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Beverages April 30, 2018

For LI brewers, Craft Beer Week is a show of strength

By JIM McCUNE // With a jumpstart on this year’s American Craft Beer Week, the seventh-annual Long Island Craft Beer Week returns with a Nassau County Cask Kickoff May 11. The event’s mission is to promote patronage at Long Island’s breweries, bars and restaurants and to raise awareness of local craft-beer culture, while doing some good through the Craft Cares food drive. But for those who are new to the scene, Long Island Craft Beer…

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Beverages March 27, 2017

At Garvies Point Brewery, a new can-do attitude

By JIM MCCUNE // Garvies Point Craft Brewery was so excited about its first-ever can release, the Glen Cove-based company decided to double down on the event by premiering both its award-winning Gold Coast Double IPA and the first of a new sour series called Sour Batch Citra. The Double IPA runs 8 percent ABV; the Citra, a wheat ale, tops out at 5.1 percent with a pH of 3.5. Garvies Point is the latest…

Beverages March 8, 2017

In craft brewing, tapping the power of women

By JIM MCCUNE // Though it’s a bit of a boy’s club today, craft brewing was historically a women-run enterprise, first a domestic chore dating back almost four millennia, then a craft, a cottage industry and, eventually, big business. (For some, it was even more: The Sumerians had a beer goddess named Ninkasi.) Brewing didn’t become male-dominated in Europe until the Renaissance, and it changed genders even later in America, where women remained active home…

Beverages September 13, 2016

Cuomo raises a glass to craft-beverage industries

Good news for Long Island Wine Country and the Island’s other burgeoning craft-beverage industries: Albany is updating “archaic” laws to allow vineyards and microbreweries to sell any New York-made “farm alcoholic beverage” by the glass. Recognizing that variety is the spice of the craft-beverage life, Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday signed two measures modernizing the state’s 80-year-old Alcoholic Beverage Control Law. Together, the bills allow farm wineries, microbreweries and “cideries” to sell any Empire State-produced…

Beverages June 10, 2016

Kyle Chandler still feels the buzz

By JIM McCUNE June 10 is just another Friday for most of us. For Kyle Chandler, founder and brewmaster of Long Island’s Subtle Tea Company, it’s a major holiday: National Iced Tea Day. Not that he’s celebrating alone. Tea is second only to water as the most consumed drink on earth. In the United States, what’s known as ready-to-drink iced tea makes up 85 percent of total consumption, with sales spiking during the summer months….

Beverages May 13, 2016

Craft Beer Week kicks off with, um, lots of beer

By JIM MCCUNE // Long Island Craft Beer Week gets a head start on the national celebration today, with special brews, charity events, brews, food, brews and music. The Colorado-based Brewers Association launched the national event more than 10 years ago, offering beer fans the chance to celebrate the culture and fast-growing community of craft brewers. And with more than 4,269 US breweries in operation – 41 of them right here on Long Island – there’s…

Beverages April 17, 2016

Moustache Brewing does a little aging of its own

By JIM MCCUNE // Enjoy them now, because they grow up so quickly. We’re talking, in this case, about Riverhead’s award-winning microbrewery, Moustache Brewing Co., which turns 2 on April 30. If you’re not familiar with the Moustache story, it started back in 2012 when Lauri and Matt Spitz decided to give up their day jobs, launch a KickStarter campaign and pray they’d reach their goal of $30,000. More than 500 pledges and $31,413 later, the…