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Ridgewood may soon be home to a full-scale brewery

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THE COURIER/Photo by Angy Altamirano

The Queens Brewery could be hopping over to Ridgewood.

A new lease could be signed sometime this week by Nelson Rockefeller, the owner of the Long Island City-based Queens Brewery, for a warehouse building in Ridgewood, close to the Bushwick border, Community Board 5 District Manager Gary Giordano said during a board meeting Wednesday night.

If plans go through, this would be the first full-scale brewery, producing beer for distribution, to open in the neighborhood. Bridge and Tunnel Brewery, more of a brew pub, recently opened in Ridgewood.

Giordano said that Rockefeller wants to use the space for brewing and to offer beer tastings.

Rockefeller’s signature beer, Queens Lager, is currently produced at a brewery in Saratoga Springs even though his headquarters and most of his customers are in Queens. The Maspeth resident has always had a love for beer, which motivated him to first open up a micro-brewery in Long Island City. He has since expanded to brewing for commercial distribution.

Rockefeller could not be reached for comment, but in a previous interview with The Courier, he described his interest in the borough.

“Queens is forgotten. We’re bringing back Queens,” said Rockefeller. “You take care of your home base first.”

His first line of beer distributed was coined Queens Lager, which can now be found in over 40 bars around Queens.

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