Hello, and happy Green City weekend! Other Half’s sold-out hoppy beer fest kicks off tomorrow evening, but if you don’t have tickets, don’t fret! The visiting brewers in town are the subject of events all over the place this weekend. It’s hard to keep track of all of the fringe events tonight alone, but in addition to the ones mentioned last week, As Is has a Florida tap takeover tonight with King State, Tripping Animals, and Dream State. Oregon and Colorado come to New York with a Great Notion and Outer Range tap feature at Grand Delancey starting at 5pm (Humble Sea and Cellarmaker will do the same thing there on Sunday starting at noon). Proletariat has a Green City pre-party tonight with guest beers from The Veil, King State, Dream State, and Root + Branch. There’s more than even I can keep up with, but odds are if you go to a good beer bar this weekend, you’ll come across some good beers from some out-of-town breweries. Then again, when is that not true?
A couple other goings-on this weekend worth mentioning are about milestones. The Owl Farm turns 11 years old this year, and they’re celebrating all day Saturday, as they do every year. And Grimm Artisanal Ales marks 5 years of brewing in Brooklyn and 10 years in business on Saturday with TEN beer releases, including a re-brew of From the Hip, the very first beer that Grimm ever released. They’ll throw an all-day party Saturday, too.
If this is all overwhelming to you, you can just get out of town instead. Which brings us to the meat of this week’s newsletter…
Go By Train: Four Multi-Brewery Day Trips from New York City
It’s getting to be that time of year where all the heat and humidity and garbage smells get to you and you just have to… get away. If you’ve got a day to kill and a hankering to visit a brewery or two, here are a quick few escapes from the city for the day, all doable by commuter rail.
Lindenhurst, Long Island
From nothing just a few years ago, Lindenhurst has become a legitimate beer destination on Long Island, and it’s just an hour by LIRR from Penn Station. The town is anchored by the spacious South Shore location of the new Sand City Brewing, the second outpost of the brewery that got its start on the North Shore in Northport. Walk north on Wellwood Avenue and you’ll find two storefront nanobreweries along the town’s main drag: 27A Brewing, a reliable spot that’s the longest-running of the town’s breweries, and Breslau Brewing, whose taproom feels like a friendly little neighborhood bar. If you’re into mead, W A Meadworks is just up the street, too. If you’re not ready to go home after all that, the outstanding Root + Branch Brewing is just one stop away in Copaigue.
Asbury Park, New Jersey
Head down the shore and you’ll find a stretch of breweries along NJ Transit’s North Jersey Coast Line. Wild Air Beerworks in Asbury Park is just a short walk from the Asbury Park stop, offering an Instagram-friendly taproom with fantastic beers to boot. If you need some food, the Asbury Park Festhalle has some good grub and a house beer made by Two Ton Brewing. Head down the line one stop to Bradley Beach and you’re just a stone’s throw from the bustling Bradley Brew Project on Main Street and Little Dog Brewing Co. across the tracks in Neptune City. Best of all? You’re never more than a 15-minute walk from the beach.
Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County
It’s admittedly a bit of a trek up to Poughkeepsie on Metro-North. But on a nice day, you can stretch your legs after the two-hour train ride on the Walkway Over the Hudson before you head uphill to decide among the city’s six (!) breweries. Mill House is its oldest, serving beers from their twenty-barrel brewery down the road in its Mill Street brewpub. King’s Court was put on the map by their two Great American Beer Festival medals, which in my experience are well-deserved. Zeus Brewing is worth checking out for the view from their rooftop bar. Blue Collar has grown to become a Poughkeepsie mainstay and has a wonderful brick-lined taproom. Obscure Oscillation specializes in Belgian-style beers and has a taproom in a residential neighborhood that’s open only on Thursdays. And while not exactly easily-walkable, Plan Bee Farm Brewery is on the outskirts of town and opens to serve their outstanding 100% New York State farm beers on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
Riverhead, Long Island
Riverhead is equally far from the city by train as Poughkeepsie (just a little over two hours away), but equally-brewery’ed. The six breweries in this town range from the Irish-themed (Long Ireland), to the little Main Street storefront (Tradewinds), to the shiny brewpub (Peconic County Brewing), to the converted firehouse-turned-taproom (North Fork), to the beer nerd’s paradise (ubergeek), to the music-themed brewery (Twin Fork). Just don’t stay out too late — the last train back to the city is just after 9:30pm every day.
Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 3,101
Total breweries visited in 2023: 206
Total breweries visited in Nevada: 25
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #420, Pigeon Head Brewery, Reno, Nevada (Visited 29-Aug-2015)
This segment of the newsletter isn’t about Pigeon Head Brewery, which I was reminded of a couple weeks ago when someone asked me to look up which brewery was brewery #420 (haha, that’s the weed number). This segment isn’t about Pigeon Head’s beer in 2015, which was quite delicious — I particularly enjoyed their Red Rye Lager, which they still make today. This segment isn’t about Pigeon Head’s approach to beer, which focused on lagers from the start at a time when everyone was chasing hazy IPAs. This segment isn’t about the rest of that day in Reno, which ended at a canned beer festival at a casino that had as many attendees with beards as it had attendees with walkers (that’s a story for another newsletter).
No, this segment was created for just one reason: to share this incredibly creepy portrait that gratefully (or not) still hangs from the wall beside the taproom bar at Pigeon Head.
This haunted my dreams for months, so I feel it’s my duty for it to haunt yours, too.
The Weekly Reader
Editor’s Note: I’ve decided there’s far too much beer content on the Internet to feature just one article each week in this space. Apologies if the new name gives you flashbacks to colored newsprint bleeding onto your hands in elementary school.
Meet some of New York City’s brewery cats [Ash Croce, Time Out]
Get to know the founders of Beacon’s newest brewery [Marc Ferris, Chronogram]
The story of BEER, the weird, no-frills trendy drink of the late 70s and early 80s [Aaron Goldfarb, Vinepair]
Read about the rise and fall of Ohio’s Platform Brewing, bought and then closed by AB-InBev [Douglas Trattner, Cleveland Scene]
One More Thing
If you’re into beer for a good cause, here’s news for you: Canal Beer is back. The beer, a collaborative effort between the four breweries in Gowanus, Brooklyn (Finback, Strong Rope, Threes, and Wild East), raises funds for the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, an organization working for a cleaner, more vibrant waterway. There’s a launch party for the beer tonight at Threes Brewing Gowanus (333 Douglass St.) starting at 5pm, where you can learn more about the group, enjoy the beer, and enter a raffle for one of four brewery gift cards.
Cheers,
Chris
what are your thoughts of the breweries in Poughkeepsie? i'm now in Wappingers Falls but have yet to visit any of them in Poughkeepsie proper, though i have gone to Plan Bee and love what they're making.
Never mind my comment on IG. Should have read your newsletter first! Hope you are well.