(Joshua Bright for The New York Times)

The New York Times recently covered the very noticeable rise of beer gardens across New York City.

There is no drinking forum more compatible with summer than the beer garden. Until recently, New Yorkers wanting to raise a stein in dappled sunshine had one choice: Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden in Astoria, Queens, which turns 100 this year.

But in the last year or so, beer gardens have sprouted across the city. This wave coincided roughly with the outbreak of modern speakeasies. Both of them appeal to a populace seeking authentic, backward-glancing drinking traditions. Otherwise the two trends couldn’t be more different. Speakeasies, small, dark coves hidden behind nameless doors, tell of exclusivity, while beer gardens are proudly populist bastions of communal seating. And with wallets being battered daily, ease of entry and easily met tabs give beer gardens the edge among the thirsty.

Washington, DC also saw its first beer garden open this summer with Biergarten Haus.  It’s an interesting phenomenon: as American craft beer gets more and more popular for its continual innovations and reinventions, that same curiosity is driving the newly ambitious beer drinking public toward older, but maybe less familiar beer.

As Magic Hat, Stone, or Dogfish rises, so do European breweries that are hundreds of years old.  Well-refined Belgian and Bavarian beers are just as new to many beer drinkers as experimental beers coming from startup breweries.

It may prove that the craft beer revolution we’re seeing isn’t based so much on new styles of beer as it is on new availability.

DC Brau

Washington, DC upstart brewery DC Brau took a big step this week, as its two founding brewers quit their day jobs and started working full time for the new brewery.  The local blog We Love DC had a write-up on the pair this week, but more interesting than that post is the idea that we’re able to follow the brewery this early in the process.  On their site, they list a few milestones, culminating with the January 2011 opening.

“We’re quitting our jobs, next week,” Brandon Skall tells me. I look over at his business partner, Jeff, who smiles wryly. “From here on out, it’s all DC Brau.” Maybe it’s a crazy thing to do. Starting a business in the best of times is tough, but in this economy it’s especially risky. Still, Brandon and Jeff don’t seem worried, which inspires a certain confidence.

They’re also running a blog, which will hopefully be updated with the daily minutia of getting a brewery up and running.

Two things I thought were worth mentioning:

• Great news on the Mario Batali/Dogfish Head brewpub we mentioned yesterday.  As it turns out, Batali isn’t just letting staff handle the food there.  He wants to be less TV-personality and more chef. I can’t wait to get to New York and go to this place.

…Batali wants to cook. He’s working on the menus for six new restaurants at Eataly, the massive Italian food emporium that he and partner Joe Bastianich are planning to open later this year in Manhattan. There will be a meat restaurant, a fish one, a pasta and pizza operation, a vegetable restaurant, a panino bar and a brewery-gastropub on the roof deck. It’s a giant undertaking, but Batali is a force of nature. He is creating all of the restaurants himself, after having spent years away from cooking. Whether he can pull it off remains to be seen. But he’s psyched to be even trying.

• And on another food and craft beer note, SAVOR 2010, the Brewers’ Association’s third-annual event at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, sold out in about an hour yesterday.  I managed to buy four tickets before they were gone, but had luck on CraigsList last year if you’re still looking.  The event pairs some of the best craft beer in the country with food, trying to make the point that beer is just as good as wine.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynzgS8aICzg]