With the explosion of craft beers in the past five years, it was only a matter of time before an intrepid soul conquered the final brewery frontier: Queens, New York. Rich Buceta and the team at Single Cut brewery are opening a 5,000 square foot brewery there later this month. And the star of the Single Cut lineup? Matzoh-based beer.
“The folks at [local pub] Queens Kickshaw came up with the idea for this beer as a tribute to the Jewish tradition of eating Chinese food on Christmas Eve,” brewmaster Rich Buceta explained. The brew, which is made by mixing Szechuan peppercorns and matzoh into the malted barley mash, is dubbed a “White Lagrr,” perhaps because of the ferocious kick that the spicing will bring to it.
Aside from creating what sounds like the perfect Chanukah beer, Buceta plans a number of other yet-to-be-revealed concoctions. “We’ll be aging several beers in rum barrels, as well as brewing a number of Belgian-style ales,” he said. But the heart of the brewery lies in hoppy ales, like the Halfstack India Pale Ale that clocks in at 6.6% alcohol by volume. They plan to release a seasonal “Fullstack” IPA that’s even more alcoholic — a whopping 8.6%.
With all the recent talk about Jews and their love of bacon, could the advent of kosher pork really be far behind?
It appeared that the dream of kashrut-observant Jews with a hankering for the taste of treyf had come true on July 27 when photographer Oded Hirsch spotted a whole bunch of pork (spare ribs, pork chops — you name it) labeled as “Shechita Beit Yusef”(ritual slaughter of the House of Joseph) at an Associated Supermarket on Greenpoint Avenue in Sunnyside, Queens, a multi-ethnic neighborhood with a current Jewish population much smaller than it once was.
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