Kentucky Derby Saturday.

In case you're interested in watching the ponies, we shall indeed have the venerable Derby on TV here on Saturday. NBC will begin coverage at 5 pm, and the race should start sometime after 6. We may or may not have mint juleps, but we will certainly come up with some kind of fiendish Derby drink special. So come by if you want to watch the race in a relaxed, spacious environment with a friendly neighborhood crowd. (And don't forget to stop by an OTB first--the closest one to us is on 5th Avenue and 12th Street, wethinks.)

Deschutes Black Butte and Hop Henge

are now back in bottle form, thankfully. That is all.

Southern Tier Oak Aged Unearthly now on tap.

Unearthly is a lovely imperial IPA, but apparently that wasn't enough for the Southern Tier folks. They aged it in oak barrels, which adds another layer of complexity. Oak Aged Unearthly is a must-try, and much more drinkable than its high ABV would suggest. Details:

Southern Tier Oak Aged Unearthly Imperial IPA (Lakewood, NY; $7/12 oz). This huge IPA, aged in oak barrels, smells of pine and grapefruit. The taste is smoother than one would expect, with a solid malt presence and earthy oak taste balancing the hop flavors, and a tart, pleasant finish. 11.0% ABV.

Comedy night Wednesday at 8 pm.

Join us at Pacific Standard in Park Slope for Topsham Pantsuit: a pleasant evening of comedy, book cases, exotic beers and PIRATES! (Still topical and funny? No?)

With hosts RITCH DUNCAN and WILL HINES.

Pacific Standard
82 4th Ave (b/w St. Marks and Bergen)
8 pm, FREE
http://www.pacificstandardbrooklyn.com

NEXT SHOW WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29th

FEATURING:

JOE MANDE (Totally JK, Time Out New York's "Best New Comedian")

JESSE POPP (Ultra-Hilarious)

VIOLET KRUMBEIN (Upright Citizens Brigade)

MATT GOLDICH (Best Week Ever, Premium Blend)

SEAN PATTON (Montreal, Mega Funny)

This will be a great one.

Green Flash beers on tap for tonight include

Hop Head Red, Imperial IPA (first time ever here at Pacific Standard), and West Coast IPA (on cask!). Descriptions below. Come by to check out some amazing beers and meet the brewers. Best of all (shh), we're extending happy hour on Green Flash beers until 11 pm, so they'll all be a ridiculously reasonable $5.

Green Flash Hop Head Red (San Diego, CA; $6/16 oz). A resinous hop character and bitterness balance out the rich caramel malt base in Hop Head Red, Green Flash’s West Coast-style red ale. The beer is dry-hopped with Amarillo hops, bringing the flavor profile closer to that of an IPA. 6.0% ABV.

Green Flash Imperial IPA (San Diego, CA; $6/12 oz). San Diego-style IPA, as it has come to be known, is super-hoppy and high gravity, yet very quaffable. This imperial IPA is created in this new tradition, with intense hop flavors and aromas from a unique blend of Summit and Nugget hops. 9.4% ABV.

Green Flash West Coast IPA (San Diego, CA; $6/16 oz). A full-flavored IPA with extravagant amounts of bright, citrusy hops in both the aroma and taste. Simcoe, Centennial, Cascade, and Columbus hops are all used to create this copper-colored West Coast-style ale. 7.0% ABV.

A Short List of True Things

1. Bear Republic Racer X is now on tap.
2. It's almost never seen in New York.
3. It will go fast.

You draw your own conclusions from that. The details:

Bear Republic Racer X (Healdsburg, CA; $6/12 oz). This bold double IPA follows English brewing traditions, but with a California twist. Hops, hops, and more hops create a pungent aroma and bitter orange, pineapple and piney flavors, backed with a strong malt sweetness. 8.0% ABV.

We're also debuting Left Hand's Polestar Pilsner, which is lovely in its own right:

Left Hand Polestar Pilsner (Longmont, CO; $5/16 oz). This bright, refreshing German-style lager is crafted using traditional methods and ingredients. A zesty pilsner taste gives way to a dry, crisp finish, for an extremely drinkable lager experience. 5.0% ABV.

Chin Music next Thursday.

Chin Music: The Pacific Standard Poetry Reading Series
Featuring Jee Leong Koh, Rebecca Keith, and Martin Rock

Thursday, April 30th 2009 @ 7:00 PM

Please join us for the next evening of Chin Music, the Pacific
Standard Poetry Reading Series. On April 30th, we are excited to
feature three excellent poets: Jee Leong Koh, Rebecca Keith, and
Martin Rock. Other writers to be featured in Chin Music this season
include Glyn Maxwell, Sarah Gambito, Major Jackson, Kevin Goodan, Dan Albergotti, Lytton Smith, Oni Buchanan, Paige Starzinger, Blue Chevigny, and David Baker. Series curated by Colin Cheney.

FEATURED WRITERS

Jee Leong Koh is the author of EQUAL TO THE EARTH and PAYDAY LOANS (both from Poets Wear Prada Press). His poetry has appeared in Best New Poets 2007, and Best Gay Poetry 2008, and has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Born in Singapore, he now lives in New York City, and blogs at Song of a Reformed Headhunter (http://jeeleong.blogspot.com).

Rebecca Keith holds an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. She
has received honors from the Atlantic Monthly and BOMB Magazine and
was a finalist for the 2008 Laurel Review/GreenTower Press Midwest
Chapbook Series Award. Her work has appeared most recently in The
Laurel Review and Storyscape Journal. She is a founder and curator of
Mixer reading series in New York City.

Martin Rock is an MFA candidate at New York University, where he is a
Starworks fellow and soon to be Editor in Chief of Washington Square
Review. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in NANO Fiction, 13th
Warrior Review, At-Large, and Mississippi Review. After living for
four years in Japan, he now resides in Brooklyn.

Charlotte contemplates

her libation of choice.

Plus, we're rocking

a few new kegs: Lake Placid Ubu Ale (Lake Placid, a great upstate brewery, just came out here to NYC), and for the first time, Anderson Valley's Belgian triple, Brother David. More reasons to beat early-week doldrums by getting thee and thee's buddies here.

York Centurion's Ghost firkin now on tap!

A trans-Atlantic shipment has brought us a firkin almost never seen Stateside: York Brewery's fantastic Centurion's Ghost. Come by soon to taste an award-winning English bitter. The details:

York Brewery Centurion’s Ghost (York, UK; $7/16 oz). This rare treat from the famous York Brewery is a warming, dark bitter ale with a strong roasted malt taste. A classic English mild cask ale that is very drinkable. Brewing Industry International Awards champion in 2002, and Great British Beer Festival gold medal winner in 2006 and 2007. 5.4% ABV.

Fiction reading Tuesday.

The Pacific Standard Fiction Series: Yearlings

featuring Ed Park and Nathaniel Rich

Tuesday, April 21st, 7:00 p.m.

82 Fourth Avenue, Brooklyn, New York (between St. Marks and Bergen)

Books available on-site!

Drink specials selected by dartboard!

Come see why New York Magazine named us "Best New Literary Event of 2008!"

*

Ed Park's first novel, PERSONAL DAYS (Random House), was named one of the top 10 works of fiction of 2008 by Time Magazine, was a finalist for the John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize, and was recently named a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. At least one reviewer declared it "funnier than [Agatha] Christie." A founding editor of The Believer, Park has also written copiously for The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

“Quite simply, brilliant . . . PERSONAL DAYS follows life amid the desks of a corporation where office ways are laid bare in all their tedious and frequently hilarious detail . . . Park has strayed into Ricky Gervais's territory and may soon be its king.” - The Observer [U.K.]

Nathaniel Rich's first novel, THE MAYOR'S TONGUE (Riverhead), earned him praise on both sides of the Atlantic, with Stephen King calling it "an elegantly structured, brilliantly told novel, by turns terrifying, touching, and wildly funny, and always generous and magical." Rich, an editor at The Paris Review, is also the author of SAN FRANCISCO NOIR. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, and The New York Review of Books.

“Nathaniel Rich spent most of his twenties re-shaping the Great American Novel to fit the 21st century . . . This is a novel with a big brain and a cheeky wink by an author who could well become one of the defining writers of his generation.” - The Sunday Telegraph [U.K.]

Meet the Green Flash brewers next Friday!

Some late-breaking news: next Friday, starting at 9 pm or so, the Green Flash folks will be stopping by Pacific Standard. They don't get out from San Diego often, so this is a great chance to meet the guys responsible for the mind-blowing West Coast IPA, Hop Head Red, Le Freak, and so on. We'll have a few Green Flash kegs on tap to celebrate, and will even put them on special (a rarity for a Friday night). So make sure to wobble over here during your normal weekend revels on the 24th.

Pub Quiz Mixer, April 28.

We're really grateful for all the people who have made our pub quiz the fantastic nerd-off that it is, so we thought it would be cool to invite all of you loyal quiz folks to hang out on Tuesday, April 28, starting at 7 pm, for an old-fashioned mixer. Pub quizzers will get $2 off drinks all night, and we’ll have specials and giveaways too (don't tell anybody, but there are some never-before-seen types of Pacific Standard merchandise coming our way soon). Mostly you get to chill with the other teams, Rachel, and the Jo(h)ns in a relaxed, non-questiony environment. We hope to see you then.

Topsham Pantsuit comedy

will return on Wednesday, April 15th, at 8 pm, with:

Christian Finnegan (Au Contraire! Comedy Central special)
Dave Hill (The Dave Hill Explosion, NPR)
Violet Krumbein (UCB)
Charles Star (Stay Free!, Adult Education)

and music from Graham Smith (Kleenex Girl Wonder).

Hosted, as usual, by Ritch Duncan and Will Hines.

And some really nice panoramic shots

that Jon Stan got of the bar:

Some recent bar photos

including the John R. birthday crew and Charlotte being Charlotte:

Troegs Event April 16.

On Thursday, April 16, starting at 7 pm, we'll have a Troegs event with two rarely seen offerings, Nugget Nectar and Mad Elf. It'll probably be the last chance to catch either beer on tap in NYC for a long time. There will also be cool glassware and giveaways. How can you not show up?

Slice magazine reading Wednesday at 6:30 pm.

This Wednesday, we'll have a reading from contributors to Slice's Spring 2009 issue. Slice is a Brooklyn-based literary magazine that aims to pave a space for emerging writers by publishing them alongside some of today's literary legends. Here are the folks who will be reading on Wednesday:

Scott Bowman
Anthony Carelli
Ben Gantcher
Alex Littlefield
Tom Haushalter
Sari Wilson

See you here.

Baseball at Pacific Standard this season.

Yes, we will have the DirecTV MLB package again this season, so nearly every game will be available here on one of our two big projection screens. There's a misconception out there that we'll only show West Coast games, which isn't the case--though we naturally have a West Coast slant, we're happy to show anything as long as it's logistically possible. If you're planning on coming in to watch a game with a largish group, e-mail us in advance so we can be sure to have it on for you.

The first A's game is tonight at 9 pm, and we'll have that on as well as the final of the NCAA Tournament at 9:21. See you here.

New t-shirts now available; discounts on all t-shirts.

We've just gotten a new bunch of t-shirts from the nice people at Quist in Red Hook. They're dark grey heather gym shirts with our logo on the front, and come in men's medium, large, and extra large; we're selling them for $18. We've also reduced the prices on our existing stock of men's and women's t-shirts (which come in small, medium, and large) to $18. So now is a good time to come by and drop some money or frequent drinker yards to get a soft, comfortable torso containment device (or TCD).

Next Chin Music Reading Thursday, April 9th at 7 pm.

Chin Music: The Pacific Standard Poetry Reading Series
Featuring James Hoch, Donna Masini, and Robert Ostrom

Please join us for the next evening of Chin Music, the Pacific
Standard Poetry Reading Series. On April 9th, we are featuring three
excellent poets: James Hoch, Donna Masini, and Robert Ostrom. Other
writers to be featured in Chin Music this season include Glyn Maxwell,
Sarah Gambito, Major Jackson, Rebecca Keith, Jee Leong Koh, Page
Starzinger, Oni Buchanan, and David Baker. Series curated by Colin
Cheney.

Please note our earlier reading time of 7:00PM.

FEATURED POETS

James Hoch’s most recent collection of poems, MISCREANTS, was
published by W.W. Norton and Co. His poems have appeared in Slate,
Virginia Quarterly Review, New England Review, Ninth Letter, Pleiades,
Black Warrior, Gettysburg, Five Fingers, and other magazines. His
first book, A PARADE OF HANDS, won the Gerald Cable Book Award, and he
was recently awarded a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Hoch
teaches at Ramapo College and splits his time between New Jersey and
Seattle, Washington.

Donna Masini is the author of two collections of poems—TURNING TO
FICTION ( W.W. Norton and Co. 2004), and THAT KIND OF DANGER (Beacon
Press, 1994), which was selected by Mona Van Duyn to win the Barnard
Women Poet's Prize—and a novel, ABOUT YVONNE, (WW Norton and Co.
1998). Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies including
American Poetry Review, Open City, TriQuarterly, the Paris Review, KGB
BAR Book of Poems, Parnassus, Boulevard, and Lyric. She is an
Associate Professor of English at Hunter College where she teaches in
the MFA Creative Writing program. She lives in New York City and is
currently at work on a novel.

Rob Ostrom’s chapbook, TO SHOW THE LIVING, was published by the New
York Center for Book Arts. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming
in 42Opus, Glitterpony, Drunken Boat, The Helen Burns Poetry
Anthology, and elsewhere. He is from Jamestown, NY and lives in
Brooklyn.

Stone Levitation and Russian Imperial Stout now on tap.

Today, we welcome Stone Levitation to New York City to stay, as well as a rare cellared keg of their Russian Imperial Stout! The details:

Stone Levitation Ale (San Diego, CA; $6/16 oz). This deep amber ale has a big hoppy bitterness, with crisp citrus flavors, but has a modest, sessionable alcohol percentage, especially for a Stone beer. 4.4% ABV.

Stone Russian Imperial Stout (San Diego, CA; $7/12 oz). The aroma of this bold, heavy imperial stout is deceptively light. The taste, however, pulls no punches. The roasty malt flavors mingle with a blast of coffee, chocolate, dried fruits, anise, and alcohol. The hops show up at the end, keeping the finish dry. 10.8% ABV.

Come by to celebrate, and to grab a pint of the Russian Imperial Stout before it disappears.