Bushwick Beer Distribution on Bushwick Avenue, near the intersection with Flushing, is a low-slung warehouse that announces itself with a faded sign that looks ready to tumble to the street below. In the morning, as I drive to work, the warehouse is shuttered. In the afternoon, after a long day of teaching and coaching, when a beer is likely on the mind, no activity suggesting beer distribution is evident inside.

This is, of course, the sad irony of Bushwick today. The neighborhood was once the center of New York’s thriving brewing culture, and, according to the Encyclopedia of New York City, housed as many as fourteen major breweries — including well-known stalwarts like Rheingold and Schaefer. Many of the dilapidated mansions along Bushwick Avenue were the dwellings of German entrepreneurs who made their buck fermenting hops.

Well, that’s all gone now. The Germans, along with most of Bushwick’s white residents, decamped for greener pastures (i.e., Long Island), while the gradual corporate takeover of brewing has all but destroyed the little guy (thank you, Anheuser Busch). Thus we are left with Bushwick Beer Distribution, hemmed in by auto repair shops and housing projects, living out its last, inglorious days. And those days are numbered: men in construction masks can be seen working in the afternoon, and Property Shark shows that a new owner, probably intent on rehabilitating the property, bought the building six years ago.

I wonder, however, if things will ever change. Brooklyn Lager is thriving, and the rise of microbrews has challenged the supremacy of Coors, Miller, and other piss-water behemoths. In addition, as the popular Saturday tours at the Brooklyn Brewery demonstrate, the young and moneyed who’ve made Brooklyn their home have an interest in beer culture. Smaller brewers might one day find their way back to Bushwick. It would be nice if urban renewal took on the deep amber of a well-pulled pint.

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