We sat down with Garrett Oliver, brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewery, to get the lowdown on their iconic Brooklyn Lager—the first beer to be inducted into our Craft Beer Hall of Fame.
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00:00So I have to say, this is very cool.
00:08Do you mind if I do this with it?
00:10I'm Garrett Oliver. I'm brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewery.
00:13This is my hat, known as the Crown Prince.
00:15And together, we rule over this place.
00:26It's kind of funny because after all these years,
00:29you still feel like the snot-nosed kid, the insurgent.
00:32And in a certain way, as craft brewers, all of us still are.
00:37Well, Steve Hinde and Tom Potter started the company.
00:40Steve and I knew each other when we were both home brewers
00:43back in the late 80s and early 90s.
00:45By the time I came on in 94,
00:47I think Brooklyn Lager had started to lose its way flavor-wise a little bit.
00:51So I just kind of tightened things up.
00:54That's pretty good if I do say so myself.
00:56When Brooklyn Lager was introduced,
00:59basically beer was one kind of yellow, fizzy liquid.
01:03That was the stuff that people knew as beer.
01:05When people saw Brooklyn Lager, the first thing they said is,
01:08what's wrong with it?
01:10What do you mean what's wrong with it? It's beautiful. It's dark.
01:13It's like, well, it's amber-colored because it has some caramelized malts.
01:16What's that smell?
01:18It's like, oh, well, we've added some hops,
01:20It's like, oh, well, we've added some hops,
01:22and they would taste it. It's like, my God, it's so bitter.
01:25And then immediately it's like, get out.
01:27I don't want anything from Brooklyn.
01:29This isn't beer. Like, what are you talking about?
01:31And literally, people would freak out, and they would be angry.
01:37Really, the thing that we always had confidence in
01:40was other people's good taste.
01:42Put the beer in front of them, let them drink it,
01:45and let them come around to their own conclusion.
01:47Every cultural event, et cetera, that happened in Brooklyn,
01:50we were always there.
01:52We were among the founding people to support Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival.
01:56And people would taste the beer, and they'd say,
01:58you know what? This is pretty good.
02:02I think today Brooklyn Lager is in 36 or 37 countries.
02:06I've had it everywhere from Shanghai to Australia.
02:11Absolutely worldwide.
02:13What was a strange little beer 25 or 30 years ago
02:18has grown into the everyday beer for so many people all over the world.
02:22But we haven't changed. Everybody else changed.
02:26We stayed exactly where we were, and we waited for them to come to us.
02:30The easy way would have been,
02:32why don't we dumb it down a little bit so that you can be fine with it?
02:36Flavor's too big? We'll dumb it down.
02:38Color's too dark? We'll dumb it down.
02:40Aroma's too big? We'll dumb it down.
02:42And instead, we held firm, and we said,
02:45this beer is exactly the beer we want to drink,
02:47and eventually we think that a lot of people will come to like it.
02:50And they did.