With a plethora of local craft beer options in the city, it's sometimes easy to forget what the rest of New York State has to offer. I've been meaning to explore the lower Hudson Valley for a while and finally got the chance to the week of November 16th. I was blown away by the solid craft beer options throughout the area and the scenery in general was incredible.
It was a crisp autumn Wednesday, and after a few hours at Storm King, my friend and I were thirsty and eager to check out the local scene. Despite knowing that since Dia:Beacon was closed, we drove towards the sleepy town of Beacon, knowing it would be a bit less crowded and our options would be limited.
Tuesdays and Wednesdays are like weekends in Beacon, several local places are closed knowing there won't be as much foot traffic visiting the small town. We were bummed to find out renowned bar Draught Industries and 2 Way Brewing were closed Wednesdays, but were happy to find Stock Up, a small deli/restaurant/beer shop located on a residential corner. I was really impressed with what Stock Up had in their beer fridges, a lot of beers that fly off the shelves in the city including a couple Grimm options. To pair with my "Big Bird" fried chicken sandwich, I ordered an Equilibrium Brewing Mmm...Osa, a pale ale that came highly recommended to me by my friend who visited Beacon with his wife the weekend before. Equilibrium is a new brewery opening up in Middletown, NY early next year and has been making hop heads around New York giddy, whenever someone brings them up you hear "Tree House this, or Tree House that." I haven't tried the renowned MC^2 just yet, but Mmm...Osa was a really nice, light and citrusy pale ale.
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| Equilibrium's Mmm...Osa on the left and Suarez Family's Squeaker on the right on Stock Up's back porch. |
Sitting on Stock Up's back porch and not ready to leave, I ordered a Suarez Family Brewing Squeaker Pale Ale next. Suarez Family Brewery is a new "mom and pop" operation that just opened in Livingston, NY, about an hour north of Beacon. Suarez is a brewery I've been following the progress of for a little under a year every since I heard about Dan's story (here's a really nice recent publication in Good Beer Hunting about Suarez Family). I really wanted to drive up to Suarez for a visit and get a couple growlers, but they were a bit too far and only opened at 5PM on Wednesday, meaning we wouldn't get back to the city until 9PM or so at the earliest and that wasn't an option with our rental car situation.
Anyway, Suarez Family Brewing makes really nice beers. Ever since I had Hecto Pale Ale on tap in the city, I knew I should seek out their beers. A brewery focusing on "crispy little beers" is exactly what New York needed, we don't need to be sipping on 12% imperial stouts or 8+% IPAs all the time. Squeaker was just what I was looking for, a refreshing, light pale (~4%).
After a bit of walking around Beacon (and upset that The Hop closed down), I showed my friend the site for the upcoming Hudson Valley Brewery which will soon be right on East Main Street in the heart of Beacon, next to this lovely creek.
Hudson Valley Brewery is a major construction project and will hopefully open sometime in 2017. They have been brewing and barreling beer and recently distributed their first to bars across New York - Amulet is a sour farmhouse ale aged in oak wine barrels with blueberries, hibiscus and rose hips and then dry-hopped with Citra and Mosaic. If it's anything like Make Believe, a sour farmhouse ale aged in oak wine barrels and also dry-hopped with Citra and Galaxy which I enjoyed very much back in May, then it's worth seeking out. Half Serious, HVB's collaboration with Threes Brewing was a slightly tart, light Berliner Weisse and also a sign of good things to come. This past summer, HVB also won best beer during the Hudson Valley Craft Beer Week's annual event.
The guys behind Hudson Valley Brewery were formerly at Brewery at Bacchus in New Paltz, which used to be one of the best kept secrets in the NY beer scene. As stated in a nice feature in Hudson Valley Magazine, HVB has been operating on a 30-barrel system and crafting blended sour ales and complex beers.
Since Sloop Brewing was also closed on Wednesday, and Newburgh Brewery didn't open until 4PM, my friend and I decided to head south to Peekskill to check out Peekskill Brewery. A large spot right off the Metro North station with a big selection of beers, Peekskill was a decent place to hang out, but I can't say I wasn't disappointed with the fact that the only beer they had to go was a 2+ month old Pale Ale, and their brewery taproom was fully stocked with liquor and felt like a sports bar (a personal pet peeve - witnessing people order vodka sodas at a brewery is nauseating).
Leaving a bit disappointed with Peekskill, my friend and I hurried to Industrial Arts Brewing, a new brewery that opened just a few weeks before in the Garnerville Arts and Industrial Center in Rockland, NY. We were blown away by the space and the beers at Industrial Arts.
With just a few locals in the taproom, we spoke with the bartenders who explained that the brewery was a huge project by Jeff O'Neil, former brewmaster at Peekskill. The building was massive, built in a pre-Civil War industrial complex (smoke stack and all) it was nicely refurbished with one of the most unique bar setups I've seen in a brewery.
I was really impressed with Power Tools, an IPA (and essentially a double version of their flagship pale Tools of the Trade) that was crisp, clean and dialed-in. After that, I tried both of the IPAs in their State of the Art series, 32 & 40. 32 was running low and definitely the better version, wish I could identify the hop bill on it. As a night cap in anticipation of the drive back to the city, I chugged a Pantry coffee porter, light and thin but it had a nice roast character.
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| State of the Art 32 and Power Tools from Industrial Arts Brewing |
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