Radicals

With the strong belief that local breweries play an important role in their communities, the founders of Other Half Brewing are filling a craft-beer void in New York City.

“OPENING A BREWERY IN

New York City was one of the best ideas we’ve ever had,” says Samuel Richardson. He and his business partners Matt Monahan and Andrew Burman launched Other Half Brewing Company in Brooklyn in 2014. “When we opened, we were the first brewery to open in Brooklyn in nine years, and prior to that, there were only Brooklyn Brewery, Six Point, and Greenpoint Beer Works.”

New York City, says Richardson, is an under-served city when it comes to local beer. He grew up in Portland, Oregon, and came to New York by way of Oregon State University’s Fermentation Science program, The RAM Restaurant and Brewery in Seattle, and Pyramid Brewery in Portland. Compared to the Pacific Northwest, New York’s “beer drinkers didn’t have local breweries to call their own.”

Richardson moved from the Northwest to Brooklyn to work at Greenpoint Beer Works, where he would meet Matt Monahan. “Matt came in looking for a job as a brewer because he’d been working as a chef and was sick of those hours,” Richardson says. “Matt and Andrew, both trained chefs, met when they were working together in kitchens. Having people around who are interested in good food and flavor comes in handy.”

Richardson, Monahan, and Burman filled New York’s craft-beer void with Other Half Brewing on the edge of Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn. And then they filled their fermentors with IPA.

India pale ale comprises 85 percent of Other Half ’s current production, Richardson says. His only year-round beer, Other Half IPA, is modeled on what he remembers of West Coast–style IPAS in the 1990s and early 2000s. “Those IPAS are more focused on bitterness [than IPAS from other parts of the country], and they tend to employ Old School hops such as Cascade, Centennial, and Chinook,” he says. Other Half IPA is additionally focused on aroma with nuanced notes of fresh citrus, pine, stone fruit, and malt sweetness.

Other Half also brews the Forever Ever Session IPA, Hop Showers IPA, Green Diamonds Double IPA, and the 10.5 percent ABV All Green Everything “Triple IPA, for lack of a better name,” Richardson says. These beers are canned regularly enough