"brooklyn ny" news and stories

Kyle Spencer, 23, and Xiao Yu, 24, are barely of drinking age and have been brewing beer for less than a year, but nonetheless wear their ambition, literally, on their sleeves.

"Brewing for a living is something we both wanted to do," says Spencer, promoting his nascent brand by wearing a gray, short-sleeved Beta Beer T-shirt alongside partner Xiao Yu. Despite his expert presentation, Spencer is nervous: For the first time his product will be tasted by "actual people who have beer backgrounds."

This kind of fledgling enthusiasm was par for the course at the Brooklyn Beer Experiment, a new cook-off in a city obsessed with cook-offs, part of the groundswell of our nation's craft-brewmania and a first from competitors turned co-organizers Theo Peck and Nick Suarez. "We were cook-off rivals," says Suarez, "and decided we could do this as well as anyone else could." Sunday afternoon at Brooklyn's the Bell House -- a space primarily used as a music venue -- more than 25 chefs infused their eats with beer, and local homebrewers like Spencer and Yu hawked their wares.

A weekly look at the draft selection at beer-friendly bars across the country.

What does it take to be a great beer bar? Some things are obvious: A rotating lineup of interesting, hand-selected draft beers that covers a variety of styles is a good first step. But other factors play into the equation.

I'm a huge fan of bars that regularly update their draft list online. Give a big check to Brooklyn, N.Y.'s Barcade. Right on the front of their Web site they post their own What's On Tap column. And they do you one better: Click on any beer in the list to be taken to its BeerAdvocate review page, meaning you can create your own scouting report before even leaving home.

Friendly knowledgeable staff is also a plus. Score another point for Barcade's bartenders who show a lot of passion for beer and keep their cool even on the bar's busiest nights.

But Barcade also knows it never hurts to have an ace up your sleeve, and at this Williamsburg neighborhood drinking hot spot, that means vintage arcade games. Whether dodging traffic on one of their most popular machines like Frogger, or trying your hand at some "lost" classics (if you can call games like Ludy Bug, Pengo or Sinistar "classics"), Barcade may be the only establishment in the country who's selection of dozens of vintage arcade games rivals the uniqueness of their draft list. (And speaking of rivals, the bar posts the all-time top scores for their machines. Take down the champ and your name goes up on the wall.)

Luckily, though most of the arcade machines come from the 1980s, the beers on draft are all fresh. Let's take a look at what Barcade is currently serving after the jump. ...