Brooklyn Brewery is leveling up in Williamsburg, shifting into a much larger home at 1 Wythe Avenue with a soft opening slated for late summer and a grand-opening celebration expected in the fall. The new headquarters, about four blocks from the brewery’s longtime North 11th Street tasting room, will feature a rooftop terrace bar, expanded brewing capacity and, for the first time, a full commercial kitchen. Brewery leaders say the space is nearly four times the size of the current taproom and is built to handle everything from casual pints to full-scale culinary programming.
Company frames it as a new public Main Hall
Eric Ottaway, Brooklyn Brewery’s CEO, is pitching the move as “a bigger idea about what a brewery can be,” with brewing, hospitality and community all pulled under one roof. Company materials cast a ground-floor “Main Hall” as the centerpiece, with flexible event spaces stacked on multiple levels and a built-in audio-visual system ready for music, talks and livestreamed happenings. The rollout will be phased, with a late-summer soft opening ahead of the full fall launch, and tours and guided tastings will return at the new site, according to PR Newswire.
Food, pizza and a demo kitchen
This time, the food is not an afterthought. Brooklyn Brewery is teaming up with chef Michael Ayoub, founder of Fornino, on a Neapolitan-style, pizza-forward menu plus other dishes designed specifically to play well with beer. The buildout includes a professional demo kitchen wired with live-streaming AV for culinary events and collaborations. The drink list is expanding too, with wine and cocktails joining the lineup so the space can function as an all-day dining spot and nighttime hangout, as reported by Time Out.
How big - and why it matters
Leasing materials show Brooklyn Brewery is taking roughly 41,000 square feet across the lower levels of the 1 Wythe Avenue building, which totals about 102,000 rentable square feet overall, according to Verada Retail. That footprint makes room for expanded small-batch production, a retail shop and large-scale event programming. The generous floorplates and street-level Main Hall are part of a conscious shift toward a public, event-friendly campus rather than a single tucked-away taproom, with development and leasing coverage tying the move into a broader transformation along the Wythe Avenue corridor, per the Commercial Observer.
Brewing, R&D and public programming
The upgraded brewhouse is set to become Brooklyn Brewery’s global R&D hub for experimental and small-batch beers, which the company says will allow more frequent specialty releases and collaborations. Brewmaster Garrett Oliver has described the new facility as a chance to “innovate” and to unite beer, wine and culinary programs in ways the old tasting room simply could not support. Fans are being urged to keep an eye on the brewery’s channels for programming details as the new location ramps up, per the announcement on PR Newswire.
What it means for Williamsburg
The move helps lock in 1 Wythe Avenue as a neighborhood anchor where food, office and manufacturing tenants are clustering along the Williamsburg–Greenpoint border. Community Board 1 filings show the brewery has applied for restaurant and liquor permits across multiple floors as part of the buildout, signaling a multi-level destination rather than a simple taproom. Recent real-estate coverage also points to the site as part of a wider wave of redevelopment near McCarren and Bushwick Inlet parks, a trend that is likely to bring more foot traffic, events and all-day activity to the surrounding blocks, according to CoStar and Community Board 1 records.
