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Beer Tasting & Tour Packages

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Need helping planning your next big beer adventure?
From birthday beer bashes to guided tastings and brewery tours, I have a trio of curated packages available.

Rolling tough on big wheels through the mean streets of Brooklyn. As two-year-olds do. When there’s no playground nearby, the whole world is your playground.
A @suarezfamilybrewery pale ale seems like the right reward for filing the bulk of my next book’s manuscript. Did you know I’ve been writing a book? I have! It’s called Drink Better Beer, and it’s a journalistic-driven take of our modern beer moment, full of stories and interviews and profiles and calls to action and—the best part—a return to the personality-laced writing that’s my bread and verbal butter. There will be puns. And exclamation points. And stories of drinking warm Icehouse lager for 18 days. It’ll be out in October. I hope!
During these cold days of January, my tastes often tilt toward stouts. But the sunny pop of lemon paired with pineapple in this @creaturecomfortsbeer Tritonia gose go a long way to brightening this winter day.
A big part of my Brooklyn 20s were spent going to punk and rock shows, including seeing @mattandkim so, so many times. (My friends and I were even in an early video.) So! It was amazing to see ‘em @avantgardnerbk, a big ol’ venue that @bluepointbrewing hired out to launch its new IPA. Crazy worlds in beer. And here’s why: Thirteen years ago I met @jenenec because of a Matt & Kim show, the G train, White Castle and @rebeccasmeyne. Life! It sometimes includes 59-cent steamed hamburgers.
You know, spending Friday night with the two (!) tiny (!) hands (!) I found and a sample of @firestonewalker Mind Haze IPA that, in the company’s custom, totally rules: smooth and bittered and well-structured yet dry enough to make you think that maybe, just maybe, it’d be a good idea to have another one.
Test-driving a sample of @dogfishhead Slightly Mighty, a harbinger of a 2019 driven by lower-alcohol, carb- and calorie-conscious beers. This one hits like an IPA, aromatics-wise, but checks in at 4 percent ABV and just 95 calories and 3.6 carbs per serving. These are Michelob Ultra levels, my friends, but with massive flavor. Are you compelled to buy beer based on carbs and calories?
My reward for cranking out another book chapter? An afternoon pint of @suarezfamilybrewery Ms. Frank, the brewery’s unfiltered Franconian lager—fulled-bodied but fully refreshing—over @covenhovennyc. Now onto another chapter and another beer...
While my daughter rode in a float alongside a parade of camels (long story for another time), I had a few free hours to bounce around sunny Bushwick and check out the street art and—naturally—pop by @kcbcbeer for some super-fresh pilsner and quiet times to crank out another chunk of the book.
One of my favorite spots in Brooklyn is the Waterfront Barge Museum, a 1914 barge that a professional clown and juggler (seriously!) bought in 1986 for $500, rescued from the New Jersey mud and then docked it in the seafaring Red Hook neighborhood and turned it into a museum and performance space outfitted with a couple custom-built contraptions and plenty of artifacts. The boat is one of Brooklyn best quirky treasures, a fine destination on a rainy Saturday.
What, you don’t buy @pipeworksbrewing Premium Pilsner and watch your kid run wind sprints, shouting words of encouragement, on a Friday night?
If there’s ever a month that demands a drink, it’s cold and bleak January. Safe to say I won’t be hoppong aboard the dry-month bandwagon, but after ye olde excesses of December, it’s good to play a lower-key booze game for a bit. Testing out a few nonalcoholic beers in the New Year, as brewers aim to fill a niche for a health-conscious crowd—huge trend for 2019. @athleticbrewing hits the sweet spot of no booze and high flavor in Upside Dawn, a golden ale with zingy bitterness. It’s good enough that you won’t wonder what’s missing.
I may write miles of words over the course of a year, but one of my favorite assignments is peering into my boozy crystal ball for @imbibe and forecasting the movers, shakers, trends and beer makers that will change the way we drink in the coming year. The 2019 issue just hit newsstands with all of my picks, including my write-up on @guinnessbreweryus head brewer @holliebrews — the magazine’s Beer Person of the Year, who’s helping take the venerable brand into a fresh and flavorful new direction. If you get a copy, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this year’s issue. Spoiler: I’m the writer with the initials JMB. 📸 of Hollie: @scottsuchman