Many—maybe most—craft beer bars look the same. Walk in and you’ll probably see a long row of taps, an oversized beer list on the wall, industrial finishes. But at a little bar called BierWax in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, you’ll be confronted with something different: shelves upon shelves (upon shelves) of records. “Wow, that’s a lot of records,” you’re bound to hear someone whisper under their breath, and you can’t even roll your eyes at the obvious statement. It is a lot of records, almost certainly more than you’ve ever seen in a bar before.
BierWax has a “No Requests Please” policy—not because of “High Fidelity”-style snobbery, but because there are just too many records (around 5,000) to manage. If every customer made a request, the bar would need a dedicated team just to comb through the stacks. And then who would pour the beer?
The 12-strong beer menu sits at the center of the shelves of vinyl, colorful plastic letters—the kind that wouldn’t be out of place in an elementary school classroom—affixed to a black panel. It, too, smacks of obsessive curation and a connoisseur’s sensibility, balancing local beers with those from farther-flung breweries, hype beers with classics. That’s before you even get to the dozens of cans and bottles.
“Nothing quite like BierWax exists in New York City,” says Yahaira Maestro, who co-owns BierWax with her husband, Chris. “Sure, there are other craft beer bars. Sure, there are other bars that feature vinyl records. But none of them are like Chris and I …They’re not necessarily owned by people of color, they’re not necessarily New Yorkers through and through.”
Yahaira calls BierWax her “happy place,” because it brings together everything she loves. It’s a sentiment you can spot on the faces of the patrons, too, whether they’re discussing beer decisions with the bartender on a quiet afternoon, dancing to a DJ set at night, reading a book on the patio, or catching up with friends at a sidewalk table. All it takes is one beer sipped at the sleek black bar or on the cozy couch in the back to understand there’s something special at work here.
Chris Maestro was born and raised in Queens, New York, where he could see the lights of Flushing Meadow Park (now Shea Stadium) from his home. His mother was from the Dominican Republic, his father from Guyana. At the time, Flushing was predominantly Irish and Italian. Where Chris went to school, sports was the track to popular-kid cachet, but he was both a metalhead and the co-valedictorian (13-year-old translation: nerd) of his eighth-grade class. In other words, Chris says, he learned early what it felt like to be ostracized.
“All these things were very formative for who I became as an adult, being empathetic toward others. Being The Other at a white school—it all helped me develop this social justice lens for the rest of my life,” he says. That lens—and real, thoughtful intention regarding inclusion, representation, and community welcome—became the first building block of BierWax.
While studying at SUNY Binghamton, Chris’ penchant for activism evolved, as did the second building block of BierWax: his music obsession. As a freshman, he purchased his first two records, by jazz musicians Wes Montgomery and Horace Silver. Both now reside on BierWax’s shelves and get regular play. “Records from my childhood live among these stacks,” Chris tells me when I visit BierWax for our interview. It’s still quiet in the bar, with a few patrons scattered among tables during the calm before the night’s DJ set, and he takes a moment to gaze at the shelves of vinyl with both pride and wonder before picking back up with his pre-BierWax journey.
As a college student, Chris felt intimidated by the formality of music theory, so instead he dabbled in different music classes, and turned his attention to his history major. After graduating, he became a history teacher (who taught a few music classes, too), working for the New York City Department of Education. Teaching meant summers off, and Chris used the time to start DJing and producing hip hop, both of which meant acquiring yet more records. Traveling, even when sparked by the desire to seek out different artists and venues, introduced Chris to the third building block of BierWax: the beer itself.
“It was 2004 and I was in Hong Kong visiting a friend,” he recalls. “We went to a cigar lounge and he said, ‘You have to try this beer, it will blow your mind.’ I was used to macro beer and this was a Samichlaus, a 14% Doppelbock—the label said it was the strongest beer in the world. It was a revelation … such a turning point in my life. From that point on, back home, I was on a mission to find flavorful beer.”
There weren’t many craft beer bars in New York City at that time. Chris remembers getting lost in the book-like menu at Peculier Pub on Bleecker Street. His exploration introduced him to the small but growing craft beer movement, including breweries like Dogfish Head Brewery and Stone Brewing, Brooklyn Brewery and Ithaca Brewing Company. Chris quickly discovered a surprising connection between music and beer: Finding new beers was like finding new records. “When you’re learning about something for the first time, the whole world is open to you,” he says. His history background factored in, too, motivating him to get his hands on beer books. He’d find signings to go to, and would talk to the authors to soak up every last drop of knowledge he could.
After seeking out beer, breweries, and beer bars; reading and learning about beer’s ins and outs; and meeting people in the industry, Chris embarked on a project many beer lovers are familiar with: He started a blog. It took him across New York City on his bike, interviewing the people shaping the beginnings of the city’s current brewery scene, like Rob Kolb and Anthony Accardi of Transmitter Brewing and Basil Lee and Kevin Stafford of Finback Brewery.
“It was 2004 and I was in Hong Kong visiting a friend. We went to a cigar lounge and he said, ‘You have to try this beer, it will blow your mind.’ I was used to macro beer and this was a Samichlaus, a 14% Doppelbock—the label said it was the strongest beer in the world. It was a revelation … such a turning point in my life. From that point on, back home, I was on a mission to find flavorful beer.”
He might never have had the inspiration to open his own bar, however, if not for an unexpected encounter overseas. In Amsterdam in 2009, a friend brought him to a hip hop bar called Cafe De Duivel. “Everyone in that bar … all knew the words to these obscure, underground hip hop songs,” Chris says. “I thought, ‘Why doesn’t a place like this exist in New York?’”
Another influential spot was one he found when wandering the Financial District with Yahaira. This was before they were married—they were just friends, having met while working for a nonprofit network of public schools. On their walks, they found what Chris describes as a beautiful liquor store that looked like a library. “The owner chatted with us and I thought, ‘He must love his job, running this place. Wouldn’t it be cool to have my own place where I could just have records and craft beer—and hopefully people would come?’”
Originally, Chris was leaning toward the idea of a bottle shop, inspired by similar businesses that were springing up across the city at that time, like City Swiggers and the now-shuttered St. Gambrinus Beer Shoppe. He imagined a store selling both beer and records. But then a friend told him about JBS, a Tokyo listening bar where the owner had brought in 10,000 of his own records. All those building blocks suddenly came together, and as daunting as the road ahead seemed, Chris remembers thinking, “It’s now or never. I don’t want to be in my late 60s thinking, ‘Oh, I had this dream and never did it.’ I’d be bitter and angry. If I failed, at least I tried.”
It’d be a cliché if it weren’t so evident: The mortar holding all those building blocks together is the Maestro family. As partners in life and parents of twin daughters—Madison and Mia, now 10—Chris and Yahaira knew opening a bar would be a seismic career shift, and one they would undertake together.
The nonprofit program where Chris was working was losing funding and dwindling fast. He put every extra hour from that lightened workload to use, furthering his beer education and taking part-time jobs at breweries. He started bartending and running tastings at Greenport Harbor Brewing Co. (as we talk, Chris points out Greenport’s Black Duck Porter on BierWax’s tap list—like the records, the beer, too, organically represents his journey) and then went to work for Finback, where he became the taproom manager before going full-time.
“When [Chris] came to us, his dream of opening his own bar was already in place,” says Finback co-owner Lee. “I appreciated his dedication to developing his ideas and coming to us as the first steps.”
During the transition from full-time education to full-time beer, Chris began forming the business plan for BierWax, encouraged by Yahaira. She remembers that when his nonprofit job was getting phased out, there was an option for him to return to the classroom instead of pursuing the bar-owning dream.
“Nothing quite like BierWax exists in New York City. Sure, there are other craft beer bars. Sure, there are other bars that feature vinyl records. But none of them are like Chris and I …They’re not necessarily owned by people of color, they’re not necessarily New Yorkers through and through.”
“I said, ‘I know that’s not something you want to do,’” Yahaira recalls. “‘I think now is the time to run with this idea and figure out how to create a business plan, how to find real estate, how to secure investors…’ I understood it was going to change our lives and they would be something completely different. But we knew it had to be done because it was something that didn’t exist in New York City.”
Yahaira valued the BierWax vision as much as Chris did. She has fond memories of beers shared with family during her visits to the Dominican Republic, and how the offer of “una fría” was extended to her, too, once she was an adult. That blossomed into a love of craft beer as she and Chris trekked throughout New York City and beyond visiting breweries, bottle shops, and bars.
Music, too, is woven into who Yahaira is. Talking to me on the phone right before she and Chris head upstate with their daughters to visit breweries for his birthday, she recalls one of her earliest memories, “dancing like no one was watching” at a family party when she was five or six. To Yahaira, a bar that gave equal care to beer and music was necessary in her city and to her local community. “[Chris and I] are both tuned into social justice, and we were thinking, ‘How do we create spaces for people that look like us?’” she says.
So began the real work toward bringing BierWax to life. Yahaira held onto her full-time job in the nonprofit sector while Chris kept working in beer and fine-tuning the business plan. They applied for and received a Small Business Administration loan. Chris took out what he had in his teacher’s retirement plan and raised money via crowdfunding, but only after they’d secured a space, as he wanted to show investors they were becoming part of something real. While a search in Bushwick dragged on, a spot in Prospect Heights popped up like it was meant to be. Chris remembers immediately seeing potential in the backyard, where grapevines were already growing overhead. They signed a lease in August 2017 and opened in December.
Thanks in no small part to the bonds the Maestros had already formed in the community and within the local beer scene, BierWax hit the ground running. Within months of opening, it felt like one of those places that had always been part of the New York City beer-scape, though it was also like nothing that had come before.
“Too often, beer bars look and sound alike, algorithm-programmed Spotify playlists looping into sonic infinity,” says Joshua M. Bernstein, journalist and author of “The Complete Beer Course.” “With BierWax, [Chris] and the staff lend a human touch to the impeccably curated music and beer lists, welcoming a broader audience to the modern beer bar.”
Bernstein hits on an essential facet of BierWax’s success: the staff. Sit at a bar long enough and it’s easy to sense how happy the workers are. Everyone pouring beer at BierWax radiates easy-going warmth, no matter how packed the place gets. Even a first-time patron can pick up on how well everyone gets along, and how valued the staff is—and glowing Instagram posts celebrating working anniversaries only reinforce that observation.
“This is an extension of our home,” Chris explains. “You’re not only working at my bar, you’re playing my records, you’re representing who Yahaira and I are.” The Maestros are intentional about having a diverse team, which is part of their strategy to make the bar feel widely welcoming.
“Being in a bar with a music library of over 5,000 records, turntables behind the bar, a vintage Marantz receiver, a DJ booth, cassettes on the shelves, a Wu Tang wall … yeah I was geeking,” says Jess Wang, who’s worked her way from bartender to events and operations manager over nearly three-and-a-half years. But meaningful connections with the Maestros and fellow staff keep employees happy to come to work long after that initial appeal.
“Too often, beer bars look and sound alike, algorithm-programmed Spotify playlists looping into sonic infinity. With BierWax, [Chris] and the staff lend a human touch to the impeccably curated music and beer lists, welcoming a broader audience to the modern beer bar.”
“It’s rare to have owners as caring as Chris and Yahaira,” bartender and cocktails and spirits program director Edward Christmas says. “It’s not just about the business, but the employees that work for the business. They’re bringing you into their family as well as their livelihood.”
“Family makes BierWax special,” Wang echoes. “I don’t want to oversimplify it because it’s not just a ‘work family,’ it’s truly a big family.” When it comes to other employees, too, both Christmas and Wang cite things like a “ridiculous text thread”; a love of having a good time together; and the ability to be honest with one another, support each other, and do it all with a good sense of humor.
Feeling such support allows BierWax staff to interact meaningfully with customers, who Christmas and Wang also credit with making the bar a special environment. Christmas points out that the vinyl isn’t the only unique aspect of BierWax, but also—more importantly—the intrinsic diversity. “Seeing a lot of people who look like me as a person of color is not always the case [in beer spaces],” he says. “Working in beer, I’ve never had the opportunity to reach so many people who also love the music I love, the culture I love.”
It helps that both beer and music serve as entryways into the space. “We’ll have beer fanatics and music lovers cross paths and exchange passions,” Wang says. “Someone will try a new beer style they’ve never heard of and someone else will explore a new artist they just got into. We have new regulars all the time because the community is always growing and welcoming new faces.”
The Maestros set the rhythm for the extended family that is BierWax’s staff and customer base. It radiates from the love in their own family, which they then apply to this business they’re so passionate about.
“The two of them are such genuinely welcoming and good people,” says New York City Brewers Guild executive director Ann V. Reilly, who’s known Chris since he worked at Finback. “I don’t know anyone who could possibly ever say anything even slightly negative about them. I’ve never seen them in a bad mood, and that’s really tough in this industry, especially in the last couple years.”
Considering the pandemic has only cranked up the workaday pressures of small business ownership, the Maestros’ genuine warmth feels like something rare.
“I think in the era of social media and people just posting the happy things, a lot of times [people] are like, ‘Everything looks good, but we’re not sure,’” Yahaira says. “And I’m like, ‘No, it is good. We are genuinely us. We show up silly. We’re blessed to live a happy life.” During our phone chat, Yahaira describes some of the biggest challenges in becoming a bar-owning family, with schedules turned upside down and BierWax being a core part of life, 24/7. Yet there’s no hint of complaint, only love for this wild ride the entire Maestro family is enthusiastically on together.
In March of this year, Yahaira officially left the nonprofit world to go full-time at BierWax, where she handles staff hiring and training, payroll, inventory, and any of the other million things that arise in a bar’s day-to-day existence. She says of the decision, “One of the things that was very important for me … if I’m leaving my kids for 12 hours a day … I need to be super happy. I need to be elated, so I could then come back home and be an incredible mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend.”
Going full-time at BierWax has also allowed Yahaira to play a more active role in the local beer industry and its push for inclusivity. She was a guest speaker alongside Reilly at the most recent Other Half Women’s Forum, an event series curated by Breeze Galindo to discuss effective measures in representation, diversity, and equity.
It’s a joy for members of the beer community to follow the adventures of the Maestros, as the owners of breweries they visit give Mia and Madison hands-on experiences, or as the twins excitedly snip grapes from the backyard for brewery collaborations. Their natural “welcome to the family” character has undoubtedly played a role in BierWax’s surviving the volatile last couple years with love and support from patrons, breweries, and visiting DJs.
COVID-19 hit every bar hard. The restrictions venues had to operate within to attempt to remain open were especially suffocating for a place like BierWax, with live events part of its DNA. BierWax had become more than a beer bar, but a lively community hub where people gathered to hear their favorite DJ or discover a new one. It was painful, flattening its mission into to-go-only beer sales.
“Everything we’d built BierWax for … now it was just a regular bar,” Chris says. “The soul was sucked out.” They hosted live-streamed DJ sets, but the warmth of gathering was gone. It was difficult to watch BierWax exist as a fraction of its true self, but Chris and Yahaira were too worried about the wellbeing of staff and customers to open things up early. As I looked around the bustling bar on a “Metal Night” during this year’s NYC Beer Week in February, seeing excited conversations, limited-release beers flowing, and local brewery owners like KCBC’s Tony Bellis spinning records, it was hard to imagine what Chris had told me during an interview back in the fall of 2020: He was this close to selling BierWax. No amount of PPP loans could realistically keep many New York City bars afloat.
Then a lifeboat called Open Streets arrived. The city’s program shut down certain streets at certain times (typically weekends). BierWax is fortuitously located on Vanderbilt Avenue, a stretch rich in bars and restaurants that were suddenly able to greatly expand their seating options outdoors. As soon as Open Streets debuted, BierWax’s fans showed up. Even with tons of tables dotting the road, you often had to wait for a seat.
Today, indoor seating is back, as are events and DJs. With Open Streets still in action, BierWax on a Saturday evening is a delightful hubbub of families and dogs—who the bartenders seem to know by name—outside, and DJ-led dance parties inside.
“BierWax is easily the best listening room in the entire city,” says DJ DAN C.E. “As a DJ, [it’s] one of my favorite places to spin and one of the few places where I actually get applause after my set. There’s nothing like playing music for people that actually appreciate you and the music you play.”
The heartbeat of BierWax is strong again, delighting New York’s beer and music lovers, as well as tourists now returning to New York who have read about the bar or heard about it from a friend. Being fully open not only allows these patrons to fill seats again—it also allows Chris, Yahaira, and their staff to maintain personal relationships with brewers and participate in collaborations. Brewers in New York and beyond count the Maestros as longtime supporters, and the fandom is mutual.
“They’ve been buying KCBC since the day they opened,” Bellis says, adding that BierWax is one of his favorite NYC bars. Reilly remembers approaching Chris within the first few months of her previous role at Brooklyn’s Five Boroughs Brewing Co. “Of course I’ll put your beer on,” he told her.
Big aLICe Brewing’s head brewer Jon Kielty is thrilled to have participated in one of BierWax’s most recent collaborations, calling it one of the coolest beers he’s ever done. “As a brewer focused on agriculture and sourcing local ingredients, we were able to brew and barrel-age the beer using the grapes that grow on the vines in the patio area of BierWax. After we harvested, Chris and his two daughters came and helped us process all of the grapes. It was a really special experience to see them get involved.” The beer is named Backyard 45 Funk as a nod to both music and wild beer.
Kielty also mentions being excited about another recent BierWax endeavor: a second location. BierWax rebounded so well after the pandemic’s darkest days that the Maestros have been able to bring the beer, the music, the diversity, and the community to a whole new borough with BierWax Queens, located in the Ridgewood neighborhood.
Chris says the idea of opening an entirely new location so hot on the heels of the first one just pulling through would have seemed unfathomable until one day … it didn’t. One of BierWax’s bartenders wanted to open a bar or cafe in Queens and then proposed the concept of another BierWax to Chris. The real estate market was actually favorable, so he took the idea to Yahaira. The couple felt good about the move and ended up with the first space they looked at on Madison Street. It’s a bigger space, which means more room for dancing—both Wang and Chris have recently had birthday celebrations there.
“BierWax is an important part of the fabric of our craft beer scene here in NYC,” Kielty says. “There is nowhere like it.” Now, that impact is doubled, as beer lovers, music lovers, tourists, and locals can flock to the location most convenient for them, and the contribution BierWax has made to Prospect Heights can be repeated in Ridgewood.
That contribution is bigger than beer, and it’s bigger than music. It’s the community the Maestros build around them, and the example they set. Yahaira says people have told her they’ve left their jobs and taken out loans to follow their own dreams after visiting BierWax, realizing that a family of color, a family without trust funds, has been able to create such a special place and legacy.
“I think our family represents that possibility and dream and reality for a lot of people, whether you’re Black or Brown or not,” Yahaira says. “Sure, we want to be profitable, we want to be successful. But I think what makes us successful is concentrating on the experiences we’re creating for our people, and that means anybody that walks through those doors.”
Words by Courtney IsemanPhotos by Kyle Gonzales
