Every Season is IPA Season

The latest NYC beer news and a ranking of Newfoundland’s macro beers

A couple weeks back, I asked you all what characteristics in beer you most closely associated with a “summer beer.” The results were surprisingly one-sided:

• 78% of you said “crisp, clean floral”

• 13% of you said “hoppy, tropical, hazy”

• 5% of you said “fruity, pale, tart”

• 4% of you said “spicy, estery, dry”

I would say I’m pleased with the results as someone who loves his crispy bois, but it’s interesting to see that a good chunk of people voted to associate the characteristics of IPAs with summer. To those who voted that way: do you drink IPAs year-round and are too haze-crazed to drink anything else? Do you drink IPAs only during the summer? Do you drink different kinds of IPAs during the summer? I’m curious. No judgements! Let me know in the comments.

In addition to the only craft offering at a summer music festival being an IPA, my question was also inspired by a friend who said to me, “it’s IPA season” over Memorial Day Weekend. This reminds me of the fake-beer-holiday of IPA Day that originated in the early 2010s. “Why does IPA need a day,” I asked at the time, “when it seems like every day is IPA Day?”

Anyway, I won’t yuck anyone’s yum. Drink what you like. After all, J. Wakefield Brewing is currently pouring three Imperial Stouts over 13% ABV in one of the most warm and humid places in the country. If Miamians can drink beers that are as thick as the air, you can drink whatever you damn well please during the summer.

A Sampler Tray of NYC Beer News

Celebrate Pride with Beer on Sunday

A reminder that this Sunday is the NYC Brewers Guild’s Celebration of Pride at LIC’s Focal Point Beer Co. on Sunday, June 18th from noon to 6pm. The pay-as-you-go mini-fest will feature Pride Month-inspired beers from a more than a dozen New York City brewers like Back Home, Finback, Brooklyn Brewery and Threes — all beers brewed with the same cause in mind. Tickets start at $15 for entry and two pours, and there’s a $60 option that offers twelve pours. All proceeds go to both the guild and The Okra Project, a mutual aid organization that supports Black Trans people.

Green City’s Fringe Events

Other Half’s sold-out Green City festival is next weekend, and if you missed out on tickets, there’s still other events around the fest happening in the city. Denver’s Cerebral Brewing takes over the taps at Other Half’s Gowanus taproom all day on Thursday, June 22nd with a “Renegade Science Fair” (coincidentally, Other Half took over Cerebral’s taproom last fall). Nearby, Queue Beer hosts Lagermania that same day from 5pm-midnight. It’s an all-lager tap takeover featuring Schilling, The Seed, and Human Robot. And if you miss that trio of lager makers Thursday, the same brewers will take over Torst on Saturday, the 24th, starting at noon. And all weekend, Interboro will be hosting the annual Pils City, their classic counterprogramming featuring crispy bois from some of their favorite visiting breweries.

A Cask Note

On the Upper East Side, Jones Wood Foundry has been curating an excellent cask beer selection for years, and that doesn’t stop when the weather gets warm. Their Summer Cask Ale Series is back this year, with a weekly cask tapped each Tuesday at happy hour (4-6pm). To kick things off next week, it’s the highly underrated and hard-to-find Dutchess Ales. JWF’s own “Cask Whisperer” Nigel Walsh lamented how hard it is to find cask ales here in New York in a piece on the pub’s site that’s worth reading (and not just because he mentions my beer event calendar).

Two New Breweries along the Hudson

If you’re looking for new day trip inspiration, two new breweries have opened their doors this month along the Hudson River. Simple Motive Brewing celebrated their grand opening in the Alexander Smith Carpet Mills Historic District in Yonkers at the beginning of this month. Their leafy taproom is open Wednesday through Sunday. And up the river in Beacon, Pillow & Oats Brewing has opened their doors, serving a lineup that ranges from lagers to hazy IPAs in their Main Street taproom from Thursday through Sunday.

A ranking of Newfoundland-exclusive beers brewed by Molson and Labatt

I visited several breweries in Newfoundland, but the province’s two largest breweries are off-limits to the public: both of Canada’s largest macro breweries, Labatt and Molson, produce beer behind closed doors in St. John’s, much of it under labels that are exclusive to Newfoundland. Some of this is simple logic: shipping beer to Newfoundland from mainland Canada is not cheap. But also, some of these beer brands pre-date Newfoundland’s entry into Canada, which didn’t happen until 1949. As much as I love talking about craft beer, I’m ranking these macro beers that can be found nowhere else on the planet. For me, they were newfound beers from a newfound… land.

5. Dominion Ale (Molson): Oh dear. What did we do to deserve this? Unpleasantly sweet and very little hop character to speak of. There’s some suspicion that this isn’t even actually an ale, but a slightly warmer-fermented lager than Molson’s typical offerings, since there’s no other ale brewed at their St. John’s facility. You’re not starting from a good place when a beer name is predicated on a lie.

4. India Beer (Molson): the official description of this beer says it “serves up the stamina for a night of music and camaraderie.” I had this at midnight at a bar with live music and its cardboard-like character served up no stamina. Demotion for a neck label that claims it’s “Man’s Best Friend,” though its aroma does remind me of a wet dog.

3. Blue Star (Labatt): a slightly vegetal, but otherwise clean lager with a berry-like hop character. Points for including the Newfoundland and Labrador flag on the label, a marketing move that Labatt made in the 1990s that has made this easily the most popular of these beers. Not offensive, and that’s an accomplishment for a beer that tries to be everything to everyone.

2. Jockey Club (Labatt): The bar I was at when I had this (The Ship Pub) offers an all-day special of two bottles of this for $9.85 ($7.38 US). For what it is, that’s a good deal for 682mL (just over 23 ounces) of mediocre beer. Dry, somewhat hop-forward, and more full-bodied than the others.

1. Black Horse (Molson): this one is easily the most enjoyable of the bunch. It’s got a little snappiness, no off-flavors, a little rice and biscuit as it goes down, and a clean finish. This beer originated in Quebec and became exclusive to Newfoundland through a series of brewery mergers, and Quebec’s loss is Newfoundland’s gain.

Brewery Tracker

Total brewery count: 3,101
Total breweries visited in 2023: 206
Total breweries visited in Newfoundland: 6

Brewery Visit of the Week

Brewery #3097, Banished Brewing Limited, Paradise, Newfoundland, Canada (Visited 10-Jun-2023)

The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze me.

By the time I had closed my tab at Banished, I had already intended to write about them. It would be another brewery write-up about how “doing the thing” knows no geographical bounds, and the busy taproom full of Hazy Double and Triple IPA drinkers and customers asking for the brewery to pour more sours shows that making hype-beast beers can still be wildly successful in parts of the world where some small brewers still play things middle-of-the-road.

But closing my tab was just the beginning of what became a bit of an ordeal. I stuck around long enough at Banished that I had missed the last bus back into town, so I called a cab company. Foolishly, having not spent much time in places without rideshare, I figured the cab would pull up not long after I finished the half-pint I had left in front of me. Forty minutes passed. I called the cab company again, they said someone was still on the way. Twenty more minutes passed, and I was losing hope, so I had another beer, and the incredibly kind bartenders explained that the company that serves the town (hooray, monopolies!) is notorious for no-showing customers. One of them even offered to keep watch out front so I could enjoy my beer without fearing I’d miss my chance that a cab actually did show up.

About an hour and a half after I had called the first time, a cab finally pulled up. The driver asked what many drivers ask me when they pick me up in industrial parks on Saturday afternoons: “what is that place?” I explained it’s a brewery, and a fairly new one at that. We chatted on the way to my next stop, and it’s when I went to pay for the $30, 12-minute cab ride (hooray, monopolies!) that I realized that I didn’t get my credit card back when I closed my tab at Banished.

Through a series of DMs and texts with Craig, the brewery’s owner; Keisha, one of the bartenders; and an assist from 600 miles away in Nova Scotia, where Chris of Atlantic Canada Beer Blog connected us, I was quickly reunited with my card, saving myself a ton of money, time, and hassle. I cannot be grateful enough to the people who helped make that day so much better than it could’ve been.

And by the way, Banished’s IPAs were great, but their Baked Ziti Italian Pilsner was the only beer I had twice: once when I walked in, and again on my long wait to get a cab. That speaks for itself.

Long Read of the Week

I’m really excited for Grace Weitz’s new series at Hop Culture, Creating Safer Spaces in Craft Beer. The first of ten parts dropped this week and focuses on why beer isn’t diverse and why some brewery founders are trying to change this. It’s especially prescient as the beer industry faces contraction in the face of oversaturation. Casting a wider net and getting more people to sit at that school cafeteria table is likely one of beer’s only paths to growth in the near future.

One More Thing

There was a double whammy of disappointing news out of San Francisco over the weekend, as news broke that Anchor Brewing was pulling out of all states but their home state of California, and was discontinuing their “Our Special Ale” Christmas Ale, a seasonal staple they’ve been making for nearly fifty years. This one is a gut-punch. For anyone who had their craft beer coming-of-age moment in the aughts, these beers were a staple of any beer bar worth its weight. From its controversial rebranding in 2021 to this move, it feels like the Sapporo-owned Anchor has lost its soul under corporate ownership — a soul that Anchor employees feared was at risk when they formed a union in 2019.

Anchor will discontinue shipments outside of California starting tomorrow, so if you spot any of their beer around New York, get it while you still can.

Cheers,
Chris