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Long Island breweries, bars to celebrate Craft Beer Week May 6-17

LI Craft logo

By Alan J. Wax

Long Island: get ready for Craft Beer Week.

Long Island’s craft beer industry and its supporters in the hospitality and retail trade are readying a week-plus long celebration of the region’s breweries and beers. It runs from May 6 to May 17, which of course, is more than a week.

Breweries, bars and restaurants will be running special events to mark the celebration. So far, 21 breweries have signed on along with 20 restaurants and bars, three retailers and two wholesalers.

David Schultzer, owner of Bellport Cold Beer & Soda and the lead organizer of Long Island Craft Beer Week, says the celebration is designed to create awareness of Long Island breweries and beers and to attract mainstream beer drinkers to craft beer. “While the focus is Long Island beer and breweries, we need to get more people into craft beer.”

Nevertheless, he said, other states, such as Oregon and California, sell a far greater proportion of locally produced beers than New York.

“We don’t do a good job of letting people know we exist,” he says. Moreover, he said, with the growing number of small breweries opening in the region, brewers will be fighting for the same piece of the pie—and survival, unless they attract legions of new imbibers. “If you don’t expand that customer base, how can you survive?”

The first big event of Long Island Craft Beer week is the May 6 kickoff, Long Island Craft Beer Cares, a charity beer and food tasting at the Melville Marriott Hotel to benefit the Long Island Cares food bank; the Lustgarten Foundation, which raises funds to fight pancreatic cancer, and the New York Bully Crew, a pet-rescue organization.

A collaboration brew — Long Island Craft Cares — developed and brewed by Great South Bay Brewery, of Bay Shore; Port Jeff Brewing, 1940’s Brewing Co., of Farmingdale; Barrage Brewing Co. of East Farmingdale, Blue Point Brewing Co. of Patchogue, and BrickHouse Brewery, also of Patchogue, will debut at the charity event.

Breweries represented at the Long Island Craft Beer Care event include: Blue Point; Great South Bay; Barrage; 1940’s ; Port Jeff; BrickHouse Brewery; Brooklyn Brewery; Sixpoint Brewery, Brooklyn; Spider Bite Beer Co., Holbrook; Blind Bat Brewery, Centerport; Destination Unknown Beer Co., Bay Shore; The Brewers Collective, Farmingdale; Brewery Ommegang, Cooperstown, Bronx Brewery and Southern Tier Brewing Co., Lakewood, New York.

Beers, Burgers Desserts of Rocky Point, The Tap Room of Patchogue, Noodles & Co., of Garden City, Verde Wine Bar of Deer Park, The Trattoria, St. James will be among area eateries serving up delicious food to accompany the local craft beer at the Craft Beer Cares event. Tickets are $55 and can be purchased online at Eventbrite.

Free Long Island Craft Beer pint glasses will be available and can be ordered online and picked up on May 7 at these locations: The Tap Room, Patchogue; Savoy Tavern, Merrick; Beers Burgers Desserts, Rocky Point; Brewology, Speonk; Lil’ Left Coast, Bellmore; Bobbique, Patchogue and Eat Gastropub, Island Park.

The celebration’s other big event is Bay Fest, a beer festival featuring dozens of breweries at Great South Bay Brewery, i25 Drexel Ave., Bay Shore on May 16. Twenty-seven  breweries — at last count — and several home brew clubs will be pouring samples of their wares. There’s a general session from 1:30 to 5:30 pm with tickets $40 online and $15 for designated drivers. A VIP session, which starts at 12:45 p.m. $55 per person and $15 for designated drivers. Tickets are available at Ticketfly.

In addition to the host brewery, participating brewers include Port Jeff Brewing, BrickHouse Brewery, Blue Point Brewing, Barrage Brewing, 1940’s Brewing, Montauk Brewing Co., Oyster Bay Brewing, Barrier Brewing of Island Park, Southampton Publick House, Riverhead’s Crooked Ladder Brewing, Goose Island Beer Co. of Chicago, Two Roads Brewing of Stratford, Connecticut, Brooklyn Brewery, Ommergang, Greenport Harbor Brewing, Long Ireland Beer Co. of Riverhead, Adirondack Pub and Brewery of Lake George, Third Rail Beer Co. of Manhattan, Southern Tier, Samuel Adams, Destination Unknown, and Lithology Brewing, Farmingdale.

The big events sandwich a multitude of smaller, but no-less exciting events. You’ll find them listed at the Long Island Craft Beer week website.

Hope to see you at one them.

 

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Great American Beer Festival tickets go on sale; steps taken to curb scalpers

GABF_Logo_LRG_V_RGBBy Alan J. Wax

It’s just about that time of year, again. And you’ll have to act quickly.

Tickets for the annual Great American Beer Festival (GABF), to be held Oct. 2-4 in Denver, go on sale July 30 at Noon (EDT) via Ticketmaster.com. And event organizers are taking steps to curb scalpers who may have contributed in past years to the event’s sellout in a matter of minutes.

Members of the Brewers Association and the American Homebrewers Association may buy up to two advance tickets until July 20. Admission to the Saturday, Oct. 4 afternoon session will be AHA and BA member, but the number of tickets is limited.

Tickets are $80 per session. Designated driver tickets are $25.

The scene at 2103 GABF (Brewers Association photo)

The scene at 2103 GABF (Brewers Association photo)

Last year, general admission tickets to the nation’s biggest beer event sold out in just 20 minutes and a sellout this year is expected again. Last year’s sell out led to speculatation that scalpers were attempting to corner the market.

GABF organizers said on the event‘s web site that they are attempting to deal with scalpers.

This year, general admission ticket buyers will be limited to four tickets and organizers further stated: “Unfortunately, the secondary market for popular tickets persists, despite many efforts to thwart it …There are measures in place to decrease access for scalpers, including the ticket limits that we set for GABF ticket purchases and Ticketmaster’s anti-bot and other security measures in their selling system. (Ticketmaster reviews all purchases to enforce our GABF ticket limits.) Again, though, while this decreases access, it unfortunately does not prevent a secondary market. To ensure you have a valid ticket, purchase tickets from authorized outlets only.”

The festival at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver is expected to draw up to 49,000 attendees over four sessions who will have the opportunity to sample almost 3,000 beers from about 700 U.S. breweries.

 

 

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