BIRRERIA
Mutineer Magazine
September/October 2011
Clare Goggin
It was the first day of June, a hot and sticky Wednesday, when I first had the opportunity to see the long-touted rooftop brewpub. I was excited to witness this massive collaboration in its physical form – something that sounded like it could be a godsend to the local craft beer movement in New York City, which had only really gained speed in the last decade. (It also didn’t hurt that they cooled me off with cold, delicious beer.)
Sam Calagione, Birreria collaborator, founder of Dogfish Head Brewery and passionate craft beer advocate, told me almost a year prior that he felt Birreria could be a vehicle for craft beer, saying, “I think we have an amazing opportunity here to expand the knowledge of craft beer.
And, on that day this past June, as Calagione gathered his group of visitors into the small but well-air-conditioned brew room to show off the small brewing system and introduce the brewpub’s fulltime brewer, Brooks Carretta, I thought of how Birreria had such potential to further the impact of craft beer, not only in New York City but everywhere.
Displaying his passion for brewing, Calagione described how he and his two fellow brewers had developed a recipe for their next seasonal brew.
The romance that my Italian brewers bring to the project is very refreshing,” he told us. “Because we were talking about [how] the eucalyptus honey will be making love to the ginger because those flavors work so well together, and the ugli fruit is going to be making love to the orange blossom honey because those two flavors work together so well. So it was a very sexy recipe experience for me. We smoked cigarettes outside afterwards.
Well over a year of planning, building and delays had passed before that afternoon when Calagione and his collaborators, Teo Musso of Birrificio Le Baladan and Leonardo Di Vincenzo of Birra del Borgo, hosted this event to introduce their finally completed brewpub located upstairs from the first U.S. location of Eataly – an Italian slow food-focused market.
Birreria now graces the rooftop of a Flat Iron District building, seating up to 150 beer lovers in the shadow of the Empire State Building, though one would need to be at the perfect angle in order to appreciate the view.
Since opening — actually, ever since the project was announced — there’s been quite a bit of confusion surrounding what Birreria really is. Publications that shall go unnamed have erroneously identified the brewpub as a beer garden. Chef Mario Batali set this straight when he told dining blog, Eater, “It is not a beer garden. It is a beer oasis in the sky.”
But even basic confusion over what type of venue you’ll find on the rooftop of Eataly proves that New York City, as a whole, has a lot to learn about beer. Perhaps this new location could bring some clarity.
Even the design of the space was meant to educate visitors. “We wanted to make this like a time machine. You come up in the elevator, and you step into an industrial-era, artisanal, small, Italian craft brewery that, by some miracle, got transplanted to a rooftop in New York City,” Calagione explained in that small brew room one day prior to the grand opening.
Calagione, Musso and Di Vincenzo showcased their collaboration beers complete with food pairings by chef Alex Pilas in their new space, and it was evident that this rooftop brewpub had been a challenge – one that the three brewers had undertaken with the pure intention of promoting not only their craft beers, but craft beer in general.
When the project was first announced, there were four collaborating brewers. Musso and Di Vincenzo represented Italy, a country where the craft beer movement is young but strong and bold. Another Italian-American, Vinnie Cilurzo, brewer and owner of Russian River Brewing Co., originally represented the American contingent along with Calagione.
Calagione has developed a reputation as a playful and likeable media darling for all things beer. Between his TV show, “Brewmasters” and the multitude of events he attends (both internationally and nationwide) – all while running his own brewery and brew pub in Delaware – Calagione spreads himself thin. But he does it all in the name of craft beer. And, Cilurzo, while dedicated to his Santa Rosa, Calif., based brewery, is also quite dedicated to furthering the promotion of craft beer across the country.
Musso and Di Vincenzo are less well-known in the United States, but these two men also had their share of work at their own breweries and in their own country. While Calagione took the lead on working with the basic operations of the brewpub, they demonstrated their passion for craft beer by traveling from Italy regularly to develop recipes and brew with the American brewers.
Calagione told me that brewing, for both he and Cilurzo was innate. “Well, I guess it started, for us, for me and Vinnie, generations ago. Vinnie and myself, we’re both Italian-Americans. Both of our parents were wine makers.”
It was this background that generated an interest in brewing “big, bold, full-flavored beers” and, eventually, the very young Italian craft beer movement.
Calagione and Cilurzo began attending the biennial Slow Food celebration, Salone del Gusto, in Turin, Italy. The focus on quality beverages was apparent in the event’s beer garden which only served beer from small, independent producers. The event looped in the Brewers Association, a U.S. trade organization, to man one big booth featuring American beers.
Their involvement in bringing American craft beer to Salone del Gusto resulted in friendships and collaborative teams between American and Italian breweries. In 2008, Cilurzo connected with Agostino Arioli, whose brewery Birrificio Italiano was founded in 1996, making it one of the first craft breweries to emerge in Italy. The resulting beer, La Flaurette, was made with unique ingredients, including flowers. The recipe belonged to Arioli, but the collaboration happened at Cilurzo’s brewery in California.
In another 2008 collaboration, Calagione traveled to Birra del Borgo outside of Rome to brew My Antonia with his future business partner, Di Vincenzo. This joint venture would begin the working relationship between the two brewers that would eventually evolve into Birreria, but neither knew this yet.
The Birreria collaboration began with the beer. The four original brewers, already having bonded over beer in Italy, got to work on recipes, ones that developed through informal conversations (often over beer and food) and emails.
Some input from Joe Bastianich and Mario Batali resulted in a summer seasonal peppercorn wheat beer. Italian thyme was chosen for a thyme pale ale, and the team also developed an Italian mild chestnut ale. Each brew was named for an Italian woman known for her beauty: the wheat beer was named Gina (Lollobrigida); the pale ale, Sofia (Loren); the mild, Wanda (Capodaglio). The pale and mild ales would be made year round while the seasonal would rotate out.
JV Northwest constructed the system installed at the brewpub. It was the smallest brewing system the Oregon-based manufacturer had ever built, making the equivalent of seven kegs in every brew, which would be transferred into firkins.
The brewpub would also promote other breweries by serving other American and Italian craft brewed beers on tap. One tap would always be reserved for a beer from a New York-based brewery. When Birreria opened, that beer was from Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown.
It’s become pretty clear that many of those involved in the local craft beer scene are embracing the brewpub and its potential for advancing the local craft beer scene.
New York City-based brewery, Sixpoint, also had their pilsner, Sehr Crisp, featured at Birreria recently; the brewery’s president, Shane C. Welch, told me, “I think there is a significant segment of people who may shop at Eataly who have no interest or experience with craft beer, and they may be turned on to good craft beer by visiting the Birreria above. Beer is clearly the focal point of the Birreria, so they would be forced to engage it in some way. So in that sense, the store is actually a gateway to a whole new type of beer experience for the unsuspecting customer.”
In fact, Welch goes even further, dismissing the possibility that this project could have a negative effect on the local beer scene. “I don't think they could overshadow anyone, and to assume they are is a huge mistake. They have a niche, and they carved it out nicely. That's what it’s all about.”
As part of the team behind Birreria, Batali and Bastianich were responsible for making the food a perfect complement to the great beers on tap. But they also recognize the importance of beer in the slow food movement as a whole.
“I think craft beer, maybe more so than a lot of other things, captures the very essence of [slow food]. Because it’s truly borne out of a local and a sustainable spirit, perhaps more than any other product in the world,” Bastianich told me. “That’s why beer is such a beautiful fixture to Eataly’s concept. We’re going to be making beer in the middle of Manhattan.”
Even Patrick Donagher, co-owner and general manager of Rattle ‘N’ Hum Craft Beer Bar in Midtown, sees Birreria as a benefit to his bar and the craft beer scene in general. “Birreria has already made a positive impact on the beer community in NYC,” Donagher notes. “The media attention Eataly has received and the different clientele they attract has introduced many new palates to our little world of craft beer, which in turn opens their eyes to craft beer over mass-produced, industrialized beer. They will begin their search for the many great beer bars of NYC just from tasting what Birreria has on their taps.”
As the opening date of the Eataly Market and the interior restaurants drew near, it was clear that the brewpub would not be opening at the same time.
“Putting a brewery on a rooftop isn’t exactly a project you complete in a day,” Calagione explained. From day one, the team struggled with fitting a complicated brewing system on a small rooftop with enough room for a restaurant and bar. The weather, temperature, space and the brewpub system itself all factored into the challenge of opening the highest brewpub in the country. And each brewer still had his own brewery to run.
After a few of the recipes had already been developed and even test brewed, Cilurzo revealed that he could no longer take part in the project. Concerns about production and demands from his distributors for Russian River forced him to step back from Birreria.
In response to this, Calagione told me, “While that was a bummer for Teo, Leo and I, it was cool that we at least got to do the initial brew and initial recipe for the English mild with Vinnie. So he’ll always be a part of Eataly New York City in that beer. But we totally understand his decision.”
At this point, the team still planned to open the brewpub in mid-October, 2010, falling just a few weeks after the opening of the Eataly market downstairs. But that plan would soon dissolve when the decision to add a retractable roof to the entire space was made, which was, undeniably, a smart decision. With the amount of effort going into this space, it didn’t make any sense for it to be a place that could be used only nine months out of the year.
The addition forced another delay. The team was now predicting February or March for a grand opening, but the New York City winter ruined that idea, dropping more snow than expected and further delaying the rooftop construction.
It wasn’t until February that those of us keeping up with the progress of the brewpub even got a hint as to what would finally end up being the actual opening date.
Birreria’s grand opening took place on June 2, 2011, 15 floors above Eataly New York, Madison Square Park and the streets of Manhattan. The retractable roof was open, and the weather was beautiful, light years from the day before spent sweating in the same space.
Guests sat around tables in red chairs and many stood near the bar or the brewpub area as the three brewers addressed the crowd. Staff in red shirts served meals paired with either the brewers’ collaborative brews or Italian wine. At the bar, barrels of wine took a back seat to the beers on tap and cask, but they were more prevalent than I would have expected at the opening of a brewpub. All beverages are welcome at Birreria and Eataly though, especially those created out of a passion for craft and artistry.
And so, Birreria opened, bringing craft beer awareness to the Flat Iron District in New York City and to a community who may come to Eataly for the food and, hopefully, stay for the beer.
Only a month after the rooftop brewpub project was first announced, I asked Calagione if he thought this were an effort that could only work in a place like New York City. He told me, “I think this is truly a moveable feast, and the goal is sort of one plus one equals three where food and beer get celebrated simultaneously on the same site. I think there’s many opportunities for similar collaboration regardless of geography.”
At the June 1st press event, Calagione revealed that another collaboration beer-focused venue would be opened at the new Eataly in Rome, bringing craft beer awareness to a city that has yet to host a successful brewery or brewpub. Moments later, he excused himself to judge a homebrew contest held for the Birreria staff. The winner would have their beer brewed and served at the brewpub in the fall, an opportunity for yet another craft beer brewer to reach a new audie