FiPS Preview: Threes Brewing

Photo via Threes Brewing's Instagram

Brooklyn can never have enough breweries. There’s Sixpoint down in Red Hook, Other Half over in Carroll Gardens & KelSo in Clinton Hill. There’s even some "Brooklyn Brewery" up in Williamsburg. In the near future, Parkwanus is getting a brewery of its own. I told you Parkwanus was BLOWING UP!

I don't know if you know this but THREE is the magic number. Oh yes it is. No more. No less. THAT'S the magic number. Just think of all the cool things associated with the number three…stooges, strikes, wishes. Parkwanus will soon be home to a three-themed brewery--Threes Brewing--which is opening up a huge ass fifteen-barrel brewery & event space at 333 Douglass St. I got a brief tour of & a feel for the place last night.

Threes Brewing's the vision of three dudes--Andrew (a playwright/lawyer), Josh (a former tech dude) & Justin (Ditmas Park’s Sycamore Bar/Flower Shop). They've brought in some dude named Greg (formerly of Greenport Harbor Brewing) to be their brewmaster. From inception, opening the brewery has been about a four year journey for the trio. After a lengthy process securing the location, they've turned an eight-month build into a pretty impressive 5,000-square-foot space with room for 300-or-so people.

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Berg'n: The Great Takeover?

Full Disclosure: I've yet to see Guardians of the Galaxy. I couldn't care less. I know. Amazing Marvel adaptation. Bradley Cooper plays a Raccoon. Vin Diesel revisits the role he's become famous for...a talking tree. I get it. The Guardians are a ragtag group guardianing our galaxy or some shit. There's an orb. Somebody wants to take over. There's always somebody who wants to take over.

Google wants to take over the internet. Transplants want to take over Park Slope. ISIS wants to take over pretty much everywhere. In the Brooklyn culinary sphere, the boom of hipsters & depression over the past decade has led to beer halls taking over the Brooklyn landscape. It's no ebola-sized infection, but in terms of square footage that I'm not willing to research & calculate, it's still notable.

I think back to 2008. Lil Wayne's The Carter III was about to sell a million copies in week one. WEEZY TAKING OVER. In this climate, Jonathan Butler & Eric Demby decided to start some thang in Ft Greene called the Brooklyn Flea. They added food. Locals flocked. Hipsters flocked. Six years later, they've become the guys behind a flea empire that expanded to Williamsburg & DUMBO, added "Smorgasbrewery" events at Brooklyn Brewery, expanded to D.C., failed in Philly & took over the Park Slope market at PS 321. Now, a half year after the initial anticipated March opening date, they've joined forces with the beer hall movement to open Berg'n, a Crown Heights beer hall on fuck you guess which street.

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[What You Should Order At...] Pickle Shack

WHAT YOU SHOULD ORDER AT...is a recurring column designed in kind for your opinionated asses and our lazy asses. When the mood strikes, we pick one Park Slope resto and recommend our favorite dish. Are we right? Are we wrong? YOU KNOW YOU WANNA WEIGH IN.

OH, MAN. When your best friend asks you if you'd like to "go to Pickle Shack," are you concerned that you're about to cross some sort of sexual boundary? Do you instantly cover your most delicate orifice?

You should be slightly worried, because it sounds like your friend is a bit of an opportunistic perv. What you shouldn’t be worried about, despite the fact that your "totally supportive" friend is "totally scheming" on ways to "bed you," is what you should get to eat at Pickle Shack, because that's where you're ending up tonight.

The scenario: You and your "friend" go to Pickle Shack. You've had a long day at work. Gothamist and its intelligent commenters didn't seem to care for your story about the hot, new, organic TOTALLY BROOKLYN restaurant that's replacing that SO IMPORTANT Brooklyn institution whose TOTALLY SAD death you're trying to derive page clicks from. Also, in his Monday post, John Del Signore made a clever comment that slyly mocked your winter boots but also took a shot at de Blasio. Is it clever? Is it mean? CONFLICT. The answer is booze.

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You Can Pick Your Bar But You Can't Pick Your Nose

Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. Cheers & shit, y'know? For years, being poor or antisocial or "fiscally responsible" meant that I didn't go out enough to establish a regular Brooklyn haunt. Then, a few years back, I threw fiscal responsibility out the window and found myself going out a lot more, allowing me to start becoming a regular at places. I'm fickle though, so when it comes to my watering holes, I go through phases.

It all started with Sea Witch, the South Slope bar that opened almost two years ago and quickly became a favorite of mine. Each time I visited, there was still the same mix of awesome music & food & always at least one new beer on tap. The giant fish tank behind the bar gave me the opportunity to ponder life, as I scanned the tank to see which fish had died since my last visit.

More recently, I became more Union St-centric and, as a result, found myself hanging out a lot at the end of the bar at the 5th Ave Zito's, sipping on Sixpoint & paying attention to some NBA game I had no stake in whatsoever.

Over the past few months, I moved down the street a bit and started spending a lot of time sampling the craft beer selection at High Dive. When picking a place to call my own, I'm always going to gravitate toward places with a good beer selection.

Sometimes I have blind spots though and, until this past Tuesday, had never stepped foot inside The Owl Farm, the relatively-new 9th St bar that opened up back in June of 2012, replacing er...beloved (?) neighborhood mainstay Harry Boland's Pub.

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(LITERAL) Cool or Not Cool?...Serving Good Beer in Frosty Mugs

Image via classicmedia.tv

So wait...did I ever mention that I like the craft beer?

Tis true. In my dozen years in Brooklyn, I've had myself delicious craft beers in pretty much every bar in Park Slope, forgoing the beloved Buds & Yuenglings & Heinekens of the masses. Down with the proletariat! Give me something hoppy. Give me something flavorful. Give me something that’s been brewed in the tradition of the Mayans.

"Great taste, less filling" be damned.

It wasn't always this way, but it got better over time. After a teenage existence where I didn't have a single drink until post-graduation, in college I cut my teeth on bottles of Red Dog & Sam Adams (which, c'mon Sam Adams...other than your specialty beers, you kinda suck). I carried around six-packs of Newcastle in my hippie backpack at frat parties. When I went home for the holidays, my dad always had a few frosty mugs waiting in the freezer so I could pour myself a glass of Nutfield or whatever NH craft beer was available at the moment.

Eventually, after around my 5,000th craft beer, it dawned on me...FROSTY MUGS KILL THE FLAVOR OF A GOOD BEER.

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