Talea Beer Co., the woman-owned brewery with taprooms across Brooklyn and Manhattan, opened its doors on the Upper West Side last week, and it’s moved into a corner space that plenty of neighbors will remember well.
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The new taproom is at 441 Amsterdam Avenue on the corner of West 81st Street, the former home of St. James Gate. The Irish bar and restaurant, which opened in 2007, held its final night on Dec. 18, 2024. Employees and regulars told ILTUWS at the time that ballooning rent was behind the closing.Talea was founded by Tara Hankinson and LeAnn Darland, who serve as the company’s co-CEOs. Every Talea beer is brewed at its flagship brewery and taproom in Williamsburg, which opened in March 2021, and the company also runs locations in Cobble Hill, the West Village, Bryant Park and near Penn Station. As a farm brewery, Talea uses a proportion of New York State ingredients.
The Upper West Side bar serves beer, wine, cocktails, coffee and non-alcoholic options. The food menu includes Detroit-style sourdough pizzas and Bavarian pretzels, along with salads, toasts, cheese plates and snacks.
Hankinson and Darland met while working at Hopsy, a beer e-commerce startup, after leaving jobs at The New York Times and Google. According to the company, they shared a frustration with the way craft beer was marketed to women and wanted to build an inclusive, approachable beer company. They filed the paperwork to form Talea three months after meeting.
Talea says its beers are known for fruit-forward flavors and playful takes on classic styles, and they’re sold at more than 1,300 retailers, bars and restaurants across New York State. The company also says it always keeps non-alcoholic options on the menu and puts changing stations in its bathrooms.
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