A peek inside One Stop. Photo by Sam Horine, via Gothamist. Click through for a slideshow.
On a frigid winter night last month I went to the grand opening of One Stop Beer Shop, a growler shop/beer bar at 134 Kingsland Avenue in East Williamsburg. I was greeted with the smell of popcorn wafting out the door and an overflowing room of drinkers.
A bookshelf stuffed with old books, a communal L-shaped table, an exposed brick wall and soft lighting maintain the building’s original 1920s aesthetic (the bar was designed by Tanya Beuyikian).
One Stop also features a chandelier made from mason jars and a very friendly and knowledgeable staff.
“You can come here a complete amateur in beer and our bartenders will tell you more than you’ll ever need to know,” says General Manager, Stas Andreevich Chizhik.
Its owner, Benjamin Roshia, is also the director of operations at Music Unites, a non-profit organization that helps bring music education to students in inner city schools. He used to play a little saxophone himself.
On New Year’s Day a couple got engaged in the shop. Said Roshia, “I always wanted to have the kind of place where people get engaged because their parents got engaged there.” He hopes One Stop will be that place.
Roshia has been working in the bar industry in both Europe and the U.S. since he was 14 years old. It took a year from the time he and Chizhik first sketched out their idea for One Stop to open. It’s the only growler shop of its kind in the area and the only bar to offer so many beer cocktails on its menu.
Instead of using standard taps, One Stop features one-of-a-kind growler machines that force CO2 into the growler and push the oxygen out. The beer fills up without any foam, and it remains fresh and carbonated for up to three weeks unopened (but who would wait that long?).
Said Chizhik, “We’ve always wanted to open up a growler shop, but then we realized that by combining a shop and a full bar we could achieve something that no one else was doing. And that’s how the beer cocktails came in.”
Roshia and several other mixologists, including Shem Blum from Original Moonshine, spent two months coming up with the menu, including 10 signature cocktails which are still being tweaked to perfection.
On the menu for the evening–aside from the 100 craft beer options–were four beer cocktails: “Orange You Glad,” “Clandestine Moon,” “Sinfully Original” and “MiShinelada.”
I took on the “Orange You Glad” Cocktail. It was a mix of Original Moonshine Whiskey, agave, orange juice, muddled orange and lemon, and Brooklyn Winter Ale. Delicious, light and super refreshing.
The “MiShinelada,” made with Original Moonshine, tomato juice, lime juice, sriracha, Tabasco sauce and Brooklyn Lager, was next on my list and really spiced things up. It’s very spicy, but the tomato juice and lime juice really balance it out nicely.
The bar plans to have delivery service starting at the end of this month for both food and growlers. They’re still figuring out how far out they’ll deliver and the second they do they’ll be biking orders all over town. You can choose from 15 draft beers to fill your growler (a $4 deposit). For food they have a pulled pork sandwich and “Grilled Cheese Bites” (artisan cheddar cheese with truffle oil!) which both come with a delicious chipotle mayo sauce on the side. And they’ve just started serving Stone Street Coffee, which is fair trade and organic.
The next morning I woke up with a hankering for some more. I returned to the shop for the $5 beer and whiskey shot special and a taste of the “Redneck Mimosa” at around 2 p.m. (that’s still morning to me). The Redneck Mimosa is made with Combier Liqueur d’Orange, orange juice and a double white beer. I guarantee a full glass will get you more than just buzzed.
One Stop Beer Shop (134 Kingsland Ave.) opens at 1 daily and closes at 2 a.m. Sun-Wed and 3:30 a.m. Thurs-Sat.
I thought 11222 was still called Greenpoint?