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Germany’s Paulaner opens 1st U.S. brew pub in New York City’s Bowery

Bh_NYC_Logo-Portrait_RGBPaulaner International  Bavaria’s biggest brewer, has opened its first U.S. microbrewery restaurant in New York City, the first, it says, of others planned for across the county. It operates 25 worldwide. It’s called Paulaner Brauhaus & Restaurant NYC.

Located in The Bowery at 265/267 Bowery, it occupies a building once known as Sammy’s Bowery Follies,  a popular cabaret in the 1940’s and 50’s. The new beer hall features house-brewed beers – including the brewery’s classic Hefeweizen, Munich Lager and Munich Dark, and such seasonal brews as Salvator, Oktoberfest and Maibock. The food is described as contemporary, artisanal Bavarian cuisine.

The 9,800-square-foot industrial-style space, designed by New York-based Morali Architects, showcases its copper and steel brewing tanks in the center, and features seating for 240, exposed brick walls, 14-foot ceilings and a design, the company says was inspired by both Paulaner’s Bavarian heritage and the Bowery area’s history.

Paulaner master brewer Andreas Heidenreich is overseeing the on-site microbrewery, which features customized brewing equipment designed by Caspary. The 8.5-barrel brew house will produce about 1,700 barrels of beer annually. The equipment includes two 10 HL cylindro-conical wheat beer tanks, one 20 HL fermentation vessel, two 20 HL flat conical storage tanks and three 20 hl cylindro-conical universal tanks. Total fermentation and storage capacity will be 140 HL. Five 10 HL dispensing tanks will connect directly to taps at the bar.

Rudy Tauscher, president and founder of Paulaner Brauhaus & Restaurant NYC, a native of Southern Germany, previously was the general manager at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and the Trump International Hotel in Manhattan.   After over 20 years in the hospitality industry, he decided to become an entrepreneur and partner with Paulaner to bring the microbrewery and restaurant to New York.

“I spent my summer vacations working in my father’s brewery so it’s in my DNA,” said Tauscher. “With Paulaner, everything came together. They wanted to launch a flagship brewery and restaurant in New York – I know the brewery business and I’ve opened two successful hotels in Manhattan as a general manager.”

Paulaner, under the umbrella of Paulaner Bräuhaus Consult GmbH, operates more than 25 microbreweries worldwide.

Paulaner may be the first foreign brewer to open a brewery in New York City, but it is not alone in operating its own beer hall.  Hofbräuhaus, another Bavarian brewer, operates Hofbräu Bierhaus NYC, an Americanized version of the Hofbräu Haus in Munich, near Grand Central Terminal at 712 3rd Ave., at E. 45th St. Also, Belgian Beer Café, franchised by Belgian brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev, is expected to open later this year at 220 Fifth Ave. at 26th Street. Another Belgian Beer Cafe is at Newark Liberty International Airport.

 

 

 

 

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Belgian Beer Café invades New York

Belgian Beer Café in Melbourne, Australia

New Yorker area denizens soon will have a trio of new places to savor Belgian beer and cuisine.

The first of these Belgian-owned restaurants, all operating under the Belgian Beer Café banner, opens soon at Newark Liberty International Airport, according to the company, though an exact date hasn’t been set. Additional units will open  early in 2013, in Manhattan and Port Chester, an executive told me .

Belgian Beer, a global chain created in 1998 by what is now Leuven, Belgian-based Anheuser-Busch InBev, operates 60 locations in a dozen countries in Europe, Australia and the Middle East. The first U.S. unit is scheduled to open next month at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, just a few weeks after the concept’s first North American unit opens in the airport at Edmonton, Alberta on Sept. 15.

The Manhattan branch, scheduled to open early in 2013 at 220 Fifth Ave., diagonally opposite Madison Square Park and close to the booming Eataly restaurant and foods complex. Port Chester will open next spring.

As many as 60 units, modeled on the classic Brussels brasserie café are planned for the U.S. within four years, according to a press release issued last year announcing the chain’s planned entry to the U.S.

Creneau International, one of Belgium’s premier interior design firms and the designer of the restaurants, owns the U.S. franchise rights to the Belgian Beer Café concept. A-B InBev owns the rights to the concept elsewhere in the world.

Belgian Beer Café logo.

To be sure, Belgian Beer Café won’t be the first Belgian-style eatery in the New York area.  In Manhattan, Belgian beers and cuisine has been offered since the 1990s by such restaurants as Petite Abielle with four locations, Markt and more recently BLX Café with two units and Brabant Belgian Brasserie. On Long Island, Waterzooi has operated in Garden City since 1998. Belgian Beer Café, however, may be the most upscale of them all with its white-jacketed wait staff.

Surprisingly, the beer offerings at the new cafés will go well beyond the A-B InBev portfolio. The beer selection at the two New York venues are expected to be similar to that of the other locations around the world — about 60 different Belgian brews, including Trappists, abbeys, ambers, fruit lambics, gueuzes, lagers, and wits. Among the brew typically carried at Belgian Beer Café are Bockor, St-Feuillien, Palm, Van Honsebrouck, Brasserie de Silly, Bosteels and Dubuisson.

Belgian beer tower at Belgian Beer Café in Australia

The Atlanta restaurant will offer five Belgian draft brews: Palm,  Stella Artois, Hoegaarden, Leffe Blonde and  Leffe Dark. Bottled beers will include Delirium Tremens, Saison Dupont, Chimay Triple, Budweiser, Corona Extra and the locally brewed Sweetwater IPA.

Beer lists will vary by location due to differences in distributors.

Meanwhile, the menus will include such Belgian specialties as mussels, Flemish beef stew, steak frites, asparagus a la Flamande and sausages with stoemp.

Creneau International is seeking franchisees to open additional U.S. units. According to the U.S. operations web site, Creneau is seeking “restaurant entrepreneurs in the upper segment of the market that have a proven history of operating one or more high-quality venues.” Potential licensed franchisees are also expected to have expertise in both beer and wine. Franchises, according to the web site, can expect to spend $2.3 million per unit, which range in size from 2,000 to 5,000 square feet.

 

 

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