Beer Garden Tour 2010 Fourth Stop: Loreley Williamsburg Beer Garden

Yesterday we checked out the Loreley Beergarden in Willimasburg, Brooklyn to celebrate our friends birthdays. It's a carved out on a corner of Frost and Meeker, right off exit 32B on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. So it's a tad loud. But it's a sweet cozy space, the outside is surrounded by a high sculptured brick fence and it's well shaded with the beergarden umbrellas. The space inside was beautiful with a large skylight, the bar is open on both sides so you could sit outside or in. The space used to be a filling station.

The legend of Lorelei

They have 12 imported beers on tap and a the German menu of small plates and entrees. Get a basket of pretzels with your first round, made to order, soft and hot. I think our crowd ordered just about every beer, and we got the wursts and the cold platter. I want to go back and try those classic German dishes, Eisbein and Rheinischer Sauerbraten.

Bathrooms are individual, nice, clean and kind of dark, so I don't know what use the mirror is, you can barely see it. Odd, hidden, dark lighting.

We let our beautiful afternoon sooth into the evening, when the strand of lights came on and we had to leave this lovely little oasis. We were off to the Brooklyn Bowl to catch Those Darlins. It was just blocks away, right near the waterfront. It was a huge space, bowling lanes, big stage and dance floor, restaurant area, bars. There was so much room to mill about without feeling like you're crowded out. Large tables and benches you can sit without having to order anything. And it was a $5 door! It was a 23,000 sq ft entertaining mecca.

Happy Birthday Corinne and Juliet! Thank you for inviting me to a swell afternoon and evening!

All photos by Michael O'Keefe

Loreley Beergarden
64 Frost Street
(corner of Meeker and Frost)
Brooklyn, NY 11211
Williamsburg
(718)599-0025


Brooklyn Bowl
61 Wythe Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(718)963-3369

Beer Garden Tour 2010 Second Stop: Radegast Hall & Biergarten

My second stop on the Beer Garden Tour took us to Radegast Hall Biergarten in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I looked up the word "radegast" and Wiki says it is the West Slavic god of hospitality, fertility, and crops associated with war and sun. Yes, I felt the hospitality, warmly welcomed in the cavernous, darkly appointed, main hall, with dim chandeliers and a long bar that swings around to the back to connect to the enclosed biergarten. Under the sun of protective glass and brick walls is the beer hall (technically it is a beer hall, not a biergarten, because it is enclosed), which was added in 2007. It does have a vaulted nice airy feel about it with large windows opened to let the breeze in. There's your long tables with crops of people hoisting the liter steins of drafts. I was feeling it for sure and that was before I dove into my first liter. This is where the war comes in, the battle of what to taste first. 13 draft beers in pints, liters and pitchers and 52 bottled beers. One for each week of the year! Where do they keep them all? The basement must be huge.

We ate dinner here and had the Veal Schnitzel. Only thing missing for me was the cranberry sauce, but the veal was good. The potato salad was excellent and the pickles?? Can I please take a jar home? We had the strudel with hazelnut and fig ice cream, yum! The whole menu is typical Austro/Hungarian fare which I wish I could have tried all of them last night. There's a grill in the beer hall with all your brats and sausages with all the fixins (7 mustards!) made to order if you don't want to go for the dinner menu route. I thought the prices were reasonable, even for the beer, the larger you go, the better the price. Bring lots of friends and share all that great food with all that beer. Go early though, it fills up fast.

Did you know? A major misspelling is Weiner Schnitzel instead of Wiener

Now ladies, be prepared for the bathroom situation. For the size of this place and the amount of people it holds drinking beer ( a typical weekend night has 700-800 people passing through!), why only two toilets for the ladies? Sorry, I don't know the count for the gents. And I saw plenty of gents in the ladies line. An expansion was made not that long ago for the beer hall, couldn't you have at least added a few more "release" stations while you were at it? Update what you have there? Loved the large pyramid piles of toilet paper (my bathroom ran out of paper towels and this was early!) but would rather have seen more facilities. Maybe that's part of "authentic" Euro charm, but I've been to biergartens in Europe and you never had to wait in line for relief. But that's just me, I like clean and plentiful bathrooms when I drink gallons of beer. Oh well, pace yourself folks!

Radegast has featured live entertainment on schedule monthly. There is an early bird daily special of beer and food pairings that end in beer and dessert pairings Monday though Friday. Doesn't that sound like heaven? In celebration of spring, they're featuring two Maibocks, both from Munich. I loved the space, it's definitely a fertile hang for a great time. We walked around the locality. We stopped in at Relish (225 Wyth Ave.) for a night cap and strolled to the waterfront where all of beautiful Manhattan was all a glittering. There's free concerts there all summer. Thank you to Tabea, for suggesting this meeting place. The Radegast god showed me a fun night!

Radegast Hall & Biergarten
113 N 3rd Street Williamsburg Brooklyn, NY 11211 718-963-3973
www.radegasthall.com