Straight into it today with Brooklyn Cider House, our fine city's very first farm cidery-bar-restaurant and an attractive one at that, now open in one of those unassuming Bushwick warehouses.
It's a solid place to come with friends who share your affinity for fermented fruits: start with a set apple-inspired dinner, stay for cider tastings, sample as much as you want from their impressive cider list. Sit at a Basque-inspired communal table. Observe the ever-interesting fermenting barrels. Point at a nice mural. Now, there's more to know about all those things we just said, so let's break it all down below.
The Front Bar Situation
It's in the front, so hell, let's start there. It's nice whether or not you're here for the full cidery experience: post up at the bar facing a million green cider bottles under the high ceiling with open beams, or come with a date and settle into a cozy leather love seat. Have a drink or two.
Which Leads Us To... The Cider Situation
Right now, they've got five hard ciders produced up in New Paltz on offer, in addition to a couple draughts and a decent few wines. But come in the new year, and they'll be expanding that list to an international list 100+ ciders including some made on-site, more beer and craft cocktails—plus the house-made ciders to take-away if you please.
Which Leads Us To... The Cidery Situation
So, the cidery occupies two really-quite-massive rooms—one's full of 80-year-old chestnut barrels from Spain, you might pass through there and sip some raw cider as part of the Barrel Cider Tasting Experience. The other's got those stainless steel tanks used for cider fermentation. Walk through both of them and you'll end up in the back dining room full of long communal tables, modeled after Basque cider houses, which if you don't know, look a lot like German beer halls.
Which Leads Us To... The Dining Situation
It's a five-corse communal menu served family-style: things like cider-braised chorizo, eggs with Icelandic-style dried cod and cowboy-style rib eyes. In between courses, you can tour the facility whilst sampling their Raw cider in various stages of the aging process.
Conversing with those around you is also an option.
