The Best Places To Watch Football in Brooklyn
It’s that time of year again, where grown men in padding and helmets run around a field for too much money, bashing into each other with vigor and sweat, and hitting the Shmoney dance in the end zone. For better or worse, football season is here. If you’re someone who can reconcile the uglier sides of the sport with the joy of fandom, then you’re in the right place. Sure, there are tons of bars to watch your team play in Manhattan, but who wants to get on the subway and travel on a Sunday when you can wend your way to one of the bevy of sports bars that Brooklyn has to offer? Avoid the dude-bro atmosphere of Brother Jimmy’s or Finnerty’s. Take yourself down to one of these places in Brooklyn to watch your team do their stuff.
Sports Bars With No Particular Allegiance
Brooklyn Tap House, 590 Willoughby Avenue
Huge beer list, all the televisions, and delicious wings — what more could you ask for in a sports bar? There’s a ton of long, communal tables, a huge bar, and free popcorn. Post up early, because this place will get crowded, and keep in mind that they only play sound for Jets games, but that shouldn’t be a deal breaker. If you need to take a minute, step into their spacious backyard.
Best beer to drink while yelling: The Radiant Pig IPA is hoppy but not too bitter, which is probably just how you’ll feel at halftime.
Half Court Sports Bar, 446 Park Place
This is a solid, no-frills sports bar that plays every single NFL game and has $10 pitchers of Coors, which is not a selling point necessarily, but it fits in with the vibe of this place. Never crowded and full of genuine fans — like, crazy people yelling at the TV and high-fiving — it’s going to be your new favorite place to watch football, guaranteed. No food at the bar itself, but they do allow outside food, which means you’re not subject to the tyranny of potato skins and spinach artichoke dip.
Best food to get and bring back to the bar: Get a mess of tacos and some nachos for cheap at Taqueria De Los Muertos, and get ready to make a lot of new friends.
200 Fifth – 200 Fifth Avenue
There is an overwhelming amount of televisions in this place, making it either awesome or seizure-inducing, depending on your tolerance for blink-y screens. The perimeter of the bar half of this bar/resturant is lined with flat-screens, so there is absolutely no way you’d miss a play. The beer prices feel a little steep, when so many other places have great deals, but hey, where else can you watch football while feeling like you’re in Minority Report?
Best beer for your fantasy football league’s commissioner: Nothing says “We appreciate all the hard work you’re doing by wrangling us all to this insane bar” like an Arrogant Bastard ale.
Plan B – 626 Vanderbilt Avenue
This bar boasts five TVs, including one in the patio, and a nice menu full of bar food staples ike wings nachos and the like, with friendly bartenders and a nice atmosphere. Like all bars playing nationally televised sports, it gets crowded, but if you can get a seat out back, there’s nothing like watching football in the crisp, early-fall air.
Best thing to wash down the taste of defeat: Get a basket of crispy, hot french fries, garnished with a healthy dose of garlic and parmesan, because nothing goes better with a crushing loss than a hard Italian cheese.
For Fans Only
For Pittsburgh Steelers Fans: Cody’s Bar and Grill – 154 Court Street
You’re not going to find fancy craft beers or fussy appetizers at this neighborhood sports bar, but what you will find is a rowdy, happy bunch of Steelers fans wearing black and yellow and singing Wiz Khalifa any chance they get.
Best bar snack that isn’t a buffalo wing: Jalapeño poppers are awesome, but the deep-fried, cheesy jalapeño buttons they serve here are even better.
For Buffalo Bills Fans: Red Star – 37 Greenpoint Avenue
This place is a dive bar, but a nice one, and it’s in a part of Greenpoint that’s not too heavily-trafficked, so you can always get a seat. Join the rest of you bretheren from the North and bask in the glow of the five not-too-big, not-too-small TVs.
Best thing on the menu to make your Buffalo wing truther friend’s head spin: Raspberry BBQ wings are not only untraditional, they are absolutely delicious, so order as many as you can manage and watch your friend simmer silently.
For Kansas City Chiefs Fans: John Brown Smokehouse – 10-43 44th Drive, Long Island City
Okay, we cheated. This bar isn’t in Brooklyn per se, but it is Brooklyn adjacent, and it serves really amazing Kansas City style barbecue just a hop, skip and a jump away from the far reaches of Greenpoint. Get on the bus, hop on the G and cozy up with a plate of ribs, some cold beer and the people you know from high school who also happen to live in New York.
Best of both worlds option: The Brisket Iceberg salad piles fresh smoked brisket on top of a tradtional wedge salad so you can feel good about not cheating on your diet, or whatever it is you want to tell yourself.
For Chicago Bears Fans: Windy City Ale House – 7915 3rd Avenue
If you’re missing Chicago and want to watch Da Bears on 15 screens in the company of your fellow citizens, make the trek out and enjoy one of 24 different craft beers and a Chicago style hot dog. The menu here is heavy on the Goose Island, but branch out from the stuff you see at your local brew shop and try some of the breweries’ other offerings.
Best Goose Island beer you probably haven’t had: The Goose Island Madame Rose is a fruity, sour Belgian brown ale reminiscient of a nice Bordeaux.
For Green Bay Packers Fans: Angry Wade’s – 222 Smith Street
Cheeseheads, rejoice, for this sports bar in Cobble Hill will have the sound on for every game, and, if you get there early enough, happy hour on the weekend lasts form 3pm-6pm, which is rare but welcome in these parts.
Best thing to occupy yourself if you hate football: Go pump your laundry quarters into Big Buck Hunter, which they have at this establishment. Also, next time, don’t come to a sports bar!
For New Orleans Saints Fans: d.b.a Brooklyn – 113 North 7th Street
This Williamsburg outpost of the popular Manhattan bar has all of the pluses of its big sister in the city, but is more spacious. Get there early, as it’s one of the only New Orleans sports bars in New York, and treat yourself to a cold one before the Who Dat nation arrives in full force.
Best Abita brew on tap: Skip the Purple Haze and belly up to the Abita Turbodog, a nice and smooth dark-brown ale with hints of toffee.
For Washington Redskins Fans: Second Chance Saloon – 659 Grand Street
You could battle the crowds at Redemption in Manhattan, or you could take a more leisurely approach to your football and go to the Second Chance Saloon in South Williamsburg, where you will certainly be surrounded by Redskins fans, all of who can probably sing at least the first stanza of “Hail To The Redskins”.
Best beer you don’t see that often: There’s nothing nicer than an unfiltered wheat beer, and that’s why you should order the Brasserie Lefebvre Blanche de Bruxelles, which is a cloudy Belgian offering on tap.
For Seattle Seahawks Fans: Pine Box Rock Shop – 12 Grattan Street
This is a bar run by Seattle expats, who play all Seahawks games with the sound on, which seems like a silly request, but trust us, when you’ve spend enough time asking Jets bars to maybe just turn the sound up on one other game, you will appreciate this. They’re super vegan-friendly and have a 96 inch projector in addition to their 8 HDTVs, so you will not have a problem watching the Legion of Boom do their thing.
Best seasonally-appropriate beer: Ugh, we know, you hate pumpkin beers, but cave for once and get the Captain Lawrence Pumpkin, which strikes a nice balance between beer and pie.
For San Francisco 49ers Fans: Mullholland’s – 312 Grand Street
Avoid the trainwreck that is Finnerty’s, and go to Mullholland’s, where you can watch the Nineers win, win and win some more, surrounded by bearded dudes in vintage Starter jackets and Nineers pom-pom hats. This bar gets packed, but they play the Niners games on the big screens in the front and the back, and sometimes, if you’re very lucky, in the backyard as well.
Best food option that tastes like victory: We could happily eat a plate of their wings as breakfast, lunch and dinner.