68 THE QUEENS COURIER • BUZZ • APRIL 23, 2015 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.queenscourier.com New LIC brewery to open taproom featuring EXPERIMENTAL BEERS BY ANGY ALTAMIRANO aaltamirano@queenscourier.com/@aaltamirano28 A trio of beer lovers have come together to begin a project in Long Island City that will bring new fl avors to Queens. Daniel Acosta, Damon Oscarson and Gianni Cavicchi are the guys behind the LIC Beer Project, a new brewery Photo by Jamie Lefkowitz Photography LIC Beer Project is set to offi cially launch during Queens Beer Week in May. ONSITE DOCTORS • EYE EXAMS • CONTACTS • 1 HOUR SERVICE • VISION PLANS ACCEPTED • SUNGLASSES • LOWEST PRICES 2 PAIR OF EYEGLASSES QC QC $79 Includes: EYE EXAM, Frames & Lenses Select frames with clear plastic, single vision lenses+/- 4 sph., 2 cyl. Not valid with any other offers, sales, vision plans or packages. Must present prior to purchase. Offer valid at this location only. Expires 5/24/15 NO-LINE BIFOCAL EYEGLASSES $99 Includes: EYE EXAM, No-Line Bifocal Lenses & Frame Select frame with select clear plastic no-line bifocal lenses +/- 4 sph., 2 cyl up to 2.50 add. Not valid with any other offers, sales, vision plans or packages. Must present prior to purchase. Offer valid at this location only. Expires 5/24/15 BAY TERRACE SHOPPING CENTER 211-51 26 AVENUE • BAYSIDE, NY 11360 718.631.3699 *FREE with the purchase of glasses. Contact Lens Exam and EYE EXAM fitting add’l. *See store for details. QC $99 DISPOSABLE CONTACTS Includes: EYE EXAM, 2 Boxes of Lenses Clear Soft brand clear spherical Lenses/ *Contact lens fitting additional. Not valid with any other offers, sales, vision plans or packages. Must present prior to purchase. Offer valid at this location only. Some restrictions apply, See store for details. QC Expires 5/24/15 SPRING SAVINGS $100 OFF A FREE PAIR OF SUNGLASSES OR SPARE PAIR INCLUDES FREE EYE EXAM Second pair frame from select group with plastic, single vision lenses ‘+/- 4 sph, 2 cyl. 2013 st Dilation & contact lens exam additional. Not valid with any other offers, sales, vision plans or packages. Must present prior to purchase. Expires 5/24/15 of the THE QUEENS QueensCourier.com Place FLEX SPENDING Use it or lose it! QC buzz expected to make its offi cial launch during Queens Beer Week, which is set to kick off on May 10. The idea of the brewery was born after Acosta took a backpacking trip through Europe in 2004 and fell in love with Belgian beer. He had already been interested in craft beer, but while overseas, he was able to visit well-known Belgian breweries. When he came back to the United States he tried some Belgian beer at a California brewery and from there started brewing at home. At the time, Acosta was working in the construction industry and this got him interested in the process portion of making beer and how breweries are built. “I had all of that behind me to help drive having the idea to start a brewery,” he said. He later attended the Siebel Institute of Technology, an accredited brewing school, and received an education in brewing science. For the next eight years he studied and traveled around the world visiting breweries. With the idea of starting a brewery already in his head and wanting to create Belgian-inspired beers and American wild ales, he just wasn’t sure where he would call home. Then, three years ago, he met Oscarson, who had also been home-brewing beers, and Cavicchi, a wine and beer sommelier, and the idea of the brewery became a reality. The brewery is now located in Long Island City at 39-28 23rd St. and its site is slated to open in June, although LIC Beer Project will offi cially launch with three to four of its beers next month. “I felt there was really a need for these styles of beer here in the city so we all converged and wound up here in Long Island City and this is where it is beginning. We’re on a crazy journey here,” Acosta said. “We felt that LIC was a real up-and-coming area and we are very close to Manhattan, close to Brooklyn, so we felt that it was at the center of something big to happen.” The idea of the brewery is to create different types of beers, using various techniques, and all shooting to be dry, allowing for people to enjoy more. The main set of beers will go through weeks of fermentation, a second style will be brewed with wild yeast called brettanomyces, naturally occurring on fruits, and another batch will go through what is known as the coolship method. Through the coolship method these beers spend time in an open vessel, allowing what is naturally occurring in the air to ferment it, and then will be transferred to oak barrels. Through this method, which takes from six months to two years for beer to be ready, the brewers hope the beer will be exposed to the Queens air and have its own kind of “local touch” to it. “The reason we call it LIC Beer Project is because we have several different types of beer we’re going to do here starting from more traditional Belgium-inspired beer with their own American twist on them and then they’ll go through an evolution,” Acosta said. “So as we go through the different beers they’ll get more complex, more diffi culty in brewing process, more complex yeast characters.” Along with being home to the LIC Beer Project, the 23rd Street location will also serve as a taproom expected to be open to the public Fridays through Sundays starting in June. The taproom will have 10 beers on tap, which will constantly rotate in order to try different experimental beers and get feedback from visitors. The site will include seating and food, and tours of the brewery will also be given, in order to provide an educational portion. Visitors will also be able to walk around the 5,550-square-foot facility and get a fi rsthand look at the brewery’s production. “We’re going to make it a pretty interesting place for people to come and try something new,” Oscarson said. “We wanted to give people an experience when they come here and enjoy the beer as well. We wanted to give them an experience when they are drinking the beer and take them to a different place, so we wanted to do same thing with the taproom and brewery itself.” For now, the LIC Beer Project has three beers — Ardent Core, Evening’s Empire, and one yet to be named — ready to be released to the public, and after Queens Beer Week these selections will be available at various locations in Queens. Acosta added that the ultimate goal for the brewery would be to become a nationally known boutique brewery, sold at various markets around the country, but for now they will let the beer take them forward. “We’re going to keep evolving, keep working. We’re on like a beer odyssey. Sometimes things might work out and sometimes not,” Acosta said. “At the end of the day everything that we do is all about the beer.” Queens Beer Week to kick off second year with over 70 venues BY KELLY MARIE MANCUSO AND ANGY ALTAMIRANO editorial@queenscourier.com/@QueensCourier Something is brewing in Queens, and in just two weeks you’ll be able to get a cold glass of what the borough has to offer. The second annual Queens Beer Week will kick off its nine-day celebration of local breweries on May 8, with the fi nal event on May 17. According to organizer Daniel Bronson, a beer enthusiast and manager of Crescent and Vine in Astoria, this year’s event is expected to be bigger and better than the previous year, celebrating nine local breweries at over 70 borough-wide participating bars and restaurants. The celebration will include brewery tours, home brewing demos, tap takeovers, food and beer pairings, pub crawls, and more. May 8: Queens Beer Week kicks off with the offi - cial launch of Queens’ newest brewery, LIC Beer Project, at Crescent and Vine, located at 25-03 Ditmars Blvd. in Astoria. May 9: Rich Castagna of Bridge and Tunnel Brewery will host the Ridgewood Beer Bar Scavenger Hunt at various bars throughout Ridgewood. Players will search for clues and hidden items at local hot spots such as Julia’s Beer and Wine Bar, The Monk Ale House, Onderdonk & Sons, Bleachers Sports Bar and Queens Tavern. May 10: The offi cial Queens Beer Week Kick- Off Party (sold out) will be held at 4 p.m. at LIC Landing, located at 52-10 Vernon Blvd. in Long Island City. May 14: The fi lm “Blood, Sweat and Beer,” a documentary by fi lmmaker Chip Hiden chronicling the evolution of two start-up breweries, will premiere at SingleCut Beersmiths, located at 19-33 37th St. in Astoria. In addition to pours of SingleCut beer, viewers will also be treated to beer-inspired popcorn from Ma and Pa Kettle Corn Co. May 16: Long Island City-based breweries such as LIC Beer Project, Big Alice Brewing, Rockaway Brew Co. and Transmitter Brewing will offer tours and beer samples throughout the day. May 17: Queens Beer Week 2015 wraps up with the celebration of Finback Brewery’s one-year anniversary. Their new Barrel-Aged Plum and Proper, described as “a smoky sour dark ale brewed with fresh plums,” will be available in Finback’s taproom, located at 78-01 77th Ave. in Glendale. For the latest information and Queens Beer Week schedule, visit www.queensbeerweek.com.
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