How I Learned to Stop Acting Cool and Love Craft Beer

Plus: Oktoberquest kicks off this Friday on Blackbird in NYC and there's a lot of $FLY on the line...

I served Miller High Life at my wedding. Irony and aesthetics (alas, I was young and sometimes insufferable) played into the decision — who doesn’t love the label, the bottle, that irresistible slogan “the champagne of beers?” But I served it equally out of spite. Spite for craft beer, that preferred beverage of hirsute hipsters (your waxed mustache enthusiasts, your artisanal axe makers, your small batch chocolatiers) who had transformed Brooklyn into something of a 24/7 Civil War reenactment during those cringe years of the 2010s.

At the time, I loathed craft beer. The cans, the culture, the calories. That dazed and sluggish feeling of having digested what felt like a loaf of bread in liquid form. Give me something I can slam like Gatorade, I thought, thank you very much; something that nobody fawns over, discussing hop varities, ABV, and can drops that occur at the end of dirt roads in the hinterlands of Vermont. Seriously, STFU.

In other words, I never wanted to be a beer bro. I was in my early 30s by then, and although my cocktail taste and wine knowledge had both deepened and broadened, I still clung to my crappy beers—my bottles of Miller High Life, my cans of PBR—as anyone who’d come up through the early aughts fetishizing blue collar culture would. If there was one sole thing I wasn’t selling out to, it was those annoying breweries behind America’s most artisanal of ales and IPAs.

And then, at 40, as all middle aged cliches present themselves, something happened: I fell head over heels for craft beer. It was mid pandemic, December of 2020, and I’d just returned with my family to America following three somewhat depressing years spent in Switzerland, the tenor of which had been tainted by the death of my father. I was sad, exhausted, and looking to blow off some steam in a subtle way. The yellow tallboy glowed in a gas station’s cooler like the mysterious golden contents belonging to gangster Marsellus Wallace’s briefcase in the classic 90s thriller ‘Pulp Fiction.’ Sip of Sunshine, a double IPA brewed by Lawson’s, that was the first hit. Yes, it was heady and hoppy, attributes I’d previously avoided, but its funky floral notes spoke to me, and its ABV—a dizzying eight percent—got me good and fucked up. I’d aged out of spending a significant portion of my free time in bars, slugging drinks, and so any beer that could do the trick while I reposed supine from the comfort of my couch at the end of the day was a-ok by me.

My craft beer consumption didn’t stop at that, and it didn’t remain relegated to my couch. Like any “hobby” (if drinking can be categorized as such), craft beer has, within reason (and counterbalanced by consistent working out and a somewhat healthy diet), become a bit of a passion of mine. There are the beer hauls from local stores, me happening upon rare cans and then later staring with pride as I slot the colorful, carefully curated array into the fridge (all while wondering if I do, indeed, require a garage fridge, too — I do). Going to breweries to enjoy a cold one among friends, or geeking out with a brewer. Surrendering to the smooth finish of a pillowy, double IPA dosed with a hint of lactose. Rare can drops? Yes, those, too. Is my craft beer fandom cringe? Maybe. But so is aging.

In short, I finally got it — craft beer is a quest, a treasure hunt, and a community, all rolled into one, and along the way I’ve discovered other beer brands, too: Frost, Hudson Valley, Hill Farmstead. As well as MVP breweries here in NYC like Threes, Other Half, Evil Twin, and, perhaps my favorite of them all, The Test Brewery (due to reopen soon, I’m told). Beer, along with the rest of alcohol consumption, might be in a bit of a bind at the moment, but New York is a town lousy with craft beer.

All of which leads me to…

The aforementioned NYC breweries, plus a slew of other elite spots, are on Blackbird. And, starting tomorrow (10/3), we’ll be running Oktoberquest, a month-long challenge and DIY pub crawl where users can unlock $125 in $FLY by hitting four or more of the bars and breweries below. Open your app and navigate to “Challenges” to accept.

Who’s joining me?

Breweries
📍Brooklyn Brewery 
📍Evil Twin (2 locations) 
📍Finback (3 locations) 
📍Grimm Artisanal Ales 
📍KCBC
📍Other Half (3 locations) 
📍Randolph’s
📍Talea (5 locations) 
📍The Test Brewery
📍Threes Brewing (2 locations) 
📍Torch & Crown Brewing Company 
📍Wild East Brewing Co.

Beer Bars
📍ABC Beer Co.
📍Beer St South
📍Bierwax
📍Blind Tiger Alehouse
📍Carmine Street Brewers
📍Milk & Hops
📍Moody Tongue Pizza
📍Moody Tongue Sushi
📍The Greats of Craft (2 locations)
📍Queue Beer