Brewpub Heads to Williamsburg Waterfront (Hopefully)
Via DNA
Raven’s business — currently unnamed but which he might call “Dirk the Norseman” after Greenpoint’s first Dutch settler — is hiring local home brewers to help him make his suds, which he envisions as hoppy IPA’s and other classic European varieties “with a twist.”“All these guys are making beer at home and looking for somewhere to take it next,” he said about customers and employees of his specialty beer shop Brouwerij Lane in Greenpoint. “I’ve been selling beer for 25 years, and you watch these guys opening beer halls doing really well. I was just like, why can’t I do that?”
Raven plans to open his giant space — one-third brewery and two-thirds beer hall and restaurant — on North 15th Street in the early spring of 2013, with glass divides showing visitors the whole brewing process from milling the grains to kegging and bottling the different flavors.
“We’ll make about five or six flavors at a time,” he said, noting that his head brewer Chris Prout (a home brewer who works at Brouwerij Lane) would likely make “typical European hoppy IPA’s with a twist,” Belgian style sours and saisons.
As for the beer hall and restaurant, Raven said he was still ironing out details, but expected to accommodate about 270 people and to serve a wide range of local and imported beers. He said the fare would be “healthy food,” and that hours would be about 5 p.m. to 2 a.m.
The Williamsburg Community Board 1 has approved Raven’s manufacturing license, but has postponed approval of his restaurant and beer hall liquor license on the grounds that he did not yet have a solid enough plan.
