New Jersey / New York 2019


Thursday April 18. Left Maryland at 1:00 PM on a beautiful spring day. As usual, I had mapped out my route ahead of time and had explicit directions. When I got to Baltimore's Harbor Tunnel the 6 or 7 toll lanes were squeezed down to a single lane as construction had closed down one tunnel so all traffic was traveling in the other tunnel, one lane in each direction. Lesson learned: Always do a quick traffic check just before leaving to see whether there are any delays. Route 95 was congested and slow in many spots in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. I can only assume that it was due to folks traveling for the long Easter weekend.

First stop: Referend Bier Blendery. It opened in December 2016 and makes nothing but sour and funky ales. It has a very brief self-guided tour. The music was played from vinyl albums, and the bartender had a dual role as DJ. I tried:


Next was Troon Brewing. It is located on a nice, semi-pastoral plot next to a distillery called Sourland Mountain Spirits, as well as a tavern that I'll get to later. I went into Sourland where a young man was distilling. I introduced myself, and although they weren't open for retail business, he let me try 4 different products, all of which were good. I'm not a hard liquor person, but I nevertheless enjoyed what I tried.


Troon Brewing is hardly ever open, and when they have beer releases, they're mobbed. A stone's throw away is Brick Farm Tavern, a classy place with a small bar, some dinner tables, and a wine cellar. It sells beers from Troon as well as a few other places. I tried some hazy pale ales / IPAs:

Wine cellar.


The last brewery of the day was Conclave Brewing. They had 5 beers on tap and I used Beer Advocate to select 3 of them:


After that I checked into the nearby Travel Inn & Suites and crashed.


Friday April 19. It was 68 degrees and cloudy when I left around 8:30. Man, there are a lot of tolls in New Jersey and New York. The least they could do is provide some decent roads with the money they collect. Some of the roads are just a bumpy collection of patched holes.

I arrived at Sloop Brewing @ The Barn at 11:00. I'd thought that they opened at 11:30, but that was their other location ("The Factory"); this location opened at 12:00. So I waited for an hour before going in. The Barn is located on an apple orchard called Vosburgh Orchards. The beer is brewed at The Factory; at The Barn they just serve their beers, plus a cider made with Vosburgh's apples. I tried:


Five minutes away is Suarez Family Brewery. There was a beer release going on so there was a bit of a line. I bought 3 bottles based on their Beer Advocate ratings even though I didn't get to taste them. Hung out with a guy named Devon who I'd met at Sloop. They will serve only one 250-ml beer sample per person at a time, so Devon and I shared ours:


Devon was on a beer excursion of his own and had several beers in his car that he'd picked up. I bought 4 cans from him.


Next stop: Bacchus Restaurant, Brewery & Billiards in New Paltz. They brew here as well as at another location in Dryden. This location has beers from many breweries on tap. I tried:


On a tip from someone I'd met the previous day I went to Plan Bee Farm Brewery. It's located out in the sticks, tucked away in what appears to be a mostly residential area. There is very little signage to let you know they're there. They started at another location in 2013 and moved to Poughkeepsie in 2015. They have beehives and they grow corn and other stuff. All their beers are light on the palate, which makes them quite drinkable.

Beehives.


At Devon's suggestion I stopped at Obercreek Brewing. This is another example of how local folks can make you aware of good places that you didn't know about. When you're on a beer journey, listen to what they say, and your trip will be enhanced. Plus, you never know when someone has a trunk full of hard-to-get stuff that they'll sell to you.

Since I was calling an audible I had to use my phone's Google Maps app. Normally I write all my driving directions in a Word document and print it out because paper is reliable. If you're in an area where Internet access is unavailable, you'll be glad to have your directions written down. However, by using your phone, you get a nice real-time map of where you need to go, plus the app can get you the best route based on current traffic conditions. When you print out directions ahead of time, traffic conditions might be such that your planned route is not optimal.

Like Plan Bee, Obercreek looks to be in a mostly residential area, and there is little signage. It opened in late 2017. I tried:

German shepherd.


By the way, there are lots of lakes, rivers, and hills in that area of New York. Also, many of the trees (Bradford pear?) had white flowers on them. The white flowers had already come and gone where I live, but up in New York the spring flowering happened a bit later.

Checked in at Countryside Motel and then went to Hudson Valley Brewery. It opened in early 2017. The beers were good but a bit too sour for my palate.


Saturday April 20. Heavy rain. Left at 8:00 AM. Drove for an hour and a half on shitty, bumpy, pothole-laden roads, and got to pay several tolls for this privilege. The George Washington Bridge was especially pleasant, with potholes the size of moon craters and drivers who, when you use your turn signal to change lanes, will speed up to thwart you. The only way to change lanes is to not use your turn signal so you have the element of surprise. The traffic in New York City was heavy and slow, even though it was a weekend morning. At one point I took a wrong turn because the signs were confusing, so I used Google Maps to get myself back on track. This is another advantage that the app has over paper: if all you have are written directions, they won't be of much use navigating your way when you get lost.

I arrived at Other Half Brewing a little after 9:30. I'd heard that the place is mobbed when they have can releases; fortunately they didn't have one today so I was able to find a parking space. Plus, there had been a can release the previous day, and they had plenty left, so this was a good day to be here. They open at 10:00 on Saturdays, but today they opened 20 minutes early. There were very few of us at the bar, so my server let me try small tastes of many of their beers. (DDH = double dry-hopped.)

Afterward I went down the block where they were selling cans and bought 4-packs of my three favorite hoppy beers.


I was done by 10:30 and the next brewery on my agenda, Grimm Ales, wouldn't open til noon. I Googled other breweries in the area and by a great stroke of luck there's another brewery just a few blocks from Grimm called Interboro Spirits & Ales that opens at 11:00 on Saturdays. That's exactly when I arrived. They've been in business since summer 2016. They brew beer and distill spirits (hence their name). All their beers were light on the palate, which made them quite drinkable.

Since some of their beers are double IPAs and some are imperial IPAs, you might be wondering what the difference is. There is none. The terms are used interchangeably.


I ate some food in my car and walked over to Grimm Ales just before they opened at noon. Several people were waiting because some bottles and cans were being released. I bought a few based on their Beer Advocate ratings. In retrospect I should have sampled them at the bar first. They played country music at the bar. The place opened on June 30, 2018, but they started contract brewing at other places in 2014. They have an all-gender bathroom, with shared sinks and individual toilet stalls, just like Other Half has.


Two guys who'd seen me at the previous two breweries told me about another place a mile and a half away that I should go to. So I did. It's called Kings County Brewers Collective. Like the other three places I'd been to, it's located in an ugly part of the city, which is kind of like saying a hot part of the Sun. The place opened in summer 2016.

Afterward I was able to sneak into the brewery and snap a few photos before some guy with a British accent kicked me out.


Since it was still relatively early, I called another audible and headed to LIC Beer Project in Queens and sampled:


Next stop: Finback Brewery. It's located in a crowded residential area, and parking was not easy. I sampled:


I bought a 4-pack of Fast Flowing and checked into an Airbnb. Unfortunately their Internet was down because they'd had a power outage. This is one of the disadvantages of Airbnbs. Hotels and motels are more reliable with just about everything from wifi to having someone there to help you with anything you might need (at many Airbnbs there's no one there, and you let yourself in with a key that's in a lockbox). I went to a nearby Starbucks and used their wifi to download photos to my laptop. Then I returned and ate some food.

Ubered to Sand City Brewing in downtown Northport, which is a neat little town with many restaurants. Sand City opened in 2015. It had a festive atmosphere. I sampled:


Walked over to a place called Brew Cheese, which, as the name implies, serves cheese and beer. It also serves food made with cheese. It has a modest but nice selection of craft draughts, bottles, and cans. I ordered a Reuben-esque sandwich and sampled four draughts, all of which were good.


Ubered back and crashed around 10ish.


Sunday April 21. While navigating more brutal New York roads on the way to the highway, I discovered another advantage of a phone app over paper directions: Sometimes a street does not have a sign, which can cause you to drive right past it if all you have is paper directions. An app shows you exactly where to turn in real time.

There were two breweries in New Jersey (Carton and Kane) that I wanted to visit on the way home, but because it was Easter Sunday, both of them were closed, as were many other breweries. Fortunately there is a brewery in northern Maryland that was open that I'd never been to: Independent Brewing. It didn't have very good Beer Advocate ratings, but since it was on the way home, I decided to give it a chance. It opened on October 30, 2015. There were more than 20 beers on tap, all of which were gluten-free.


Not a bad weekend. 17 breweries. One distillery. 77 beers. Came home with about a case and a half.