After 10 years, Strong Rope Brewery is closing its Gowanus location at the end of March. But where one tap closes, another opens: the space will be taken over by local beermaker Forever Homebrewing, soon to be rebranded simply as Forever Brewing.
Husband-and-wife duo Christina Quintero and Jason Sahler opened Strong Rope in Gowanus in late 2015, with ten taps and a focus on their own house-brewed beers made with local ingredients.
In 2021, they expanded, opening a larger taproom on the Red Hook waterfront. In 2023, they moved all their brewing operations there, and they recently opened an event space, The Hall, right next door. It even houses a small bookstore, Backroom Books, which offers used and “new-ish” volumes.
Now, with their Gowanus lease coming to an end, Quintero and Sahler have opted not to renew, opting instead to focus entirely on Red Hook.
“We’ve had an incredible 10 years in Gowanus, and we’re deeply grateful for the community that supported us every step of the way,” Sahler said. “This neighborhood has shaped who we are — from the regulars and artists and musicians to the other small businesses who made President Street feel like home — and that will always stay with us.”
Strong Rope’s communications lead, Caitlin Gallagher — who started working at the brewery as a bartender over four years ago — said all of the staff will be retained, just shifted to Red Hook, as the Gowanus brewery shutters.
Strong Rope has big plans for the future of the Red Hook space, Gallagher said. This summer, they’re hosting part of the Made in NYC Week and the annual Swamp in the City music festival; along with their own parties for the summer solstice and July Fourth.
The Red Hook taproom also has 16 taps, compared to 10 in Gowanus, Gallagher said, including one dedicated to cider and wine. Strong Rope produces somewhere around 60 different beers, from their “flagships,” like the Wolf in the Garden IPA, to experimental small-batch seasonal brews.
For Women’s History Month, they have the “Girl Kegger” Grisette, which is only available in March (and is accompanied by a donation to nonprofit Her Justice.) Come June, they’ll offer a special Pride Month brew.
“The big differentiator for us is we make our beer with 100% New York ingredients,” Gallagher said. “So it’s 100% malt and hops grown in New York State, which is very, very rare. We’re still working with the farming community throughout the state and also working with our community in Red Hook and beyond.”
Strong Rope is saying goodbye with a special celebration on March 28. On April 1, Forever Brewing founders Matt Land and Rob Jenkins will officially take over the space.
Forever Homebrewing becomes Forever Brewing as it takes over Gowanus taproom
Land and Jenkins opened Forever Homebrewing, Brooklyn’s only home brew shop, in late 2024. The shop, located on Dean Street in Crown Heights, sells all manner of home brew equipment — yeast, hops, malts, bottling and brewing equipment and more — but no actual beer.
Last fall, they started to think about their next steps. They wanted to brew and sell their own beer eventually, but their Dean Street space, tucked inside an office building, wouldn’t work as a more traditional retail or bar space.
Then, a friend sent Land a link to a Facebook Marketplace listing offering beermaking equipment. Land clicked in, and immediately recognized the interior of Strong Rope in the background.
Immediately, they got in touch with Sahler, and the rest is history.
Land and Jenkins had been working with Sahler since 2025, when Forever Brewing was searching for a place to host their home brewing classes.
“The folks at Strong Rope could not have jumped at it faster than they did,” Land said. “Jason started as a homebrewer, their head brewer at the time had been a member of our home brewing club and gone pro. So they were just like, ‘Yes, this is something we believe in, we came from there, we want to see it keep going.’”
“Since we started, it’s felt almost as if it’s sort of cosmic,” he added. “We’ve been kind of heading this way without even knowing it.”
In the new space, they plan to brew and sell their own beer along with homebrew equipment. They’ve already received some of the required licenses, and an IndieGoGo campaign they started to raise money for the move has already raised more than $11,000 — over twice their initial goal.
The goal is to open Forever Brewing at the Gowanus location on April 11, offering homebrew equipment and, hopefully, a few beers. They plan to launch the full brew program and menu sometime in early May.
Once they’re up and running, Jenkins said he’s looking forward to brewing beers that have become less common at other breweries in the city.
“There’s some styles that I love that can be sometimes hard to come by these days at a lot of breweries, things like classic sort of American pale ales … I’m a huge saison fan, I’ve got a saison recipe that has won some competition awards, so I’m excited to get that going,” he said.
They’ll also maintain some of the charm of homebrewing.
“One of the things that we feel is really important to us and really important to everyone coming through is being able to also make small batches,” Land said.
Some beer styles and ingredients aren’t profitable at a large scale, he said. A friend of theirs makes a holiday beer with spruce tips, which can be “an acquired taste.” Spruce tips are expensive, and so is brewing a standard five barrels — or 160 gallons — of beer.
“That’s a lot to try to sell, but I could very easily make 20 gallons of that, make a big deal about it to our social media followers, to our regular customers, like, ‘Hey guys, come in this week, you know you want to try it,” Land said. “And then we’ve got stuff that the other folks just aren’t going to do. That’s what’s going to set us apart, I think.”
Forever Brewing will also offer non-alcoholic beverages and some food. Since they plan to open at 10 a.m., Land and Jenkins want to start up a coffee program, and eventually hope to let people try out homebrewing in-store, without buying all the equipment themselves.
Jenkins said he wants the brewery to serve as a “true community hub,” too. They’ll offer free gathering space to community and hobby groups in need, and he hopes to host regular volunteer opportunities, too, like weekly parties where people can make and pack up meals to donate to local food pantries.
“I want it to feel like, you come in there, the beer is good, you’re going to enjoy it, you’re going to have a great beverage, but it can be a lot more than that, too,” Jenkins said.
