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Hazelnut Brown Ale
As a testament to the impact of this
unparalleled hazelnut brown, Robby Crafton, one of the brewers at Big Alice, told me that he remembered trying this beer for the first time a year earlier. It’s that memorable. And it is with that stamp of approval that I confidently place Rich Castagna’s Hazelnut Brown securely at the top of this list. Much like the Farmhouse by Transmitter, this beer catches your nose long before it reaches your lips with the soft smell of hazelnut thickly wafting from the top of the glass. Part of how Castagna gets such rich flavoring is in his use of fire over steam to heat during the brewing process. The rest comes straight from the heart. Inspired by his mother’s support in her final years, Castagna opened a microbrewery in her Maspeth garage and named one of his inaugural beers in her honor. From the start, he has been in the habit of giving his beers meaningful names. Take his “$20 and a Switch Blade” for example, named for a time when the father of the Queens Kickshaw’s owner, who was being bullied, sent him to school with $20 in one pocket and a switchblade in the other and made him decide which one he was going to use. Heck, even the paddle that Castagna uses to stir his mash has a great story behind it. The bottom line is, while he is a pretty solid dude and about as hard working as is humanly possible, he’s pretty sentimental, and that sensitivity comes across in all of his creations. While he is still brewing out of his late mother’s garage, Castagna hopes to expand in the near future into a space with a tap room, because for him, brewing is all about the people. And maybe that’s why people love his beers so much.
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