Last night as we were gallavanting around with Edible Brooklyn in Williamsburg–at the grand opening of Pies-N-Thighs, naturally–we ran into craft beer connoisseur Josh Schaffner, the extremely motivated 25-year-old who launched the city-wide fall beer fest called NY Craft Beer Week three years ago. (We wrote about the series of beer dinners, bar crawls and craft beer specials last fall.)
Schaffner was on the not-quite-so-tail end of a 20-hour day hitting beer bars like the Blind Tiger in the West Village and Burp Castle in the East Village and Spuyten Duyvil in Williamsburg, which is where we ran into him over a $5 Reccesionator direct from Brooklyn’s Kelso Brewery.
It seems Josh and a pal have put together a few city Deck of Secrets, these little cigarette pack-like boxes that focus on beer bars or brunch spots. The company started with packs on Australia and Asia, and those two, managed by Josh, are the first two to hit New York City. Yes, cocktails should be coming soon. (See, we told you he was motivated.)
So the pair were hand-delivering a pack to each of the 70 pubs, taverns and dives that made up their Deck of Secrets: Beer Bars. Each slick little card contains a photo, a write-up of the place and its address and digits and days of operation on one side, with a nice little map of its location and neighborhood on the back.
The goal of the packs is less akin to Yelp or Citysearch, where you are searching for place in a price point in a neighborhood, Josh told us, though that’s certainly doable. Instead it’s more along the lines of those (tourists, and the urban adventurers, perhaps) who might like the idea of randomly pulling out a card and heading to its subject, or whizzing through the pack to find a place as-yet unknown. We fall into the latter camp (meaning urban adventurers) and we’re already planning our brew-based game of 52-pick up. Though you might have to pick us up off the floor once it’s over.
