Dreaming Up a Nightmare
There’s a nightmare brewing, but it ain’t on Elm Street. In fact, it’s not at all set in a frightening dream world fraught with the fear tactics of Freddy Kruger and his knifelike fingernails, but at the rlly rlly real site of Great South Bay Brewery in Bay Shore. It’s here that the lead brewer of one of Long Island’s most highly-regarded beer makers has started his own brewing business, called Nightmare Brewing.
For the last two years, Billy Powell has helmed brewing operations at Northport’s Sand City Brewing, which is known for producing some of the most sought-after hazy, juicy IPAs in the country. Powell, who has a sharp Mohawk and a long black beard, has no plans to relinquish his key role at Sand City as he pursues his dream — or rather, his nightmare — of opening a brewery. Quite uniquely, he’s brewing the candle at both ends, continuing to work full-time at Sand City while making beers under his new Nightmare label. Even more interesting is that the new company is operating out of another established Long Island brewery, via a practice known as phantom brewing, or gypsy brewing.
Popularized by thriving international brands like Mikkeller and Evil Twin Brewing of Copenhagen and Stillwater Artisanal of Baltimore, all of which have leveraged the business model into existing or soon-to-be-built physical locations, phantom brewing is a way of working that requires no expensive infrastructure. Rather than immediately invest in a facility, an endeavor that can cost close to a million dollars, these beer makers keep their costs low and realize their recipes rootless, producing and packaging at borrowed plants, building their brand and reputation before their brick and mortar. To produce his beers, Powell is using Great South Bay in Bay Shore, where he started his brewing career, and which is also “home” to another nascent itinerant brewer, Root + Branch Brewing. (But perhaps not for long. Keep reading.)
Thus far Nightmare has released three beers on draft and in 16-ounce cans: Windlass of Erasmus (6.5% ABV), a sour ale flavored with blackberry, black currants, and black sea salt; Scaphism (17%), an imperial stout brewed with lactose and honey and conditioned on Tahitian vanilla beans and organic cacao nibs; and Drawn & Quartered (10%), a quadruple dry- hopped double IPA.
Now, you might be asking yourself: “What’s up with the unabashedly macabre and gruesome beer names and label design?” Well, outside of beer, Powell’s passions are death metal and horror movies.
“I love their aesthetics and want to apply them in every way I can here, and cohesively,” Powell said. “I’m looking for open-minded people, and people who aren’t afraid. That’s why my labels are so minimal with writing. If the art and beer capture your attention and draw you in, try it and research what it’s about. I meticulously go over the historical accuracy, ingredients and the music to try and tie it all together into a cohesive experience. As for the art, it feeds that ghoulish part of human nature that you aren’t getting from a beer that has had no thought put into it. I want to make beer that reflects my soul. Nightmare is my way of brewing off my leash.”
Beer Week is Back
New York City Beer Week, an annual celebration of craft beer throughout the metropolis, returns from February 23 through March 2.
Initiated in 2008, Beer Week is hosted by the New York City Brewers Guild, a nonprofit organization founded to “advance New York City’s brewing industry and thereby lessen human misery.” There will be hundreds of events over the eight-day period including the Opening Bash Invitational at the Brooklyn Expo Center.
IPA/I3A
Kills Boro Brewing, in the St. George neighborhood of Staten Island, put three hop-forward beers in cans in late January: Hang Glider (6.3%), an IPA brewed with Simcoe, Medusa, and Mandarina Bavaria hops; Kaleidoscope (6.5%), a sour IPA brewed with tangerines and lactose, dry hopped with Motueka, Citra and Mandarina Bavaria hops, and conditioned on vanilla beans, pineapple and tangerine peel; and Sleight of Hand (8.0%), a double New England-style IPA brewed and double dry hopped with Vic Secret, Motueka and Mosaic hops.
The beers are available in four-packs of 16-ounce tubes at the brewery, which shares a building with the Craft House bar (it doubles as the taproom), and also at select retail stores in New York City.
BrickHouse’s Belgians
For the sixth consecutive spring, BrickHouse Brewery & Restaurant in Patchogue will brew a slew of Belgian-style ales including Aegis (5.8%), a Bière de Garde; Nigel’s Thornberry (5.9%), a saison with blackberries; and the Golden Devil (7.2%), a strong golden ale aged in French oak barrels.
“We really enjoy brewing Belgian styles each year, largely because we love to make and drink them, but also because it really is a testament to how far we’ve transitioned the average palate in the brewpub,” said Paul Komsic, the brewmaster. “The brew days take a little longer, the beers take a little longer to ferment and clear up but the end result is so worth it. Spring doesn’t really have a set hot style, still after all these years. Summer is lots of light and fruity stuff, fall you have harvest season and pumpkin, winters gets you into dark, barrel aged sippers. But what are spring flavors? For me, there is something about the French saison yeast that says spring.”
On March 26 at 7 p.m., BrickHouse holds a dinner featuring the Belgian-inspired bunch plus another, Drops of Juniper (6.5%), a dubbel brewed with juniper berries, grains of paradise and local honey. It was released last fall, and a keg was put aside for the event.
Five Gun Salute
Gun Hill Brewing, in the Williamsbridge section of the Bronx, celebrates its fifth anniversary on March 9 at 4 p.m. with the release of three limited-edition beers: a triple IPA (10%), currently unnamed, in 16-ounce cans; a version of Void of Light stout aged in bourbon barrels (8.2%), in 375-ml bottles; and Fort Ticonderoga (11.5%), a barleywine that rested in rum barrels for 10 months, also in 375-ml bottles. Dave Lopez, an owner, said the beers will not be made available to purchase outside the brewery.
Botany Brews
Root + Branch Brewing plants — err, plans to put down roots in 2019, said Anthony Sorice, a partner in the popular nomadic brewery along with Ryan Mauban.
Since starting the brewing business early last year, the pair has received high praise for their hazy IPAs and double IPAs such as Eyes Without a Face (6.5%) and One-Dimensional Man (8.0%), which they produce and package primarily at Great South Bay Brewery in Bay Shore. (An established facility in Connecticut is sometimes used.)
With each new release, also at Great South Bay, acolytes arrive earlier and earlier to snap up as many cans as they can, filling glasses and Instagram feeds with the foggy, fluffy, fragrant ales ASAP.
With a growing fan base and critical praise garnered, most notably making Hop Culture’s list of best new breweries of 2018, Root + Branch is clearly on the cusp of great things. One of which is a physical location on Long Island’s South Shore.
Recently, Root + Branch revealed that it’s building a brewery and taproom in a former warehouse in Copiague. The 4,000-square-foot space sits beneath the town’s Long Island Rail Road station, and specs include a 10-barrel, three-vessel brewhouse. There will be a taproom of 1,500 square feet and an accompanying outdoor patio. “
We’ve been working toward finding and building out a space for about three years now,” Sorice said. “We’re almost to the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Sorice said the plan is to start producing beer in the fall. The facility “will allow us to increase the quality of our hop-forward beers and allow me to produce a range of barrel-aged farmhouse styles,” he added.