Region & History

Who owns Brooklyn Brewery? It was founded in 1988 by former Middle East correspondent Steve Hindy and his Park Slope neighbor Tom Potter, both of whom left their jobs to do it. In 2016, the Japanese conglomerate Kirin acquired a minority stake of 24.5 percent, with the founders continuing to run the brewery.

The first delivery of Brooklyn Lager went to a bar in Williamsburg in 1988. The logo was designed by Milton Glaser, the graphic artist behind the "I Love New York" campaign. Anyone visiting breweries in the borough today is standing in a neighborhood that once knew beer as its main business.

German immigrants arrived in droves during the 19th century. Many settled in eastern Brooklyn and opened lager breweries, drawn by the spring water beneath Brooklyn and Queens. In Manhattan, Little Germany emerged as an entire neighborhood of beer halls and gardens. The big names disappeared by the 1970s, leaving only factory buildings behind.

Far to the north, in Cooperstown, importers Don Feinberg and Wendy Littlefield founded Brewery Ommegang in 1997, modeled on Belgian tradition. In 2003, the Belgian conglomerate Duvel Moortgat took full ownership of the brewery. The site had previously been a hop farm.

There's no protected designation of origin for beer from New York. In the US, a brewery counts as craft if it's small and less than 25 percent owned by a non-craft alcohol conglomerate. Kirin's 24.5 percent stake falls just under that threshold.

Today, New York State is home to hundreds of breweries, from tiny taprooms in Brooklyn to farm operations upstate. The contrast between city brewery and country estate defines the scene: here, beer for the subway generation; there, beer from the field, brewed with hops and barley sourced from the neighborhood.