The Distillation Process | A visit to Brooklyn Brewery reveals there's more work to be done

My first "factory tour" really opened my eyes. And then slurred my speech and compromised my coordination.

A visit to Brooklyn Brewery's Williamsburg, NY, facility is not what I expected. The "tour" consisted of a 10 minute canned speech from aspiring-actor and sometimes bartender Eric, in a room the size of a modest house that contained thirteen 20 foot steel tanks and an assortment of 60 some-odd Scandinavian tourists and local hipsters. Eric covered the basics: founded by Steve Hindy; iconic logo by design legend Milton Glaser (of I Heart NY fame, and Design of Dissent authorship); 1/3 of their beer is produced in Brooklyn, the other 2/3 in a larger Utica facility.... So apparently the room we were in is an actually working brewery, the tanks around us were filed with fermenting liquids and the distillation process is underway on weekdays. What quickly dawned on me, however, is that I'm not going to meet anyone who actually works the machines while on a guided tour with a $4 pint in my hand. It wasn't Eric's fault -- in fact chatting with him afterwards, he's quite knowledgeable about the process and seemed a genuinely good guy -- but a tour is not the same. It's a step in the right direction to seeing where the product comes from, but a deeper connection to a distiller, the company founder, or a visit to the massive facility in Utica are going to be necessary.

That all said: a few of the brand's labels are brewed in the Williamsburg factory. I saw no harm in trying the Winter Brew, Weiss, and special addition Blast. It wasn't until I purchased a case to bring to a dinner party when I realized, hmm, this might be challenging on a bicycle...