Beer Culture

Beer Culture sits on West 45th Street in Hell's Kitchen, a few minutes from the theatres, with fourteen taps and around ninety cans and bottles weighted deliberately towards New York-area brewers. Craft Beer & Brewing caught what makes it work: an unpretentious beer bar with homey vibes, low ceilings and soft lighting, where amid all the attractions competing for your attention in New York, settling in here feels like taking refuge in a friend's basement. The kitchen does smashburgers, bratwurst, crusty pretzels with jalapeño cheese, bar pies and chili. It opens at 3pm most days and 1pm at weekends, running to 2am from Thursday, and it is 21-and-over after 9pm. There is a sister bar, Gebhard's Beer Culture, on the Upper West Side — a different address with a different tap list.

What earns it a place here is that the non-alcoholic beers are a printed section of the menu headed simply Non-Alcoholic, and the selection has clearly been made by someone who cares. Six are on it, and the spread of strengths is the interesting part. Guinness Draught 0.0 is a genuine 0% — the only true zero on the list, and worth knowing if you avoid trace alcohol entirely. Go Brewing's Freedom Hazy is 0.2%, and is also crafted without gluten, which quietly makes it the most accommodating beer in the building. Go's Sunbeam Pilsner is 0.4%. Three sit at the more common 0.5%: Go Brewing's The Story, Momentum Brewery's Hazy IPA out of Bay Shore on Long Island, and Athletic Brewing's Upside Dawn. Three of the six coming from a single specialist non-alcoholic brewer, and one from a small New York State producer, tells you this is a considered shelf rather than whatever the distributor pushed. The bar also stocks gluten-free beers in the bottle shop, and says so plainly in its own FAQ. Prices are not published online — the tap list runs through a live board that carries strengths and breweries but no figures — so you will find out at the bar.