Foreword
A warning: Three things are bound to happen as you read this book. First, periodically, you will become thirsty. Prepare your refrigerator. Second, you will want to visit the Brooklyn Brewery for a tour. Prepare your itinerary. And finally, if you have ever considered starting your own business, you will be inspired—and scared. Prepare yourself.
As someone who began a start-up company in 1981 with three men and a coffeepot, Steve Hindy’s and Tom Potter’s story rings true as an honest accounting of the sheer determination—and good luck—required to nurture a business from conception to maturity—and the inevitable mistakes that are made along the way. But their success story is about more than the birth of a brewery; it’s about the rebirth of a borough. In so many ways, the Brooklyn Brewery symbolizes—and helped to create—the renaissance that has taken hold in Brooklyn.
When Steve and Tom leased an old ironworks building in Williamsburg in 1994, the once thriving industrial district had long lost its vitality. For decades, manufacturing jobs had been moving out of Williamsburg and overseas, leaving behind abandoned warehouses and crumbling buildings. To many, Brooklyn seemed to be dying. But Tom and Steve believed in Brooklyn’s history—its rich tradition of brewing and its wealth of cultural icons and institutions: Walt Whitman, Jackie Robinson, and all the Dodger greats, Coney Island and the Cyclone, the Brooklyn Bridge—to name a few. They understood that Brooklyn is more than an address; it’s a spirit, an attitude, an identity. And they bet—correctly—that hometown pride would lead New Yorkers to embrace Brooklyn beer as their own.
In the more than 10 years since the brewery opened, Brooklyn beer has become a popular and successful brand, and Williamsburg has grown into one of New York City’s hottest residential neighborhoods. Steve and Tom helped make Williamsburg hip—sponsoring block parties and music festivals and opening the brewery to tours and Friday night happy hours. But as the area changed from a decaying industrial center to a vibrant residential neighborhood, its antiquated zoning regulations prevented the development of new housing and sealed off the waterfront from residents.
As the city began the process of rezoning the area, community input was solicited. Steve and Tom helped residents participate in the discussion by hosting a public meeting at the brewery attended by city officials. In May 2005, with strong support from the community, the city completed the largest waterfront rezoning in its history, which will result in new housing along a waterfront esplanade. In addition, the plan creates a special industrial park to ensure that manufacturing companies—like the Brooklyn Brewery—can continue to succeed and grow in the area.
More than opening their doors to community events, Steve and Tom have taken an active role in Brooklyn’s civic life, sponsoring fund-raisers for Prospect Park and exhibits at the Brooklyn Historical Society. New Yorkers, especially myself, are particularly grateful for their support of the Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese monument commissioned for KeySpan Park, home of the Brooklyn Cyclones. Steve and Tom are helping to bring the monument to life by generously donating $1 from every case and $5 from every keg that they sell of Brooklyn Pennant Ale ’55.
Beer School is the story of the incredible challenges—most of them unanticipated—that entrepreneurs experience and the hard road that is traveled from planning to profit. But Steve and Tom have done more than build a profitable business; they have played an integral part in revitalizing Williamsburg and fostering Brooklyn’s renaissance. In doing so, their public-spirited brewery has become part of Brooklyn’s identity. I tip my hat, and lift my glass, to them both.
Michael R. Bloomberg
New York City
June 2005