Brooklyn Brewery Made a Very Limited Beer for Prospect’s Park 150th Anniversary and You Can Try It This Weekend

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Do you see trees of green and skies of brew? If you head to Prospect Park on Sunday, you may: For the park’s 150th anniversary, which will be celebrated all weekend long with a packed roster of events, Brooklyn Brewery has created a special beer to debut at Smorgasburg’s return. (What a wonderful world!)

The new brew called Long Meadow Gold is a pale ale made with Citra hops. It was designed in partnership with the Prospect Park Alliance, the nonprofit group that supports and operates the 585-acre Brooklyn oasis and is handling its birthday festivities.

“We wanted to create a beer that evoked spending a sunny afternoon in the park,” said Steve Hindy, Brooklyn Brewery’s co-founder and chairman, who has been a board member of the alliance for over 20 years. In an interview on Wednesday, he also shared this moment of reflection: “Like a lot of people probably have, I’ve had a lot of special times there: kids’ birthdays, dog walks, marathon training, playing tennis. It’s a special place to me, and it’s special to Brooklyn.”

It’s named for Long Meadow, the undulating 74-acre stretch spanning nearly a mile of the park’s west side from the main entrance at the intersection of Flatbush Avenue and Eastern Parkway (and believed to be the longest continuous open space in any urban park in the U.S.). The beer tastes crisp and fruity, with a refreshing bitterness. “I could drink a few of them,” Hindy said.

It will be sold for a limited time at Smorgasburg’s Prospect Park location held on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. from April through November. Returning this weekend for its seventh alfresco season, the popular food market with over 100 vendors also runs at Williamsburg’s East River Park on Saturdays.

A portion of the proceeds from the sales ($6 a beer) of Long Meadow Gold will benefit the Prospect Park Alliance, which was founded in 1987 to restore and maintain the long-neglected public space.

Katherine Hernandez

Katherine Hernandez is an Afro-Latina chef and multimedia journalist. Her work has been published on NPR Food, PRI's The World, Edible Manhattan, Feet in 2 Worlds, Gothamist and more.