-diversity. And that tension—between the market’s thirst for haze and brewers’ desire to explore—still defines the scene.
Real Estate, Rent, and the Survival Filter
You can’t talk about Brooklyn beer without talking about square footage. The same forces that priced out artists and bodegas came for breweries. Kelso closed its Clinton Hill taproom in 2017, though the brand still contract-brews. Greenpoint Beer & Ale Co. shuttered in 2022 after a rent hike. Folksbier, a darling of the Carroll Gardens scene, quietly ceased operations in 2023. Every closure felt like a small death, but it also revealed a harsh truth: brewing in Brooklyn is a real estate gamble first and a creative pursuit second.
The survivors adapted. Some, like Other Half, expanded into larger production facilities (their Domino Park location and upstate farm brewery) while keeping a flagship taproom as a marketing engine. Others, like Talea Beer Co., which opened in 2021, designed their spaces as Instagram-friendly “beer boutiques” with co-working vibes, explicitly targeting a demographic that might otherwise default to wine bars. Talea’s Williamsburg and Cobble Hill locations are beautiful, but they also represent a shift: breweries as lifestyle brands, not just manufacturing plants.
This isn’t inherently bad, but it changes the calculus. When a brewery’s rent is $30,000 a month, the pressure to sell $8 pints of a 10% ABV pastry stout is immense. The humble, $5 cream ale that a neighborhood old-timer might nurse for two hours? It becomes an economic liability. I worry that we’re losing the “third space” ethos to a “premium experience” model, where the beer is secondary to the aesthetic.
The Lager Revival and a Return to Roots
Thankfully, the pendulum is swinging. Around 2020, I started noticing more breweries dedicating tank space to lagers—not as an afterthought, but as a flagship. Threes’ Vliet had been doing it for years, but now Wild East was pouring a Czech-style pilsner that could hold its own against anything from Plzeň. Strong Rope’s Kellerbier became a local obsession. Even Other Half, the haze king, launched a lager program called “Pastrytown” (the name’s a joke, the beer is dead serious).
This isn’t just nostalgia for pre-Prohibition Brooklyn, when the borough had over 45 breweries churning out traditional German styles. It’s a practical response to palate fatigue and a maturing consumer base. The 25-year-old who camped out for Other Half cans in 2015 is now 35, with a job and a kid, and they want something they can drink two of without needing a nap. Brewers are also realizing that a well-made lager is a flex—there’s nowhere to hide flaws. It’s a statement of technical confidence.
At a recent visit to Keg & Lantern in Greenpoint, I watched the bartender pour a flawless helles for a guy who’d just finished a hazy IPA. “Man, that’s clean,” he said, genuinely surprised. That moment, repeated across the borough, is a sign of health. The scene is growing up.
Diversity and Inclusion: Progress and Blind Spots
In 2010, the face of Brooklyn brewing was overwhelmingly white and male. That’s changed, but not fast enough. Talea, co-founded by LeAnn Darland and Tara Hankinson, is one of the few women-led breweries in the city. Their success is encouraging, but it also highlights how rare that leadership model remains. The Pink Boots Society has a strong NYC chapter, and collaboration brews for International Women’s Day are now common, but ownership and head-brewer roles still skew heavily.
Racial diversity is an even steeper hill. While Brooklyn’s population is roughly 30% Black and 20% Hispanic/Latino, those numbers aren’t reflected behind the bar or the brewhouse. Organizations like Beer Kulture and the Michael James Jackson Foundation are funding scholarships and internships, and some breweries are actively partnering with community groups. But I’ve been in too many taprooms where I’m the only person of color who isn’t working the door. The scene’s enthusiasm for inclusion often outpaces its execution.
This matters because beer is a social connector. If the spaces where we gather don’t reflect the neighborhood, something is broken. I’m not calling for quotas; I’m calling for intentionality. Hire from the community. Mentor homebrewers who don’t look like you. Make the taproom a place where a Black family from Bed-Stuy feels as welcome as a white couple from Park Slope. Some places get this right—BierWax in Prospect Heights, owned by Chris Maestro, spins vinyl and pours a curated list that draws a genuinely mixed crowd. But it’s a bar, not a brewery. The production side needs to catch up.
The Distribution Puzzle and the Shelfie Struggle
Making great beer is one thing; getting it into people’s hands is another. In 2010, self-distribution was the only option for small breweries, which meant owners spent as much time in vans as in the brewhouse. The rise of craft-focused distributors like Sarene helped, but shelf space in NYC bodegas and grocery stores is a knife fight. Sixpoint’s early success with cans gave them a retail foothold, but for every Sixpoint, there are a dozen breweries whose beer never leaves the taproom.
The pandemic accelerated a shift toward direct-to-consumer sales. Breweries that had already built strong online stores and delivery networks—Other Half, Finback—thrived. Those reliant on draft accounts suffered. The lesson stuck: a taproom is a margin-saver, but a canning line and a mailing list are survival tools. Now, even small spots like Evil Twin NYC (a Ridgewood brewery that opened in 2019 with a dizzying array of fruited sours and stouts) prioritize to-go sales. The “shelfie” culture—posting photos of your latest beer haul—has turned retail presence into social currency.
But there’s a downside. When every brewery is chasing the same limited-release model, quality control can slip. I’ve cracked cans that were clearly rushed to market, under-carbonated or diacetyl-laden. The pressure to keep the hype cycle spinning sometimes outpaces the beer’s readiness. Consumers are getting savvier, though, and a bad batch can torch a reputation faster than a good one builds it.
What We’ve Gained, What We’ve Lost
Since 2010, Brooklyn has gained a world-class brewing reputation. Other Half’s pastry stouts and triple IPAs trade on secondary markets like rare bourbon. Threes and Wild East have earned national distribution. The borough is a destination for beer tourists who once only thought of Vermont or California. We’ve also gained variety: you can now drink a spontaneously fermented beer, a West Coast IPA, a Franconian-style kellerbier, and a smoothie sour all within a single afternoon, all made within five miles of each other.
What we’ve lost is a bit of that scrappy, underdog charm. The 2010 scene felt like a secret; the 2024 scene feels like an industry. That’s not a complaint—industries pay living wages and offer health insurance—but it does change the vibe. The homebrewer-turned-pro narrative is rarer now; new breweries are often launched by industry veterans with investor backing. The stakes are higher, the branding is slicker, and the beer is objectively better on average. But I miss the days when a brewery’s “marketing plan” was just the owner buying a round for the bar.
I also worry about homogenization. As breweries professionalize, they tend to converge on what sells. The wild experimentation of the mid-2010s—when you could find a beet saison or a lapsang souchong porter—has given way to a more calculated portfolio: two IPAs, a lager, a fruited sour, a stout. It’s smart business, but it makes for less adventurous drinking. The outliers, like Evil Twin’s Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø, who still releases a new beer seemingly every week, are keeping the weird flag flying. But they’re increasingly the exception.
Looking Ahead: The Next Decade
So where does Brooklyn beer go from here? I see three trends shaping the next chapter. First, neighborhood nano-breweries will fill the gaps left by closures. Places like Endless Life Brewing in Crown Heights, a tiny spot focused on community and conversation, point to a future where scale isn’t the goal—sustainability is. Second, collaboration over competition will intensify. The NYC Brewers Guild, founded in 2017, has fostered a more cooperative culture, and shared resources like mobile canning lines and bulk grain buys help smaller players survive. Third, culinary integration will deepen. Breweries with full kitchens—like Threes’ in-house burger program or the pop-up residencies at Grimm—are becoming the norm. Beer isn’t just a drink; it’s an ingredient in a larger hospitality experience.
But the biggest variable is still the city itself. If commercial rents keep climbing, we’ll see more production move to the Bronx or Queens, with Brooklyn taprooms serving as brand outposts. That’s already happening. If the economy tightens, the $22 four-pack becomes a harder sell. And if the next generation of drinkers decides craft beer is their parents’ thing, the whole edifice wobbles. I’m betting on resilience, though. Brooklyn brewers have weathered a pandemic, a recession, and a thousand trend cycles. They’ll adapt.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the biggest change in Brooklyn brewing since 2010?
The shift from a handful of production breweries to a dense network of taproom-focused, hyper-local breweries. In 2010, you had to seek out craft beer; now, you can walk between five breweries in a single neighborhood. The rise of Other Half and the hazy IPA phenomenon also fundamentally changed what styles people expect and how breweries market themselves.
Why did so many Brooklyn breweries close in recent years?
Real estate costs are the primary culprit. Breweries require large, ground-floor spaces with specific infrastructure, and Brooklyn’s commercial rents have soared. The pandemic also crushed draft sales, and some breweries couldn’t pivot to packaged beer fast enough. Others simply faced the normal attrition of a maturing market—not every concept survives long-term.
Is the hazy IPA trend finally fading in Brooklyn?
It’s not fading, but it’s no longer the only thing that sells. Lager programs are growing, mixed-culture and barrel-aged beers have a dedicated following, and even West Coast IPAs are making a comeback. The scene is more stylistically diverse now than it was in 2017, though hazies still dominate tap lists at many breweries.
How can I explore Brooklyn’s brewing scene today?
Start with a neighborhood crawl. Gowanus has Threes, Strong Rope, and Wild East within walking distance. Williamsburg/Greenpoint offers Talea, Grimm, Keg & Lantern, and a short hop to Other Half’s Domino Park location. Check brewery social media for hours and food pop-ups, and don’t skip the lagers—they’re often the best thing on the menu.
Brooklyn beer in 2024 is louder, pricier, and more polished than it was in 2010. It’s also more skilled, more varied, and more deeply woven into the borough’s identity. I’ll raise a glass to that—preferably a kellerbier, in a taproom that still feels like a secret.