Mikkeller to open brewpub in New York Mets’ stadium
Is this the beginning of the end of gypsy brewing, now that its supremo, Denmark’s Mikkel Borg Bjergso, better known as Mikkeller, announced in July 2017 that he would open a brewery and restaurant in New York later this year?
It will be his second brewery in the US, complementing his San Diego plant, and his 32nd location worldwide.
For a dedicated runner like Mr Bjergso, the choice of location is interesting. Mikkeller NYC will be built inside Citi Field, in Flushing, Queens, which is the home stadium of the New York Mets baseball team (in case you don’t follow this sport).
As was reported, Mikkeller plans to build a 10,000-square-foot brewpub (~900 sqm) in the non-ticketed area of the stadium, meaning visitor can come to the brewery all year-round and not just during the baseball season.
The venture includes a 20-barrel brewhouse and a restaurant plus bar with 60 taps, serving Mikkeller’s beers, collaboration brews, and other craft offerings from around the state and country.
The majority of production will be sold for in-house and off-premise consumption, though a smaller amount of beer might see broader distribution.
In terms of size, Mikkeller NYC resembles the company’s Copenhagen brewpub Warpigs, which it runs jointly with US craft brewer Three Floyds from Indiana. Warpigs cost EUR 2.5 million (USD 3 million) to set up. Thanks to Mikkeller taking in Orkila Capital from New York, a private equity firm, as a minority partner in 2016, financing the NYC expansion should not be a problem.
Mikkeller would not disclose financial details relating to the project, saying only it was leasing the space from the Mets. The Mets organisation itself is not investing in the project.
This is not the first collaboration between the Mets and Mikkeller. To launch the 2017 baseball season, the brewery made a pair of beers specifically for Citi Field: Henry Hops, an IPA, and Say Hey Sally, a Pilsner. The beers are packaged in cans featuring the Mets’ blue and orange colours.
Henry Hops and Say Hey Sally, the so-called “ballpark beers”, are currently brewed in San Diego, but production is expected to relocate to New York when Mikkeller NYC is up and running.
Incidentally, US media could not refrain from pointing out that Evil Twin, the fellow Danish “drifter brewer”, who is no other than Mr Bjergso’s twin brother, will soon be opening a brewery in nearby Brooklyn.
Take it as an indication that craft beer has finally become mainstream American culture: Mikkeller is hardly the first brewery to operate in a baseball stadium. Since the 1990s, Coors has run the SandLot brewery at Coors Field in Denver, Colorado, home of the Rockies team, where it showcases the Blue Moon beer. In October 2016, Georgia’s Terrapin brewery, also majority-owned by MillerCoors, partnered with the Atlanta Braves team to build a microbrewery and taproom at the newly opened SunTrust Park in the state’s capital Atlanta.
While not actually going for a brewpub inside their stadiums, other baseball teams have switched allegiances from Big Brewers to craft brewers. In Kansas City, the Royals team named Boulevard, owned by Belgium’s Duvel Moortgat, its official craft beer partner this past March. About a week after that, the Chicago White Sox ended a three-decade-long marketing partnership with Miller, naming, among others, Goose Island, Bell’s, and Founders as new marketing partners, it was reported.
