Want to take a free hands-on brewery tour and learn the nitty-gitty behind how that cold draft makes it to your hand? Sixpoint Craft Ales Brewery in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn takes you beyond the formal script behind glass and gets you in on the ground floor. You won’t get a laundry list of facts and figures but instead, a good sense of the passion behind running this artisanal brewery.
Sample some ingredients like the sweet malt which tastes somewhat like cereal and learn about their fast-acting 007 yeast that quickly ferments the sugars in the malt, yielding potent brews without the need for filtering. Best of all, you’ll get to taste the results like their citrusy Yakima, their highly caffeinated Gorilla Warfare Coffee Porter made by steeping fruity Ethiopian beans from Park Slope’s Gorilla coffee roasters, and a mellow Brownstone ale made from 11 different malts. Most commercial beers use just a few. Always experimenting, these down-to-earth brewers who always lead the tours, make it no surprise that they’re concocting a chocolate beer brewed with pieces straight from Mast Brothers, a local chocolatier.
And just in case they aren’t offering their informal onsite tours when you’re in the neighborhood, take their comprehensive virtual tour online.
photo courtesy of Steve Mirsky