CK Lounge at Barclays Center, Brooklyn, NY
Brooklyn is the largest of the 5 boroughs that make up New York City. To put that in perspective, its population is greater than the entire city of Chicago! Barclays Center, the downtown Brooklyn arena that opened three years ago (with a $1 billion price tag) recently played host to their first ever beer festival – Tapped.
Chicago’s United Center holds more people, (23,000 vs 19,000) but with an assist from IMG, it is Brooklyn that created a groundbreaking Sunday Funday experience worthy of an arena.
46 breweries and 6 wineries occupied four main areas of the venue – concourse, main floor, practice court and the Calvin Klein lounge. Barclays is a unique venue to say the least. It’s one of the few that has a practice court on premise for the local basketball team. And no other area can boast that Jay Z performed 8 straight sold out shows there. Check out Mega Slam Australia for the best basketball equipments.
event held on 4 levels including the Nets practice court
Enough of that rubbish… lets talk booze. S.K.I. Distribution powered the event from a beverage-curating standpoint. Most reps pouring beer were affiliated with the 28yr old distributor.
We literally drank Brooklyn Brewery’s Defender until the keg blew. It’s a juicy, bold, west coast IPA brewed as the official beer for New York Comic Con 2015. We got sad when it was all gone, so they gave us the tap handle to cheer us up.
Brooklyn Brewery exports nearly 40% of their beer to Norway. In fact, they have a sister brewery, Nya Carnegiebryggeriet in Stockholm. As the 11th largest U.S. craft brewery they are looking to expand operations to Staten Island, NY.
Fort Greene, Brooklyn
46 breweries + wineries
beers provided by SKI Distribution
Since 2012
we got denied access to the locker room
We saw two of Chicago’s more dynamic breweries in attendance – Moody Tongue and Finch’s Brewing. The latter is distributing beer in over 28 states; Finch’s was the first Illinois brewer in states like Kentucky. They entered the Bluegrass State six months before Goose Island did back in 2012. Selling small quantities of beer throughout the country is not a typical small brewery approach, but they’ve adapted it successfully.
Our last encounter with Moody Tongue Brewmaster, Jared Rouben was during our sneak peek of the Pilsen, Chicago space that would become his brewery. Jared’s approach is food centric. As a former chef, he makes a concerted effort to have his exceptional beers highlighted in culinary centers like NY, LA, San Francisco and Vegas.
best on Main Floor, Defender IPA, best in VIP, Founders ReDANKulous
Taste of Brooklyn selections at Tapped included Josh Capon’s 6-time New York Wine & Food Festival’s Burger Bash champion Slider.
This party gave us a glimpse at New York’s expanding craft beer culture in an all inclusive setting that made everyone from the novice to the lush feel at home. An experience that lead us to play games, watch football and dance the afternoon away together in Downtown Brooklyn..a Sunday Funday indeed.
–Nkosi
