Brewsday Tuesday: Coney Island Brewery Edition

I won't lie, it has been way too long since we've had an installment of Brewsday Tuesday on Tattoosday, and I am happy to be finally sharing work (and beer) featuring my good friends at Coney Island Brewery (@coneyislandbeer), in South Brooklyn!

I first met Kat, Coney Island Brewery's general manager, at a tattoo convention back in 2019. Last February (yes, February 2020), I popped in and spent some time talking to her about her tattoos, Coney Island Brewery, and the expansion of their location on Surf Avenue.

And then the pandemic started. Tattoosday took a 10-month hiatus. But over the summer and into the fall, I started riding my bike out to Coney Island on Sundays and stopping by the brewery. After closing to the public in March and April, 2020, they started selling beer for curbside pickup and, once dining restrictions lifted, they began serving food outdoors on their expanded patio, weather permitting.

In January 2021, they set up a tent with heaters to make outdoor dining in the winter a little more bearable. All along, the operation has been a safe space - sanitizer at all tables, QR codes to access food and drink menus, and very strict mask rules. 

And here we are in March 2021, things are looking up, Coney Island Brewery is releasing a spring saison later this month (more on that later), and Tattoosday is back in business!

Let's talk about Kat's tattoo first:

I'll let Kat explain:

"This is Ninkasi. She is the Sumerian goddess of beer ... the first recipe ever actually written down of beer was a poem to her, it was kind of like a love poem ... when I started working here, I fell in love with the background and history of women and beer, which kind of sometimes gets forgotten ...  

When we started doing all of the tattoo expos, I was making friends and sharing our beer and I told an artist who's based out in Ohio (Will Eagle @thebeardedeagle ) ... about this idea that I had for a tattoo to represent Ninkasi and he was like, 'please let me do it...'.  So, the next time that he was in the city [July 2018] we did this, we're going to build around it, do like a bunch of hops around her ... I shared my story and love of beer with someone and they were like, let me bring that to life ... this is definitely one of my favorite tattoos."

Coney Island Brewery is a subsidiary of Boston Beer, Co., which is most often associated with Samuel Adams, but it retains a very South Brooklyn vibe; Mermaid Pilsner and Merman IPA are hallmark brands in the borough in which I live. Longtime readers of this blog will recognize it as a favorite place to hang out and spot tattoos, especially during the summer and when the Coney Island Mermaid Parade is rolling down Surf Avenue in June. I mean, merpeople and tattoos go hand in hand!

Kat started as a bartender back in the spring of 2016 and has moved up as the brewery has sprung from a relatively small space to a huge location at MCU Park, still having not exercised its full potential due to the pandemic. "Watching it grow has been really awesome," Kat told me. The fact that they have survived throughout 2020 is an incredible testament to the strength of their brand.

This past fall, I enjoyed their version of Black is Beautiful, a stout whose recipe was shared industry-wide by Texas-based Weathered Souls Brewing, to "raise awareness for the injustices people of color face daily and raise funds for police brutality reform and legal defenses for those who have been wronged." 

In the fall, to promote voter registration, the brewery released a delicious doppelbock called Registrator:

January brought back a Coney Island favorite, their New York Honey Stout. It was so good, I grabbed a growler full!

If darker beers aren't your bag, fear not, there are lots of other options! I'm looking forward to this seasonal collaboration dropping later this month:

Brewed with strawberry and black pepper, there will be a can release at the brewery on Thursday, March 18! I know I'll be there!! [For more information on the release, go here.]

Coney Island Brewery continues to be a supportive force in the New York Community. They just announced their "Hops for Hospitality" campaign, in which they "will donate $1.00 from every can, draft, 6-packs or 12-packs of CIB products sold to the NYC Hospitality Alliance at participating locations in the State of New York during the months of March through May." The hospitality industry in New York has been devastated over the past year. This is just another example of Coney Island Brewery's committment to community involvement.

Thanks to Kat for sharing her awesome tattoo with us here on Tattoosday, and to Coney Island Brewery for their awesome beer and commitment to the community in South Brooklyn and beyond!

To be entered to win a special gift from Coney Island Brewery, please be sure to comment on this post, either here or on social media where this post appears.

Coney Island does Sour beer, too!

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