Brooklyn in NYC has a long history of brewing. Much of this is as a result of it being a haven for German immigrants in the 19th century. Many of the breweries were family run enterprises. However, by 1976 all had closed, victims of competition from large volume national brands.

In 1984, Associated Press correspondent Steve Hindy returned from a six-year stint in the Middle East and settled in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighbourhood. Hindy had caught the home-brewing bug from diplomats stationed in Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait where alcoholic beverages were forbidden.

With his neighbour, Tom Potter, a former lending officer at Chemical Bank, Hindy quit his job and founded The Brooklyn Brewery. Their initial goal was to bring good beer back to New York City. Due to their limited resources, they had no choice but to have their first beer, Brooklyn Lager, contract brewed in Utica, New York.

They commissioned a fourth-generation German-American brewmaster, William M. Moeller, to develop a recipe for Brooklyn Lager. Moeller’s grandfather had brewed beer in Brooklyn and willed his notebooks and brewing records to his sons.

It was not all glory for Hindy and Potter in the first years of the company. They found most New York distributors were controlled by the big breweries and uninterested in small local brands with little marketing money. Their Brooklyn neighbour, Soho Natural Soda founder Sofia Collier, advised the budding entrepreneurs to distribute their own brands with their own trucks. They bought a van and a small beverage truck, painted their logos on the sides and began peddling Brooklyn Lager store to store on their own. Crime in New York City was rampant in those years, and Hindy and Potter faced burglars, armed robbers and mob-connected characters who wanted a piece of the brewery.

In 1994, they hired the highly respected New York brewmaster, Garrett Oliver, to design their planned Brooklyn plant and oversee production at the Utica facility. On May 28, 1996, Mayor Rudy Giuliani cut the ribbon to open the new Brooklyn brewery. Giuliani poured the first official glasses of the first beer, a Bavarian style wheat beer known as Brooklyner Weisse. Oliver then developed many new Brooklyn beers, including Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, Brooklyn East India Pale Ale, Brooklyn Pennant Ale ’55 and a long list of seasonal and special beers. His beers have won many national and international awards, and his book, The Brewmaster’s Table, has become a favourite among beer connoisseurs and food enthusiasts alike.