Brooklyn Brewery plans bigger Williamsburg home with kitchen and events space

Brooklyn Brewery is not just changing addresses. It is building a far bigger Williamsburg home at 1 Wythe Avenue, four blocks from its longtime North 11th Street base, with nearly four times the capacity of the current site and a plan built around beer, food, events and more room to work.

The company said the new space will open with a soft launch later this summer and a grand opening celebration in the fall. Eric Ottaway said the project will include a kitchen, outdoor space, expanded programming and brewing capabilities, a combination that turns the move into a full hospitality play as much as a production upgrade. For a mature brewery, that mix matters: more ways to earn from visitors, more reasons to stay on site, and more flexibility to keep the flagship local rather than pushing it out of the neighborhood.

Brooklyn Brewery’s current Williamsburg tasting room is still listed at 79 N. 11th St., where the company says indoor service, to-go beer and gear are available. Tours at the current brewery have been paused because of the move. The company says its Williamsburg facility and tasting room first opened in 1996, making this relocation a new chapter for a brand that has been part of the neighborhood for decades.

The new home also points to how much a brewery now has to do to compete in a crowded urban market. Brooklyn Brewery’s own description of the project emphasizes a kitchen, outdoor space and expanded programming, while real estate reporting has pegged the new footprint at 41,000 square feet inside 1 Wythe Avenue. A property listing also described an 8,000-square-foot rooftop deck programmed by Brooklyn Brewery, with pizza ovens, lounge seating, open-air workspace and skyline views. On the waterfront, that gives the brewery something closer to a destination complex than a standard taproom.

Food will be central to that strategy. Chef Michael Ayoub, owner of Fornino, is helping shape the direction, with a focus on pizza and beer pairings. Fornino’s wood-fired style fits neatly into a brewery model that depends on longer visits, stronger hospitality revenue and a space that can pull in drinkers, diners and eventgoers at the same time. Even as Brooklyn Brewery keeps its roots in Williamsburg, the move to 1 Wythe Avenue shows how a flagship now has to function like a brewery, a bar, a kitchen and a community venue all at once.