In days of old, Brooklyn was a haven for breweries, with factories and distilleries of all sorts lining the borough’s waterways. Things changed with time though, as the factories closed and New York transitioned from an industrial city into a post-industrial one.

However, a dedicated community of craft brewers remain who keep the storied history of Brooklyn-brewed beers alive. Such is the case at Other Half Brewing.

“There were once over 35 breweries here, but now there is nothing,” explained Geriz Ramirez, General Manager at Other Half Brewing, during our paper’s recent site visit at the company’s new Domino Park location.

Founded in 2014 in Carroll Gardens, Other Half Brewing has always been rooted by its simple mission to push the boundaries of craft beers. Since then, the company has found a loyal community of fans and opened additional breweries in upstate New York and Washington D.C. and has participated in festivals throughout the U.S.

Earlier this year, Other Half opened a Domino Park location along the Williamsburg waterfront. The new site comes with a state-of-the-art brewing system that will help the company push the envelope in the craft-brewing industry.

“This is basically an R&D [research and development] location,” Ramirez explained. “So we test things out and if something works we will expand it to something bigger. It’s pretty amazing.”

Ramirez works alongside Stjepan Pavich (Other Half’s Head of Innovations) and Anthony Finley (Other Half’s Tasting Room Manager) at the Domino Park location. Together, the jovial trio — all of whom live nearby in Brooklyn and Queens — work to dream up the most innovative and original beverages they can imagine.

“The innovation helps bring customers into this location but it also gives us an opportunity to see what we can scale up for the other locations,” Pavich explained while showing off their impressive five-barrel brewing system.

This summer, Other Half’s Domino Park team is celebrating the launch of their new Oh2 Hard Seltzer. The summery drink was first brewed on site in March of this year, and is now being shipped out to Other Half’s other locations.

“If I’m making a seltzer, I want it to be as crisp and clear as possible,” Pavich said. “We made it a blank canvas so we could mold it into whatever we wanted it to be.”
The Oh2 seltzer lineup includes Ginger Lime Mule, a rendition of the classic Moscow Mule with a ginger beer kick, and All Citrus Everything, a refreshing and tart seltzer finished with pink grapefruit juice. Additional flavors made with all-natural ingredients are scheduled to drop later this summer, all of which will max out at just 120 calories per 12-ounce can.

Pavich — who first learned how to make wine from his father — has found that working for Other Half is both rewarding and enjoyable.

“In my 20s I was home-brewing a lot and I hated my job,” he explained with a chuckle. “Luckily I ended up here. We are all friends too and aside from work we actually hang out.”

The innovative nature of the Domino Park location in particular allows the brewing team to pursue their fantasies of the perfect beverage.

“I personally love stouts and lagers. We recently just made a banana lager. It turned out to be pretty amazing,” Ramirez said. “It had all those strong flavors of banana without being a puree. Stuff like that I really like. It’s my dream.”

“It’s fun that the system allows us to experiment,” Finely chimed in. “It’s quiet in the morning when we come in, we have a nice view while we work, and it’s fun all day.”

The Domino Park team is excited about some of the other projects it has planned for down the line, including experiments with daiquiris, dried fruits, and even pistachio nuts.

Even though this innovative trio is having fun, brewing is still hard work. Unlike a larger brewery, there is no automation at Other Half and all the work must be done by hand. This includes working with heavy equipment and chemicals.

Additionally, the Other Half team opted to wait pretty long until reopening after the pandemic, keeping it’s locations closed until well into 2021.

“We took a long time for that though,” said Ramirez. “We opened our tap room pretty late because we wanted all our employees to feel safe and for our customers to know that we care.”

Luckily, the brewery is fully open once again, opening the door for innovation, creation, and fun times.

“We are at full capacity right now,” Ramirez said with a smile. “We have free will to do whatever we want.”

Other Half Domino Park is located at 34 River Street and is open for indoor and outdoor seating. A variety of cans and bottles are also available for curbside pickup and neighborhood bike delivery.

New York City’s Primary Elections happened just over two weeks ago, but the city’s board of elections is still in the thick of tabulating the vote. With the addition of ranked choice voting this year and drama stemming from the elections board’s dysfunction, figuring out the winner of each election has not been straightforward, yet the field of candidates has narrowed down in some races.

As of July 6, Eric Adams holds a slight lead over Kathryn Garcia in the race to be the Democratic Party’s mayoral nominee, according to election results compiled by Spectrum News. Adams has 51.1 percent of the vote and Garcia has 48.9 percent. In terms of who could win, Adams was the clear favorite as the race’s initial results trickled in, but that clarity was stymied by the revelation of 135,000 test ballots that errantly made their way into the voting system.

NYC’s BOE released a statement via Twitter on June 30 to try and soothe widely held concerns over the board’s ability to properly manage the tabulation process around RCV. They said that the voting tallies were off for mayoral nominees because of ballot images that were not cleared from the Election Management System during a test run. The statement said, “Let us be clear: RCV was not the problem, rather a human error that could have been avoided.”

Ranked choice voting applies to the following races this year: mayor, public advocate, comptroller, borough president, and numerous city council elections. And while hundreds of thousands of voters went to the polls on June 22, the last day that the city will not have finalized ballots until July 9. Despite not having a complete vote, the city released a preliminary round-by-round elimination report on June 29 and another on July 6.

The city will release these unofficial reports each week until the election is fully certified. The result of each election that is determined by ranked choice voting will not truly be known until all absentee and military ballots are collected and counted. While some candidates are content with how the voting process is being handled, others have voiced concerns over a lack of transparency.

One of the reasons that the election process can feel dragged out in some races is due to the ballot curing process. Some races don’t need to take them into consideration because of the lead candidate’s margin of victory, but in closer races the ballots can add weeks to the process.

“There were people who made mistakes when filling out there ranked-choice ballot and those were thrown out,” said Martha Ayon, a Queens-based political consultant. “The ballot curing process is only concerned with errors made to the envelope that the ballot is in, not errors made in filling out the ballot itself.”

As per the Queens races, Donovan Richards is the incumbent Queens Borough President and ran against Elizbeth Crowley in this year’s election. The two faced off in a special Democratic primary last year where Richards won, but the general election was cancelled due to safety concerns over the pandemic.

While Richards won that race by a margin of over 10,000 votes, Crowley seems to have gained traction since then. Currently, less than 2,000 votes separate the two among preliminary voting reports, with Richards slightly on top. A victor will be declared in the coming weeks as absentee ballots come in to fill out the picture.

“There’s two sides to each ballot – the envelope side and the actual ballot,” Ayon said, explaining that thousands of ballots will end up discarded because of improper dates or signatures in the wrong spot. “There’s people who actually did not vote – without knowing – because once their ballots were opened by the board of elections they were technically thrown out.”

“If the board of elections worker thinks there’s an error with someone’s ballot, they should fold the ballot up and put it aside, contact the voter and give them seven days to come in and fill it out,” Moya said. “In the end, the board throws it out because the ballot is invalidated.”

I hope everyone had a happy and healthy 4th of July. Now that our national birthday party is over until next year, we must all again focus on saving the lives of our Veterans at risk. As we enjoy our summer rituals of beaches, barbecues, travel, and other recreational activities, let us make sure that those who make those traditions possible, also get to enjoy them.

We Veterans are the smallest minority group in our population, yet we suffer from the dual epidemics of cancer and suicide at much higher rates than civilians. The reasons for this are many, but the solution is simple. The solution is: The Gold Shield. Most people are shocked and offended when they learn that almost every hour of every day, another Veteran is lost to suicide, and an even greater number are lost to cancer, and those tragic numbers are directly caused by military service.

To make matters worse, the government does little to improve the situation. Since the government cannot solve the problem, it is up to us – the private sector. The Gold Shield is the mechanism we all can use to deliver services Vets need to reduce their appalling death toll. It is tragic when we lose any service member on the battlefield – but it is UNFORGIVABLE TO KEEP ON LOSING THEM AT HOME.

The charming streets of Forest Hills are lined with restaurants, cafes, diners, and food carts. With so much variety, there’s no time to visit them all. If you’re in a rush, grab a quick meal to eat while you’re on the go. For those with more time on their hands, bring a friend and dine-in at our selection of restaurants. 

Spy C Cuisine
First on our list is Spy C Cuisine, a Michelin star restaurant that serves authentic Sichuan and Hunan food. Spy C was awarded the Bib Gourmand award in 2020. Start off your meal with their famous spicy cucumber salad, which Chef Thomas Lo described as “the best cucumber salad he had ever tasted.” He now cooks for Spy C. Michelin reviewers recommend the stir-fried lamb and fish fillet. Try these dishes and more at 72-06 Austin Street.

Queens Bully 

Queens Bully has got everything you could ever want out of a restaurant. This gastropub has indoor and outdoor seating, happy hour specials, a cocktail bar, and live music on weekends. Their menu consists of burgers, tacos, and barbeque. They even have bottomless brunch. Customers describe Queens Bully to have amazing vibes. Check it out at 113-30 Queens Blvd. 

Knish Nosh