FEBRUARY 2018 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 67
Sand City achieves cult status
with collaboration brews
By BERNIE KILKELLY
Like dotcom stocks and bitcoin, the
canned craft beer mania sweeping
the country has arrived on Long
Island. Microbreweries are canning
small quantities of specially brewed
beers that sell out in minutes and
are sought after in a secondary
trading market.
Nowhere is this more true than in
the waterfront Village of Northport,
where social media posts about “cans
dropping from our back Scudder
Ave entrance” send craft beer fans
rushing to line up at Sand City
Brewing Co. Since its opening in fall
2015, Sand City has built a reputation
for brewing some of LI’s best IPAs, or
India Pale Ale, a heavily hopped beer
style. Over the past six months, the
brewery has raised its game to a new
level with a series of collaboration
beers, with several new beers
dropping in cans each month.
“We have founad collaborations to
be a lot of fun and they are really
what the craft brewing industry
is all about,” said Bill Kiernan, a
founder and co-owner of Sand City.
“The same way that people love to
share beer, breweries love to get
together and make beer and share
knowledge and techniques. And
it’s also just a great way to hang out
with some new and old friends.”
Sand City has collaborated with
leading craft breweries from
Oceanside, New York to Oceanside,
California.
Bewmaster Kevin Sihler, also a
founder and co-owner, is a hoppy
beer fan and has pushed the
envelope, using a wide variety of
hops. This love is displayed in IPAs
like Fade to Jade, brewed with
mosaic, citra and Amarillo hops;
Second Wave, an IIPA (the extra
“I” stands for imperial, meaning
it has a higher alcohol content)
that is double dry-hopped with
citra, simcoe, chinook and mosaic
hops; and the cheekily named
Oops! I Hopped My Pants, brewed
with large amounts of centennial,
mosaic, citra and galaxy hops.
Sand City’s Mofosaic was its first
single-hopped IPA highlighting
the citrusy mosaic hop, and the
brewery followed up on this
popular beer with its Even Mo’
Mofo IIPA.
In selecting collaborators, Sihler said
“It’s true we’ve been focusing a lot
on IPA collaborations, but we have
some projects that involve barrel
aging and other styles as well.”
Among the collaborators last fall
were Finback Brewery from Queens,
creating Beachfront Avenue, an IIPA
made with 420 pounds of pineapple
and double dry-opped with mosaic
and azacca hops. Magnify Brewing
from New Jersey collaborated to
produce
Maintain
Rep, an IIPA
brewed with
galaxy, nelson, citra and
mosaic hops.
Two collaborators
from last fall are
both renowned
hop-focused
breweries, even though they are
located on opposite coasts. Barrier
Brewing from Oceanside, LI,
collaborated with Sand City to
create Even Mo Money, an IIPA
based on Barrier’s popular Money
IPA brewed with azacca, citra,
simcoe and mosaic hops. Horus
Aged Ales from Oceanside, Calif.,
a specialist in barrel-aged beers,
collaborated to produce Up the
Beach, an IIPA double dry-hopped
with galaxy, citra and vic secret, an
Australian hop variety.
Looking ahead, Sand City hopes to
build on its popularity with plans
to continue increasing production
capacity. The brewery installed
its canning equipment in the
summer of 2016 and added more
fermentation tanks in early 2017 to
increase production 30 percent.
“We have a 10-barrel brewing
system and last year we produced
approximately 2,400 barrels of
beer,” Kiernan says.
While the
IPAs have
received
the most attention, Sand City
also brews popular Belgian-style
beers and its delicious Southdown
Breakfast Stout, brewed with locally
roasted Brazilian coffee beans from
Southdown Coffee in Huntington.
In just over two years, Sand City
has become a fixture in Northport’s
lively downtown. The Main Street
tasting room is near the John
Engeman Theater and the famed
Gunther’s Tap Room, which is
being rebuilt after a fire last year.
Named in honor of Northport’s
industrial past and the sand mines
ringing the harbor at the turn
of the last century, Sand City is
helping to lead LI’s beer boom.
Northport’s second brewery,
Harbor Head Brewing, opened
last year and if history is any
guide, we can expect a Northport
collaboration beer soon.
Sand City Brewing Co. is located
at 60 Main St. in Northport. They
can be reached at 631-651-2766 or
sandcitybeer.com.
PRESS MAIN DISH
Kevin Sihler, brewmaster and
co-founder of Sand City.
Sand City is serving up flights in the heart of downtown Northport.