Photo Tour of Brooklyn Brewery
One of my beer highlights this year was tour of Brooklyn Brewery Garrett Oliver gave Simply Beer in early Dec. We met Garrett around 11 am on a cold New York morning in Williamsburg Brooklyn. After a quick warmup in the offices, he took us on a complete tour of the brewery that lasted over an hour and half. As we entered the main brewery the clanking of bottles echoed throughout the building as we watched 750ml bottles of Black Ops taking their trips trough the bottling line.
Unfortunately we do not have any pictures of the bottling line, but for a very cool reason. Most of those bottle of Brooklyn Black ops you’ll be enjoining over the next couple of months have been bottle by a group of mentally challenged adults who come in and work on the bottling line though a local out reach program that Brooklyn Brewery is part of. Out of respect to the people working the bottling line we opted not to photograph the line.
However, we did have an amazing tour of the brewery, including the brewery, fermenters, warm and cold rooms, barrel room, and an amazing tasting at the end. Check out these photographs taken by Richard Alva:
Fermentors
Primary Boil
Hops Pellets waiting for the boil
Cleaning
Steam, 50bbl Fermenters in the Background
Rice Hulls, used to aid sparge
Bottle Refermentation. Pressure gauges to determine carbonation levels.
Garrett Oliver and I checking out Dark Matter aging in Bourbon Barrels
Oak!
My Favorite Bourbon Barrel Stout! I wanted to grab a case and run... that would be bad Karma.
Interview with Garrett Oliver - Sampling Brooklyner Weisse, Wild 1, and Black Ops
Garrett Oliver tasting Black Ops
Thanks again to Rich Alva for the photography and Corey Greenberg for the video work.
Those are amazing photos, Peter. Good job! Seriously, I am quite impressed and Jealous. Garrett Oliver is in my top 5 of craft beer figures I’d like to meet. I would love to get some of those carbonation pressure gauges.
thanks Nate! Garrett Oliver was extremely personable and has a huge wealth of knowledge. It was a wonderful tour!
That looks awesome Peter. I’d love to get some Black Ops out here! I’ll ask my beer guy for some!
-Don
It must have been quite an experience tasting beers with Garrett Oliver. I’d sit there asking questions for as long as he’d let me.
Nice peek inside the brewery, Peter. I gotta get behind the scenes at Victory!
Don, do you get Brooklyn in Idaho? Time to hit up your Bro! 🙂
Jim, Hook your bortehr up with some black ops! Victory is on my list as well. 🙂
You heard the man Jim…Hook me up!
and BK is off the grid using wind power! GREEN!
Thats right Mike. It was one of the things I wanted to talk to Garrett Oliver about, but I didn’t remember until we were walking to lunch. ( a little to late). Many breweries are on the cutting edge of environmental conservation, including recycling, solar/wind power, and composting.
Peter, nice job! Keeping my eye out for some Black Ops myself. (you shoudda’ grabbed a case!) I think the brewery has been using wind power for several years now – they might even be the first company in NY to be all wind or something. That’s pretty cool.
Shudda grabbed a case, cause now it looks like nj is not getting much in the way of black ops.