Fifth Hammer Brewery and Taproom. Photo by Juren David via Fifth Hammer Brewery Company on Facebook.
Oct. 12, by Nathaly Pesantez
The Fifth Hammer Brewing Company has opened up its facilities and taproom to the public, a little over a year since the owners moved into a former industrial space in Long Island City.
The brewery and taproom, located at 10-28 46th Ave., opened on Oct. 6 in a “grand opening weekend”, according to the brewery’s Facebook page. A 15-barrel brewery, fully completed on Sept. 15, makes up the brewery component of the site, while a taproom next door serves Fifth Hammer brews along with local craft beer. Some finger foods will be served in the taproom, but the focus will be kept on the beers.
Regularly scheduled live music will also fill the walls of the tap room—for the grand opening weekend, the music portion was spontaneously kicked off by Chris Cuzme, the brewery’s co-founder, who also happens to play the saxophone.
Cuzme, along with David Scharfstein, moved into the 46th Ave. space in Aug. last year. Prior to starting a new brewery, Cuzme worked as a brewer in a now defunct pub in Greenwich Village, where he learned to craft a wide variety of beers.
The brewery’s name comes from the legend of the Pythagorean hammers, where the fifth hammer in the set produced a discordant sound compared to the other four as they hammered, causing the Greek mathematician to disregard the fifth hammer. “It’s sort of outside the box, like me,” Cuzme said in an interview with the LIC Post last year. The musical element to the story also fits with the taproom’s live music component.
Fifth Hammer joins a string of breweries in Long Island City, including Rockaway Brewing Co., Big Alice Brewing, and LIC Beer Project.
The taproom opens at 3:00 p.m. on weekdays, and closes at 10:00 p.m. except for Thursdays at 11:00 p.m. and Fridays at midnight. Weekend opening hours are set at midday, with the taproom closing at midnight on Saturdays and at 10:00 p.m. on Sundays.
