Matthew L.
Yelp
Other Half Brewing Company is a craft brewery that opened in Brooklyn, New York in 2014. It was founded by business partners Matt Monahan, Andrew Burman and head brewer Sam Richardson. Richardson grew up in Portland, Oregon and got his start brewing through Oregon State University's Fermentation Science Program. After finishing school, he moved to Brooklyn and began working at Greenpoint Beer & Ale Co.. Here he met Monahan and Burman who were both originally from the Washington D.C. area. They had a dream to open their own brewery with a simple mission: to create beers that they wanted to drink from a company that they wanted to be a part of. The brewery's name is a reference to the fact that they wanted to represent the "Other Half" of the beer industry. Through a Craigslist ad, the partners found an industrial garage located under the Gowanus Expressway in Brooklyn's Carroll Gardens neighborhood. At the time, that area wasn't so desirable. The land sits next to the Gowanus Canal which is NYC's most polluted body of water. In spite of the odds against them, Other Half's reputation and popularity grew at a very fast rate. In addition to their original location in Carroll Gardens, Other Half now has locations in Brooklyn's Domino Park neighborhood, Manhattan's Rockefeller Center, Finger Lakes (Bloomfield, New York), Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Several new breweries have also popped up in Brooklyn since Other Half opened; the borough has turned into a brewer's paradise. Prior to Other Half opening, Brooklyn only had three breweries.
I recently visited Other Half's Rockefeller Center location (which opened in December 2021) while I was in Manhattan to see a Porcupine Tree concert at Radio City Music Hall. I've already visited their flagship location in Brooklyn (and loved it). I decided to stop at the Rockefeller Center taproom for some beers before the concert. Apparently several other Porcupine Tree fans had the same idea as me. One bartender looked at all of the customers (most of whom were wearing prog rock t-shirts) and asked, "Is there a concert going on or something?" The taproom had no shortage of my favorite kind of beer: hazy, hoppy, unfiltered IPAs! I ordered short pours of "Double Dry Hopped Citra Chroma", "Double Dry Hopped Double Citra Daydream", "Double Dry Hopped Green City", and a full pour of "Double Dry Hopped All Green Everything". The latter was my favorite! Afterwards, I checked out their outdoor beer garden which is just around the corner. I enjoyed a can of "Double Dry Hopped Ain't Nothing Nice". Overall, I had a fantastic experience before the concert. The beers were exemplary, the crowd was friendly, and the location is so close to the Times Square area. It's an excellent place to stop before a concert or show in Manhattan. I look forward to checking out some of Other Half's other satellite locations in the future.