I remember standing in a half-empty warehouse in Gowanus in the spring of 2010, a plastic cup of something hazy and aggressively hopped in my hand, thinking: This is it. This is the future. The beer was a single-hop Citra pale ale from a then-nanobrewery that had opened three months prior. The crowd was mostly homebrewers, off-duty line cooks, and a few curious neighbors who’d wandered in because the roll-up door was open. Nobody was taking notes. Nobody was checking Untappd. We were just drinking, talking, and watching something start to bubble.
Thirteen years later, that same brewery has a canning line, a rooftop bar, and distribution in seven states. The warehouse district around it is now a designated “brewery corridor,” complete with guided walking tours and a pizza pop-up that has a longer waitlist than some Michelin-starred spots. The beer scene in Brooklyn didn’t just grow—it shape-shifted. And if you weren’t paying close attention, you might have missed how fundamentally the ground shifted under our feet.
The 2010 Baseline: Grit, Gypsum, and Guerrilla Distribution
To understand where we are, you have to remember what 2010 actually tasted like. Brooklyn had maybe six breweries of note, and most of them were tiny. Brooklyn Brewery was the old guard, already a regional powerhouse, but the newcomers—places like Sixpoint, Kelso, and Greenpoint Beer Works—were operating on a different scale entirely. They were draft-only, self-distributed, and deeply local. You couldn’t find their beer in a bodega; you had to know which bar had a keg on and when it was likely to kick.
The dominant style was IPA, but not the hazy, pillowy juice bombs that would later define the category. These were bitter, resinous, often aggressively dry West Coast–inspired IPAs, brewed with whatever hops the brewer could get their hands on. Malt character was an afterthought. Clarity was a point of pride. If you ordered a beer and it looked like a glass of orange juice, you sent it back. That was the rule.
Homebrewing was the common language. Almost every brewer I met had started in a cramped apartment kitchen, boiling wort on a stove that couldn’t quite hold a rolling boil, fermenting in a closet. The step from homebrewer to professional was short, often just a matter of scaling up a five-gallon recipe to a seven-barrel system and hoping the math held. Sometimes it didn’t. I tasted more than a few “professional” beers in 2011 that tasted exactly like homebrew—complete with diacetyl and under-attenuation. But the energy was infectious. People were trying things.
The Ingredient Awakening
Around 2013, something shifted. It wasn’t a single event, more like a collective realization that beer could taste like place. Brewers started talking about water profiles the way chefs talk about stock. They began adjusting mineral content to mimic the water of specific European cities—Burton-on-Trent for English ales, Plzeň for Czech pilsners. Suddenly, a pilsner from a brewery in Bushwick could taste authentically Czech, crisp and softly bitter, because the brewer had spent weeks researching the sulfate-to-chloride ratio of the original.
This was also when local malt started showing up. New York State has a long agricultural history, but for decades, the malting infrastructure was essentially nonexistent. By 2015, small malthouses in the Hudson Valley and Finger Lakes were producing floor-malted barley with character you simply couldn’t get from a giant commercial maltster. Brewers began listing malt varieties on their menus the way they’d once listed hop varieties. A saison made with 100% New York–grown and –malted grain became a point of pride, not just a novelty.
Hops, too, went hyper-local. I visited a farm in the Catskills in 2016 where a brewer and a farmer were experimenting with a hop variety nobody had heard of—a descendant of wild Cluster hops that had been growing on the property for a century. The resulting beer was earthy, slightly funky, and completely unlike anything coming out of the Pacific Northwest. It wasn’t for everyone, but it was unmistakably from somewhere. That mattered.
The Hazy IPA and the Palate Shift
No discussion of Brooklyn beer since 2010 can skip the hazy IPA. Love it or loathe it, the style reshaped the borough’s brewing identity. The first time I encountered a locally made hazy—this would have been 2015, maybe early 2016—I was skeptical. It looked like unfiltered apple juice. It smelled like a fruit basket. And it tasted… soft. Almost creamy. The bitterness was so low it felt like a different beverage entirely.
Within two years, it was everywhere. Breweries that had built their reputation on crisp, bitter West Coast IPAs were suddenly churning out hazy double IPAs with names like “Fluffy Thoughts” and “Juice Portal.” The shift wasn’t just stylistic; it was economic. Hazy IPAs sold. They sold to people who previously said they didn’t like beer. They sold to wine drinkers. They sold to cocktail enthusiasts. The style brought a new audience into taprooms, and that audience wanted more—more fruit, more lactose, more pastry stouts, more smoothie sours. The “pastryfication” of beer, which some old-guard drinkers still grumble about, can be traced directly to the haze craze.
I’ll be honest: I have mixed feelings. Some of these beers are extraordinary, layered and complex in ways that a traditional IPA could never be. Others taste like someone dumped a can of pineapple juice into a glass of oat milk and called it a day. The problem isn’t the style; it’s the lack of editing. When every brewery feels pressure to release a new hazy DIPA every week, quality control suffers. I’ve had more diacetyl-laden hazies in the last three years than I ever did in the preceding decade of drinking clear beer.
The Taproom Transformation
In 2010, most Brooklyn breweries didn’t have taprooms. You drank their beer at bars like Spuyten Duyvil, Bierkraft, or The Double Windsor. If a brewery did have a public-facing space, it was usually a folding table in the corner of the brewhouse, open for two hours on Saturday afternoon. You stood on concrete, drank from a plastic cup, and felt lucky to be there.
Today, the taproom is the center of gravity. Breweries are designed as destinations, with long communal tables, exposed brick, Edison bulbs, and menus that go far beyond pretzels. Some have full kitchens. Others host visiting chefs. A few have become de facto community centers, hosting book clubs, yoga classes, and parent meet-ups. The beer is still the point, but it’s no longer the only point.
This shift has changed the economics of brewing in Brooklyn. Real estate is punishingly expensive, and a taproom allows a brewery to capture retail margins rather than relying solely on wholesale distribution. It also creates a direct feedback loop: brewers can watch what people order, talk to them about it, and adjust recipes in real time. That’s a luxury the 2010 generation didn’t have. Back then, you dropped off a keg at a bar and hoped the bartender described it accurately.
The Lager Renaissance
If you’d told me in 2012 that some of the most exciting beers in Brooklyn a decade later would be lagers, I’d have laughed. But here we are. The pendulum has swung, and a growing number of brewers are devoting serious attention to pilsners, helles, Vienna lagers, and even tmavé pivo. These are not the mass-market lagers of old; they’re decoction-mashed, long-conditioned, and treated with the same reverence once reserved for barrel-aged stouts.
What’s driving this? Partly fatigue. After years of chasing the next extreme flavor, both brewers and drinkers are rediscovering the quiet pleasure of a well-made lager. There’s also a technical challenge: brewing a clean, balanced lager with no flaws to hide behind is hard. For a certain type of brewer, that’s irresistible. And for drinkers, a crisp pilsner after a day of double IPAs and imperial stouts feels like coming home.
I’ve also noticed a shift in how these lagers are presented. They’re not an afterthought, tucked at the bottom of the menu. They’re featured, often with detailed tasting notes about the malt bill, the water profile, the fermentation schedule. Some breweries are even releasing “single-origin” lagers, made entirely with grain from one farm, or hopped with a single variety grown in New York. It’s a level of intentionality that was rare in 2010, when “lager” usually meant a token amber ale fermented cold.
Diversity in the Brewhouse
One of the most significant—and overdue—changes since 2010 is the slow diversification of the people making the beer. In 2010, the Brooklyn brewing scene was overwhelmingly white and male. That’s not a criticism unique to Brooklyn; it was the reality of craft beer nationwide. But Brooklyn, with its deep multicultural roots, felt the disconnect acutely.
Over the last decade, that’s begun to change. Organizations like the Pink Boots Society and local initiatives have pushed for greater inclusion. We’re seeing more women in head brewer roles, more BIPOC-owned breweries, and more beers that draw on cultural traditions beyond the Anglo-Germanic canon. A brewery in Bed-Stuy might release a stout conditioned on coconut and scotch bonnet peppers. A brewer in Sunset Park might incorporate piloncillo or hibiscus into a farmhouse ale. These aren’t gimmicks; they’re expressions of identity. And they’re making Brooklyn beer more interesting.
But let’s not pat ourselves on the back too hard. The numbers are still lopsided. Walk into most production breweries, and the faces on the brew deck don’t reflect the borough outside the door. There’s work to do, and the industry knows it. The difference now is that there’s a conversation happening, and that conversation is leading to action—scholarship programs, mentorship pipelines, and a growing recognition that great beer can come from anyone with the skill and passion to make it.
The Distribution Dilemma
In 2010, getting your beer into a bar meant driving it there yourself. Distribution was a patchwork of handshake deals and cold-call emails. Today, the landscape is far more complex. Craft beer has consolidated. Large distributors, once indifferent to tiny local brands, now court them aggressively—or acquire the small distributors that used to handle them. This has created a strange dynamic: a brewery can go from selling kegs out of a van to being on shelves in four states within a year, but that growth often comes with a loss of control.
I’ve spoken with brewers who regret signing with major distributors. Their beer sits in warehouses too long, loses freshness, and ends up on shelves next to mass-market craft brands that have the marketing budgets to dominate. Others have navigated the transition brilliantly, using distributor resources to scale while maintaining quality. The difference often comes down to whether the brewery sees distribution as a partnership or a necessary evil.
There’s also been a counter-movement: breweries that deliberately stay small. They sell everything over their own bar, maybe a few kegs to trusted accounts, and refuse to package. In 2010, that was the default. In 2023, it’s a statement. It says: we care more about the beer in the glass than the beer on the shelf. And in a city where shelf space is a bloodsport, that’s a radical act.
The Cost of a Pint
Let’s talk about money. In 2010, a pint of craft beer in Brooklyn cost around $5 to $7. Today, it’s not unusual to pay $9 or $10, and special releases can push $14 or more. Some of that is inflation. Some of it is the rising cost of ingredients, rent, and labor. But some of it is also a shift in perception: beer is no longer just beer. It’s an experience, a luxury good, a collector’s item.
I’m torn on this. On one hand, I believe brewers deserve to be paid fairly for their work, and the margins on a $5 pint are brutal. On the other hand, when a beer costs as much as a cocktail, it invites a different set of expectations. It’s no longer an everyday pleasure; it’s a special occasion. And that changes who shows up at the bar. I miss the days when you could walk into a brewery, hand over a few crumpled dollars, and walk out with a full glass and a smile. But I also recognize that those days were built on underpaid labor and unsustainable business models.
The Neighborhood Brewery
Perhaps the most profound change since 2010 is the role of the brewery in the neighborhood. A decade ago, breweries were industrial tenants, tucked into warehouses and largely invisible to the surrounding community. Today, they’re anchors. They host block parties, sponsor little league teams, and partner with local artists. A brewery opening in a previously sleepy corner of Brooklyn can now trigger a wave of gentrification—for better and worse.
I’ve watched this happen in real time. A brewery moves into a former auto-body shop. Within two years, there’s a specialty coffee roaster next door, a boutique fitness studio upstairs, and the rent on the apartment across the street has doubled. The brewery didn’t cause all of that, but it was the first signal that the neighborhood was “changing.” It’s a heavy weight to carry, and the brewers I know are acutely aware of it. Some have responded by deepening their community ties—hiring locally, sourcing from neighborhood businesses, offering sliding-scale pricing for residents. Others have simply become part of the machine they once disrupted.
What’s Next?
If the last thirteen years have taught me anything, it’s that Brooklyn’s brewing scene doesn’t stand still. The next wave is already forming. I’m seeing more interest in low-ABV beers—not just session IPAs, but table beers, milds, and grisettes that you can drink all afternoon without falling over. There’s a growing fascination with mixed-culture fermentation, with brewers cultivating their own yeast and bacteria strains to create beers that taste like nowhere else. And there’s a quiet but determined push toward sustainability: solar-powered brewhouses, water reclamation systems, spent grain going to local farms.
I’m also watching the next generation of brewers. They’re younger, more diverse, and less interested in recreating the beers of Belgium or Germany. They want to make beers that taste like Brooklyn now—a place of immigrants, of fusion, of constant change. That might mean a rice lager made with Carolina Gold rice and locally foraged mugwort. It might mean a sour ale aged on second-use coffee cherries from a roaster down the street. It’s unpredictable, and that’s exactly what makes it exciting.
I don’t know what Brooklyn beer will taste like in 2035. But I know it won’t taste like 2010. And honestly? That’s a good thing. The scene has matured, diversified, and learned from its mistakes. It’s more professional, more inclusive, and more ambitious. It’s also, at times, more corporate and less spontaneous. But the heart is still there. You can taste it in a perfectly executed pilsner at a brewery that didn’t exist five years ago. You can feel it in the hum of a taproom on a Friday night, full of people who might not know the difference between a saison and a farmhouse ale but know they’re somewhere that matters.
Brooklyn beer in 2010 was a promise. Brooklyn beer in 2023 is a conversation. And I, for one, am still listening.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the dominant beer style in Brooklyn around 2010?
In 2010, the dominant style was the West Coast–inspired IPA—bitter, resinous, and clear. Hazy IPAs hadn’t yet arrived, and most breweries focused on hop-forward ales with a firm bitterness and clean finish. Malt-driven styles and lagers were far less common than they are today.
How have Brooklyn brewery taprooms changed since 2010?
In 2010, few breweries had dedicated taprooms; most sold beer through local bars or offered limited on-site hours with basic setups. Today, taprooms are central to the business model, often featuring full kitchens, event programming, and designed spaces that function as community gathering spots. This shift has allowed breweries to capture retail margins and build direct relationships with customers.
Why are lagers becoming more popular in Brooklyn’s craft beer scene?
After years of extreme flavors and hazy IPAs, both brewers and drinkers are rediscovering the appeal of well-made lagers. Brewers appreciate the technical challenge of producing a clean, balanced lager, while drinkers enjoy their crisp, refreshing character. The trend also reflects a broader interest in traditional methods, local ingredients, and subtlety over intensity.
Is the Brooklyn brewing scene more diverse now than in 2010?
Yes, though progress has been gradual. More women and BIPOC individuals are entering brewing and opening their own breweries, supported by mentorship programs and industry initiatives. Beers increasingly draw on a wider range of cultural traditions, but the industry acknowledges that there is still significant work to be done to achieve true representation.