Ramblings of Beer Travelers
Travelogues from our North American trips
“Three Days in the Big Apple” is the latest episode of One Pint at a Time.
This was our first trip to New York City. We always try to maximize the experiences in our beer travels but, even for us, the list for this trip was ambitious. We had 32 beer places to visit and only three days to do it. Turns out, the number wasn’t our biggest obstacle to reaching our goal.
So enjoy our first New York City adventure…
For all the episodes of One Pint at a Time go to beergeekTV.
Our plan is for both of us to reach the 500 brewery milestone on our upcoming trip to Maine. But with Merideth needing ten breweries to reach 500 and only 11 on our Maine target list, we needed some trip insurance. To give us a margin of error in case something went wrong, we decided we needed to add a few more breweries to The List prior to the the trip.
An evening kickoff for the Cal-USC game gave us the perfect opportunity get up to the Bay Area early in the day and get us the needed wiggle room on the beer list. So, at 8am on Saturday morning we were on the road to eastern Contra Costa County.
People are surprised to learn there are breweries in the Bay Area that are not our list. In the case of Schooner’s Grille and Brewery in Antioch, which opened in 2001, the issue was geography. Antioch is just not on way to anywhere we ever go.
Not knowing exactly how long the drive would take us, we pulled into the Schooner’s parking lot 25 minutes early. After a few minutes hanging outside in the warm late morning sunshine, the manager, Gary came out to say that they wouldn’t be open for a few more minutes. Explaining that we had driven 2+ hours to get to Schooner’s he kindly set us up with a taster set out on the patio. Joined by our friends Rowdy and Dave, we settled in to try the beers.
The eight samples ranged from a popular American-style light lager to their award winning Oatmeal Stout, which recently won a medal for the third straight year at the Great American Beer Festival. While the Stout was really nice, I gravitated towards the Pale Ale and IPA. Both were hopped just the way I like them. Merideth liked the Pale Ale the best, as well.
Despite enjoying the beers, company and sunshine, we needed get back the road for the hour drive to Oakland. We had an appointment at Linden Street Brewery.
Linden Street first came to our attention when Bill Brand started writing about a new brewery in Oakland that was making a California Common. More than the beer, what intrigued me was the Friday night party at the brewery that was almost reaching legendary status.
We first met Linden Street owner/brewer Adam Lamoreaux in February 2007 at the Trappist in Oakland. It was somewhat a chance meeting as the Trappist was packed after the Celebrator party and Adam happened to be sitting next to the only seat available. Despite the loud and boisterous crowd at the Trappist that night, we chatted with Adam and tried his flagship beer for the first time. The pride he took in Oakland struck a chord with us. As seven year residents of Oakland, we look back fondly on our years there. Fast forward 17 months and many delays, Linden Street was finally brewing at their Port of Oakland facility.
Located in a 1890s era warehouse, the old brick building just exudes character. Adam greeted us in the craiglist free page furnished front room. After a short chat where we reminding him of our 2007 meeting, Adam guided to the back and the brewery, the old Bison Brewery kit.
There are two beers in the current Linden Street lineup. Merideth’s favorite, Urban People’s Common Lager, was the beer we first tried in 2007. A California Common, this is Adam’s interpretation of a brew that was prevalent all over the Bay Area in the 19th century.
My choice of the two was Burning Oak Black Lager, a beer that Adam described as actually a brown lager. “A really, really dark brown lager. So dark brown, it almost looks black,” Adam said. I just love the roast flavor of a black lager.
Adam’s passion to bring Oakland back to its glory days of brewing – the days when there were over 40 breweries in the city – is admirable. What impresses me more is that in these times of IPAs, Doubles, Imperials and barrels, Adam is committed to brewing lagers.
The passion must be working because the Linden Street brews are selling well. Two new brews are in the works including the recreation of a old time Oakland brew called “Moon Glow”. Other, bigger plans, are also in the works. After we met Adam the first time, we wished him all the success in the world. It is nice to see that success is now coming to Linden Street Brewery.
We had the Cal game to get ready for so we left Adam to move on with his day.
A day that was originally conceived to add a couple of breweries to The List turned out to be one of those days that reminded me that our brewery quest is about more than numbers. It is the beers that we drink and the people we meet that give it all meaning.
Another short trip is in the books; the second of three successive quick beer trips. This quickie adventure was to Denver for the Great American Beer Festival. We packed a lot into a 22-hour visit.
Being the anxious traveler that I am, I fretted the whole week about getting to Denver. We had a only a small window of error and any delays could negatively impact the whole day.
But our early, early flight from San Jose got us to Denver on time. Quickly making it downtown, we had time to check into our hotel and then walk over to Rock Bottom for a quick pint.
Rock Bottom was less crowded than I expected and we easily found a seat in the front bar area. A pint of beer was definitely needed not only to calm my traveling nerves. More important, I find the one ounce pours at GABF annoying and needed an adult-sized beer before enduring the Lilliputian-sized pours at the festival. And a pint of Falcon Pale Ale on cask fit the bill nicely. Merideth even got to indulge in her beloved Kölsch. With our beer craving satisfied, it was time to head over to the convention center.
At the opening bell, we were at Jolly Pumpkin where we had been patiently waiting for several minutes. Jolly Pumpkin only had two beers left which points out one of the downfalls of missing the earlier sessions. Beers run out never to reappear. Merideth and I started our 2009 GABF experience with EYO (pronounced I-O), a Red Saison brewed with rose petals and hibiscus, oak aged and bottle conditioned.
Call me pig-headed. With so many choices at GABF, this year over 2,100 brews from 457 breweries, I refuse to stand in a long line for a beer. Even if the lines supposedly move quickly.
With that in mind, I really wanted to try the New Glarus beers. I think the last time I sampled New Glarus was in the mid 1990s at the Oregon Brewers Festival. Back then, they were this new brewery doing fruit beers. But somehow there was already a long line one minute into the session. So, we passed on New Glarus and looked for easier opportunities.
We used to our tried and true method that we learned last year of wandering up and down the aisles picking random breweries based upon lack of line. But doing only one session this year, our wandering was a bit quicker and more focused. Using this tactic, we tried beers from breweries such as Lakefront (Milwaukee, WI), Real Ale (Blanco, TX), Sprecher (Glendale, WI), Sullivan’s Black Forest Brew Haus (Frankenmuth, MI) and 23rd Street (Lawrence, KS).
Our method also found us trying the range of beers from such notables as Bell’s, Allagash and Cambridge. Somewhat shocking to me given their reputations, none of these breweries had a line. So, it was easy to camp out and try all the beers.
First up was Bell’s. We don’t get the famed Michigan brews here in California so I was excited to give them a try. Still in a sour phase, Wild One was my pick of their offerings.
Next up was Allagash and Cambridge Brewing who were conveniently neighbors in the New England section. Focusing on them was a bit odd considering we are visiting both breweries in a few weeks. But I love their beers.
I’ll admit that Allagash prices has prevented us from sampling a wider range of the their brews. Therefore, I jumped at the chance to try some of their more esoteric brews such as Curieux and Victor.
Cambridge Brewing has always been our favorite brewery in Boston. So, it was no surprise that they had my favorite beer of GABF: Sgt. Pepper, a saison-style brew made with whole peppercorn. And The Wind Cried Mary was a very impressive Heather Ale.
With plenty of one ounce pours under our belts, it was time for the award ceremony. A large percentage of the session crowd gathered in the far corner of the hall to see medals awarded in 78 categories. From American-Style Cream Ale or Lager (Milwaukee’s Best) to the hotly contested American-style IPA (Firestone Walker Union Jack) to Barleywine (Valley Brewing Old Inventory) the winners were announced to the raucous crowd.
I would be remiss if we didn’t congratulate our friends who pulled in medals this year. Steve Donohue from Firehouse Grill and Brewery in Sunnyvale pulled in a bronze for his Veles Baltic Porter. We tried this beer in its infancy 4 months ago and it was brilliant then.
21st Amendment in San Francisco also won a bronze in the Smoked Beer category with Diesel Imperial Smoked Porter.
Finally, Peter Hoey from Sacramento Brewing won a bronze in the Belgian and French Style Ale category with Collaborative Evil.
This year there seemed to be a high number of entertaining brew names. If I could offer a suggestion to improve GABF (besides bigger pours), maybe there should be an award for most creative name. Coincidentally, the gold and silver could have gone to the gold and silver medal winners in the Kellerbier/Zwickelbier category. However, I might reverse the order and give the gold to Devil’s Backbone Brewing for “Natural Born Keller”.
After the awards, we ran around trying some of the medal winners. Then, before we knew it, our GABF experience was over and we shuffled out of the hall. My last act at the 2009 Great American Beer Festival was my glass dropping out of my bag and shattering all over the concrete floor. Of course, this elicited the requisite cheers and jeers.
The Great American Beer Festival might have been over but our day wasn’t. We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and made our way down to Falling Rock Tap House to have a few beers before we headed out to Red Rocks.
Falling Rock was crowded but surprisingly not packed when we arrived. We found our friends JJ and Scott and grabbed a table downstairs. While we were chatting and enjoying a few beers, who should come up but our American altbier drinking buddy from Düsseldorf, Dennis. Though it was only two months ago, we reminisced about our time beer-filled time with the Slovaks at Hausbrauerei zum Schlüssel.
Just like GABF, our time at Falling Rock was quickly over as we had to head out to Red Rocks for the Flogging Molly show. In the end, we didn’t try all the beers we wanted, didn’t see all the people were were hoping to, but still had a memorable day. It was the beer geek thing to do…
No, we didn’t reach our goal of hitting 32 beer places in three days. It was crazy to think we could do that. But we finally met in person our friend Andie, who happens to work for Victory Brewing.
Before we met up with Andie and her husband, we wanted to do some ‘normal’ tourist things, like see the Statue of Liberty. So, we headed on down to Battery Park, which turned out to be no easy task. Weekend construction on the subway meant multiple transfers to get down there. The subway platforms were the hottest and steamiest of the trip and we spent plenty of time on them. We did a quick tour of Battery Park, gazed at the Statue of Liberty from afar and filmed the episode closing. Then we headed back uptown.
First stop was Heartland Brewery at Union Square where we met Andie and Greg. Heartland is a chain of six ‘brew’ pubs in Manhattan with the Union Square location being the original. Unfortunately, they no longer brew at any of the locations, so we couldn’t count Heartland on the list. All the beer is made at a production facility in Brooklyn and the nice brew kits are now just decoration.
After the ‘it’s so nice to finally meet you in person’ talk with Andie, the four of sat down to try the beers and have some lunch. The beers were solid, with the IPA (of course) being my brew of choice.
Then we were off to East Village and McSorley’s Old Ale House. You don’t go to McSorley’s for the beer. Established in 1854, one visits McSorley’s for the history of which there is plenty.
As for the beer, there are two house ales, a light and a dark. There really isn’t much flavor difference with the dark having slightly more of a roast flavor. Oddly, they are served in pairs. We ordered three beers and received six glasses. And the beers are brewed off-site so it couldn’t be counted on the list either.
After trying the light and dark and looking around, it was time for our group to move on.
There were three more beer places on the same block as McSorley’s but first we headed down to the Bowery to DBGB, a new beer place in Manhattan. As an aside, I assume the name is a play on the famous music venue, CBGBs, that was a half block away. I went to a show there in the mid 1980s though I can’t remember the bands name. Now it is a John Varvatos boutique, whatever that is…
I knew DBGB was going to be upscale and pretentious. But after reading about the restaurant in an Eric Asimov article in the New York Times I wanted to go… to try the sausages. The article mentioned there were 13 different sausages on the menu and I was hoping they had a sampler plate.
Walking in, my preconceived notion was confirmed; this wasn’t our kind of place. And there was no sausage sampler plate.
But what a nice beer selection! The streak of trying new beers continued as I had a Six Point Righteous Rye Ale and a Captain Lawrence Fresh Chester Pale Ale.
Then it was back up to the street to check out the three places near McSorley’s.
First up was Standings, a sports bar with craft beer. Or was it a craft beer bar that showed a lot of sports? It was amazing how much sports SWAG they fit into such a small space. Apparently, Standings is also the place that Manhattan Cal fans gather to watch the games. I was so enamored with taking pictures of all the Cal stuff, I almost forgot to get a beer.
Peak Organic IPA was the beer I found at Standings. I also tried Dogfish Midas Touch, a beer I liked better than Palo Santo Marron.
We parted company with Andie and her husband after Standings. They headed to the train station while we walked a few doors down to Jimmy’s No. 43.
Without our friends to keep us going we again hit the afternoon fade. We had a few quick beers at Jimmy’s. Then, we walked into Burp Castle, didn’t see anything we really wanted and left. We popped into Hop Devil Grill for a quick bite to eat and a beer. We took a cab back uptown (unfortunately not Cash Cab) to take us back to Rattle and Hum as we needed some more video footage.
We finished up our New York City beer adventure at The Ginger Man. Luckily we were there in the early evening and the place was empty. We were in the stare blankly, talk minimally, watch people walk by phase of the evening and a large, noisy crowd would have ruined the moment. My last beer of the trip was a River Horse Hopalotamus Double IPA… on cask.
The absolute last thing we did in NYC was another ‘normal’ tourist thing, ordering a corned beef sandwich at Carnegie Deli. And we don’t eat beef. We managed to visit 20 of the beer places on our target list and drink beer at 19 of them. Even though that left us 12 short of our goal, we had a good time making the attempt, even taking into account the weather. That just means we need to return to New York City, preferably in the spring or fall.
Friday morning we were back on the subway headed across the East River to Brooklyn. Much to our chagrin, it seemed like it was going to be hotter on our second day in New York City.
Beyond the weather, our day in Brooklyn posed a real challenge. Not only did we have an impossible number of beer places on our list, 15, but they were scattered all over the borough. Oh, then the myriad of opening times made the task just that more difficult. There should be a law that says beer places have to open at 10am.
Emerging from the Court St. subway station, I plugged the name of our first destination into the map function of my trusty iPhone and we were off. Unfortunately, we started walking in the wrong direction something the little blue dot didn’t tell me until we had walked two blocks. Big mistake when walking on the surface of the sun. We turned around.
We were soon in the air-conditioned comfort of our first destination, Waterfront Ale House. I immediately ordered a beer that I wanted to try the previous day, Southampton IPA.
It was time for a strategy to make it through the day. We decided that we would stick to half pints whenever possible. This is something we rarely do when we are on foot. But we had never tried to do 15 pubs in one day either. So, after a few glasses and a sample of Southampton’s Imperial Porter (a perfect summer beer), it was time to walk at few blocks up the street to the Brazen Head.
Though it looks like it could have been in a past life, the Brazen Head is not an Irish pub. The mostly craft beer selection is dominated by East Coast brews with seven of seventeen being from New York when we were there.
I went cask at the Brazen Head, having Six Point’s Otis Oatmeal Stout followed by Stoudt’s American Pale Ale.
Now it was time for our first big walk of the day. Bar Great Harry was a 20 minute stroll in the blazing sun. We were looking forward to returning to the safety of air-conditioning but found Bar Great Harry open, literally. The air-conditioning was on but all the doors were open. We retreated to the back of the bar and tried to cool off.
Bar Great Harry was the eighth stop of the trip. When planning, I wondered if all these beer bars would have something different to try. Amazingly, at each place, we did find something new.
The find at Bar Great Harry was Captain Lawrence Ginger Man Ale. Not a ginger beer, rather a beer with ginger added, this brew was the PERFECT antidote for the heat and humidity.
We were already hitting the afternoon fade but still pressed on. Another 20 minute walk from Bar Great Harry were two more targets a few doors from each other.
We stopped in 4th Avenue Pub first. Here the half pint regimen began to brake down as it was happy hour so we could only get a pint. OK… Whatever.
My eyes focused on Six Point Sweet Action Ale. Cool name but what was it? The bartender said it was like a cross between and IPA and Hefeweizen. That sounded like more a description of Hopfenweisse. While I didn’t agree with that description, it was mighty tasty. However, I still don’t know what it is…
A few doors down was Pacific Standard. Billed a “West Coast” pub, the owners and fellow Berkeley grads dedicate half their taps to West Coast beers.
I settled in with another Six Point brew, Bengali IPA, as we chatted with both John and Jonathan about their bar and Cal football. But our chat was cut short as we needed to be somewhere else.
Taking the subway across Brooklyn, we finally reached the big event for the day, Brooklyn Brewery’s Friday night Happy Hour. Not a huge fan of the brewery’s beers, I have to admit this was the highlight of the trip for me.
From 6-11pm every Friday, the brewery opens their tasting room (They offer tours on Saturday). Tokens were $4 each or six for $20. A token bought you a 12oz beer from their regular lineup.
Groups of friends hang out, play games and munch on snacks they brought. Pizza can even be delivered from one of the many pizza parlors whose menus cover the tables.
We found a table and I acquired four glasses of their regular beers. While drinking Blast, their nice take on a West Coast Double IPA, I remembered Local 1 and 2, Brooklyn specialty brews that I had never tried before. These beers were three tokens each which also included the logo glass. What a deal! After obtaining the needed number of tokens, I had each Belgian-style brew in hand. Very nice.
Unfortunately, I had left scrabble in the hotel room. And it was getting loud in the tasting room which was beginning to get to us. We had someone to meet so it was time to move on.
Brooklyn Brewery left a good impression on me. I love places where friends get together at big tables to drink beer, chat and play games. My only disappointment was that I didn’t get to try their version of the Hopfenweisse.
Our last stop was Lucky Dog where we met a new friend Dawn. Sitting in their back beer garden we had a few beers and a nice quiet conversation. ahhhhh.
We only made seven of the fifteen beer places on our list. All, I can say is that we tried.