Features

Tapped Craft Beer Events launched in early 2011, and specializes in small-batch, craft beer tastings for private and corporate events. Teambuilding activities, such as beer trivia, can also be arranged. Events can take the format of educational tasting sessions or cocktail-style affairs with tasting stations. The company provides five to seven different kinds of beer geared toward the chosen topic, locally made artisan snacks, stemware, beer tasting notecards, and style guides. Tastings can take place at offices or event spaces, with a general minimum of five people and a maximum of 150. Costs start from $20 per person.

LifeLabs New York opened in August 2010 as a place for people to learn self-improvement techniques and practical skills.  While corporate groups can book any of the courses offered by the company for private sessions, LifeLabs also has a series of 30-minute-long corporate mini-labs designed to be scattered throughout the day at a conference or meeting. The latest offerings in the Learning Lab Series, released in February, include “The Science of Surprise,” “Play Lab,” and “Game-Changer Lab.”  In each, participants function as a research group, designing experiments on a certain topic, then comparing their results to actual scientific findings on the subject. After the event, members can receive lab reports that include key learnings and challenges to try in the month ahead.

Groups can show off their pizza-making skills during private classes at the Pizza a Casa Pizza School on the Lower East Side. The four-hour teambuilding activity begins with founder Mark Bello teaching students how to make their own dough from scratch. As it rises, Bello lectures on pizza-making techniques. Participants spend the latter part of the class making (and eating) their own creations. Guests leave with leftovers, extra dough, and instruction booklets. Private classes cost $1,850 for as many as 16 people.

Big Onion Walking Tours has a new offering based on Ken Burns’ PBS documentary Prohibition. The two-hour “Satan’s Seat” tour covers a broad range of themes exploring the history, politics, and culture of speakeasies in New York during the 1920s. Covering ground across lower Manhattan, stops include the sites of former speakeasies as well as historic places associated with key players like Fiorello LaGuardia, Margaret Sanger, and Al Jolson. Private tours can be arranged for groups of any size, with custom price quotes available on request.

Ceramic studio La Mano Pottery opened a new, larger location at 110 West 26th Street in January, offering group pottery-making classes designed to help students develop and enhance their creativity. The space has 24 pottery wheels and six hand-building tables. Single-day classes typically involve teaching hand-building techniques to a group of as many as 15, which involves creating ceramic pieces by hand. The two-hour classes include all materials, and prices start from $75 per person.