But for partners John LaPolla and Douglas Amport, business has been as brisk as a frosty fresh pint of home-brew beer as Brooklyn’s Bitter and Esters never had to close.
While they had to restrict customers from coming inside their establishment on Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights — the only home-brewing shop in New York City — they already had a powerful web-based operation and a strong local following that had customers from all over lining up to brew their own beers at home . . .
]]>Along with creativity and sacrifice comes commitment and dedication. If you’re going to MacGyver your apartment for a hobby, you want to be sure you’ll love that hobby for a long time. . . .“If you’re doing it in New York City, you’re not just doing it half-ass, you gotta commit to it.”
Check out the rest of the article here.
]]>Here's a little snippet from this lovely article by Courtney Iseman over at Edible Brooklyn, on NYC's extremely dedicated homebrew scene:
Along with creativity and sacrifice comes commitment and dedication. If you’re going to MacGyver your apartment for a hobby, you want to be sure you’ll love that hobby for a long time. . . .“If you’re doing it in New York City, you’re not just doing it half-ass, you gotta commit to it.”
Check out the rest of the article here.
"Bitter & Esters was selected from among 123 other homebrew shop nominations and evaluated by the AHA Governing Committee on the merits of community support, education, customer service and engagement, promotion of homebrewing, and responsible business practices.
Amport and LaPolla’s shop is described as a delightful mecca of all things homebrewing. They are known for their participation in nearly every homebrewing and beer event in their local community, as well as for providing excellent education, training, showcases, and connecting local homebrewers with bottle shares and local club involvement.
The shop creates a community space in which folks can come hang out for hours to craft recipes, taste malts, and talk beer. They sponsor community initiatives, help coordinate competitions, and foster an environment for people of all genders, ethnicities and skill levels. They are the launchpad for a local female-led club, The Brewminaries, and they build an inclusive environment that welcomes those who have historically been underrepresented in homebrewing. The owners and staff are well-educated and friendly, and they always provide thoughtful responses and promote lively discussions among their customers. The focus on inclusion, a thorough customer experience, community, end-to-end education, and brewing on premises in Brooklyn raises the bar and creates a model for other shops to emulate. Congratulations to Bitter & Esters!"
We are extremely honored to receive this award but we want to make it clear we did not win it alone. First, thank you to all of our employees past and present for their hard work, dedication and excellent service. Second, thank you to all of the Homebrew Clubs in NY that have helped keep the great hobby of homebrewing alive and well, what a great homebrew scene we have in our fair city! Lastly, and most importantly, thank you to all of our customers for the wonderful support these past eight years. It's been a privilege to get to know all of you and try your amazing beers. Without you we do not exist.
]]>Bitter & Esters was recently featured in Adweek for a collaboration we did with Brooklyn-based agency Huge:
"For the past six weeks, members of Huge Brews have been brewing their own beer based on those years of tasting notes, along with data from two popular beer review websites. After looking internally at what beers they considered their favorites—which ended up being similar to a juicy IPA—the team then scraped user-generated reviews for about 250 beers, pulling in about 40 website reviews per beer.
The end result: two distinct batches including a juicy IPA with blackberry and another with raspberry and lactose—an ingredient that has grown in popularity over the past year with the rise of what’s known as the Milkshake IPA. (Huge Brews worked with a home-brewing startup in Brooklyn called Bitter and Esters, which provided brewing expertise and equipment.)"
Read the whole thing here.
]]>Bitters & Esters aimed to become an integral part of the homebrewing community that began to grow within NYC. Their store and classroom made education in brewing accessible, no matter the level or skill set. Whether you’ve just crafted a new interest in learning to homebrew or you’ve already finished your 500th batch of homebrewed beer, they have all levels of classes to support your quest of becoming a better homebrewer.
Check out the rest of the article here.
]]>Tomorrow, Quartz will celebrate its anniversary by letting those agencies know how much it appreciates their work via the one universal currency: beer! (Also, economic news trivia.)
Quartz developed this sudsy surprise at Bitter & Esters, a New York company that allows customers to brew their own custom beers. It also designed the packaging (labels, bottle caps and six-pack holders) in-house and planned a multi-agency “pub crawl” to help its partners share in the fun.
Ever wanted to know what exactly went into your beer? Bitter & Esters welcomes any beginner curious abou yeasts, malts, grains, and how they're implemented into humanity's most timeless alcoholic beverage. Their Brewshop 101 class provides hands-on experience and priceless knowledge to brew your very own batch of beer.
Thanks for the love!]]>If you love wine or you love Kombucha or you love yogurt or all sorts of other things, sour beers might be the beer you’ve been waiting for. That’s the great thing about sour beers — its this whole other part of the palate. I mean, almost all beers are on the dry-bitter, sweet-malty spectrum, and this is just–it’s not a different part of the spectrum, it’s a entirely different spectrum.
They've also got some recommendations on great sours from the NYC area. Check out the whole interview here.]]>Brewnity brought together the best of the area’s homebrew clubs and stores, lining up booth after booth of enthusiastic amateur brewers pouring generous samples of over fifty beers while dishing about grain bills and talking hops with curious connoisseurs. To sweeten the deal, 100% of ticket sales went to benefit City Harvest, an organization that stands for those same values that NYC Beer Week aims to uphold.
]]>At Bitter & Esters in Prospect Heights, everyone from the absolute novice to the most experienced homebrewer will find something to take in. [...] Brewshop 101, a three-hour elementary workshop course and the shop's most popular class, covers the basics of what beer is and how to make it. More esoteric courses cover topics like culturing and propagating yeast strains, brewing with whole-cone hops, and scaling up to larger brew systems. The shop also offers group classes for companies and organizations.
Check out the whole article here.]]>Making beer in the comfort of your own home is all the rage lately. And the bonus is that you don’t need a lot of space to do it, so it’s the perfect hobby for city dwellers. At the beer supply shop Bitter & Esters (named after two flavor profiles found in beer) in Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, they teach an introductory class on homebrewing. The best part? Once class is over, you can buy all the ingredients and tools you need right there to make suds at home.
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