On Saturday, June 19th 2021, Bitter & Esters will have been open for ten years! I have been thinking about how to describe this momentous occasion. Should I talk about all of the awesome people we’ve met? All the cool events we’ve hosted and attended? The brewery bike rides? The authors and brewery owners we’ve presented at the store? All of the breweries that have opened in the city by both customers and former employees? Should I speak of all of the incredible homebrews we’ve had the pleasure to sample? Speaking of sampling homebrew, what about the beer swaps we’ve hosted every month? The one and only Brewminaries homebrew club starting out of said swap? The Homebrewsicians? The See what you Can Brew podcast? Winning homebrew shop of the year in 2019? I have to at least speak about the support and love we received during the Covid-19 pandemic. So much I could talk about since Doug and I had this crazy idea to open a homebrew shop.
It would be a long post and a lot of these things I have already documented throughout the years in our blog. I decided to talk about you, the customers and supporters of our little shop in Brooklyn. You see, all of those events, classes, beers, swaps, everything that happens in and around the store, would not exist without you. So I can talk about these things, but you already know about them because you were there. Maybe not at every one of them. (I was at every one of them. Yikes.)
If you are reading this, you were part of making it all happen, whether you’ve been with us from the beginning or just learned to homebrew. A small business is not just the owners or the employees, it’s also the customers. We can humbly say that this particular small business has had the best customers any business could have. That is why we have been here ten years and why we will keep crushing it. Thank you so much for the happiness, love and support you have showered us with in the past ten years, through the good times and the bad. We are truly blessed.
John & Doug
(and the rest of the B&E Crew)