Mugs Alehouse is part of a series of tidbits from the chapters of my book Bars, Taverns and Dives New Yorkers Love, published by Rizzoli. You can order it from Powell’s, Amazon, Rizzoli, and Barnes & Noble. Signed prints of all the bars in the book are available here.
Mugs Alehouse is what it is, and it’s excellent at being just that: the OG craft beer bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a neighborhood that’s gone from working-class to artists to hipsters to a tourist destination filled with millionaire condos à la SoHo. What Mugs is not is what owner Ed Berestecki calls a “fantasy beer bar,” like the latest wave of sleek, neon-free, ultra-sophisticated craft beer tasting rooms. “Not everybody wants that,” he says. “But they like a Weihenstephaner or a Hoegaarden. It’s hard to keep up with the beer world now. I’ve given up even counting the new breweries opening up in New York anymore. It’s gotten chaotic.” At Mugs you’ll get some of the best new brews, along with stalwarts like Smuttynose IPA, Anchor Liberty ale, Sierra Nevada pale ale, and, from the neighborhood brewery that kicked New York City craft brewing into gear, Brooklyn Brewery’s flagship lager, which Berestecki’s has had on tap since October 1992.
When to Visit Mugs Alehouse
Saturday afternoons, when Mugs is pleasantly bubbly with a mix of locals who love it and beer geeks on pilgrimages from all over. Stick around, have some eats, and see the place really get going at night. Another excellent option is stopping by Mugs for one of its special beer-tasting events, which you’ll find on the events section of their website. If updated. BIG “if.”
Where to Sit
Grab a table in the elevated “mezzanine section” to your right as you walk in the front door. Mugs Alehouse is an ideal place to hang out with friends, drink beer, and talk, and that’s best done at a table, especially if there’s more than two of you. On warm afternoons, try to score a table on the patio out back, get your pints, and while the day away.
What to Drink
• Start with a Smuttynose IPA. It’s a fan favorite at Mugs and they blow through gallons and gallons of it, so you’re sure to get a fresh pint of very good beer from Hampton, New Hampshire, just up the road.
• Then get whatever they have on tap from Brooklyn’s own Other Half Brewing. “Their beers are phenomenal,” says Berestecki. They brew about five miles from Mugs Alehouse, so you’ll get to enjoy a fresh IPA. And “a fresh IPA,” as Ed says, “is a thing of beauty.”
Happy hour: Monday–Friday, 2–7 p.m. $1 off all pints (except casks), house wine, and well drinks
Next up:
Montero’s of Brooklyn Heights, since 1939, where sailors and stevedores and seamen once drank their paychecks and beat each other up, and another chapter of my book Bars, Taverns and Dives New Yorkers Love, which you can order right here. Limited-edition signed prints of the bars are available here.