We hung out at the SingleCut brewery in Astoria this weekend and we have an update

On Saturday, we joined close to 25 other craft beer lovers at the SingleCut brewery in Astoria, to catch up with Master Brewer and founder Rich Buceta and the status of the brewery itself. A lot has happened since we wrote about the brewery in early August, including the construction of some interior spaces, installation of various tanks in the back of the space.

The 5,000 square foot brewery space is shaping up. They’ve got tanks in the back, a walk in cooler installed, and the bar for the tap room has been poured. A lot of other work is being done there, including painting, finishing construction on a few innger rooms, and dealing with wiring.

For those who are curious, Singlecut is in an area zoned M1 zone, which allows light industrial businesses, as well as retail – right across the street is a mini strip mall with a supermarket, Chinese restaurant, discount clothing store, and a bank. The Steinway factory is just up the street (you can see it from the brewery), too. Rich would love to see a dual tour in place at some point – perhaps start at the Steinway factory for their three hour tour, then end at SingleCut for as shorter tour and some suds.

Next door to the brewery is an empty lot which serves as the home for some portable units, lots of trash, and a curious, apparently abandoned boat. Rich says that they will clean up the lot next door so that it looks presentable. On the subject of neighboring buildings and space, SingleCut has been given the right of first refusal if any of these properties come on the market, in case they want to purchase more space.

Rich pointed out the area where the tap room will be – as we mentioned above, they’ve poured the bar (that’s the L-shaped concrete structure coming up out of the floor), so the first part of the space is in place. Taps will be installed in the wall behind it, a wall that is shared with the walk in cooler. Here is where patrons will get a chance to try various brews, whether it’s a standard offering like their Saison or 19-33 Lagrrr, or a limited edition (perhaps an experiment) beer.

You’ll be able to fill up a 1 liter and 2 liter flip-top growler – they’ve chosen high quality growler vessels for this purpose. We were also told that the brewery will only do draft beer for the first three years – a bottling line is complicated to implement and rather expensive. That said, cans might happen in the tap room, and they will do some bottling by hand if need be.

SingleCut will also be the only brewery in NYC that will do self-distribution. They want the beer to be as fresh as it can be, and they feel that kind of quality control can only be done with self-distribution.

Close to the tap room will be a mezzanine, which will be built for the purpose of listening to live music – performances will happen 3 or 4 times a year, though if they find the music element is really successful, they’ll consider expanding this aspect of the place. Music will take place on Thursday and Friday nights, and Saturday afternoons. And if live music isn’t happening, there will be recorded music playing. Everyone working at the brewery is really into music. A turntable with records will also be available.

As for the beer that will be offered, the SingleCut brewers love hoppy ales, and they are particularly passionate about lagers – they are on a mission to show the world (or at least NYC) that lagers can be delicious and not mediocre, which they’ve gotten a reputation for. They love lagers so much that they installed two lagering tanks in the back corner of the brewery.

On Saturday, we were offered a handful of options to try out. They included the Isle Ale, which is an organic pale ale; Sunburst Finish Lager; Black IPA; Saison; and a Belgian Doppel. In the future they have plans to do some barrel aged beers, too. And if all goes well, they hope to start brewing beer on a larger scale in about two weeks.

Finally, about their mascot “Rulpsen” – Official Spokes-Fermenter for SingleCut – the name means “burp” in German.

Many thanks to Rich and SingleCut for having us at the brewery!

Astoria gets its own craft beer brewery – SingleCut Beersmiths [QNYC]
SingleCut brewery plans to open in Astoria this fall [QNYC]