Tag Archives: new york

Hopshire Farm & Brewery

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We’ve decamped to upstate New York for the rest of the summer, and determined to visit a few of the farm breweries that are popping up all over the area.  So we headed over to Hopshire Farm & Brewery, planning to taste their beers and have a picnic dinner.  We were excited to see hop bines growing in the front of the brewery, but disappointed to see the picnic tables mentioned on their website were just off the parking lot, and in full sun.

Coming in the front door, we entered a cozy square taproom.  On the left was the brewery, and on the right was a small side room with a table and some toys for kids.  Luckily, we were there early and were the only ones there, so we were able to eat in the side room.

At the back was a bar with seven beers on tap, divided into mellow, middling, and mighty:

Mellow

  • Beehave: a light and refreshing ale, made with local honey.  It has a nice sweetness (without the heavier body of maltier beers), and reminds us of a honey cream ale from back home we quite like.
  • Brambles: a straw-colored wheat beer, with just a hint of earthy raspberry.  Has more wheat twang than I care for, but Wind quite liked it.

Middling

  • Daddy ‘O: an English pale ale, but with more fruity yeast character than typical, and a nice Fuggles finish.
  • Shire Ale: not as dark as the typical near-black Scottish ale you often see, but with more malt complexity.  In particular, this beer has more dark malt roastiness than typical.  This was another beer that Wind liked more than I did. 
  • Hamlet of Varna: a 5% session IPA.  This seems like a popular style this summer and we’ve just had a few of these (like Southern Tier’s Farmer’s Tan).  I do appreciate the trend away from big IPAs, though they do suffer in rapid-fire tastings because, at the end of the day, they are weaker beers.  So I liked Hamlet of Varna quite a bit, but NearVarna even more.

Mighty

  • NearVarna: a wonderful American IPA in the malty East-coast style.  Especially immediately after the milder Hamlet of Varna, this is a fantastic hop showcase.
  • Sympathy: a rich, full-bodied Belgian golden ale with characteristic estery profile.   My favorite of the bunch, and the strongest.

After we’d eaten and enjoyed a couple of half-pints, we got a couple of growlers filled.  By this time, the taproom had filled up, but the wait wasn’t long.  Alas, even though they seemed to be sealed properly, both growlers were undercarbonated.  We had the first the same night, and the second the next night.  The beer still tasted fine, but obviously not as good as in the taproom.

 

Water Street Brewing

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Water Street Brewing Flight

We stopped by Binghamton this afternoon, on the way back from visiting Howe Caverns.  The neighborhood has seen better days (we got asked for change every block or so), but we enjoyed walking around and doing some shopping anyway.  We really enjoyed browsing in River Read Books.

We had dinner at Water Street Brewing, and really enjoyed it.  Their menu is somewhat limited, but we liked everything we got.  They had 8 beers on tap, and we tried them all:

  • Their Munich Helles was light and smooth, the way a Helles should be.
  • The Cream Ale was a good example of one of my favorite styles — just a light pale ale, with medium body.  Cream ale is one of my favorites to drink on a hot summer day, and we got a growler to take home with us.
  • I didn’t care for the Southern English Mild — I think I’ve only had dark mild, and this was very different.
  • The Weizenbock was very good, spicy and malty.  There was none of the wheaty tang that often spoils wheat beers for me.
  • The Beyond Blonde ale was a solid Belgian blonde — not my favorite Belgian style, but nice anyway.
  • I didn’t like the Thousand Year Porter much (nice name though).  It was dry and roasty, so not my thing.
  • The Harvest ale was rich and satisfying.
  • The beer I liked best was their Wee Heavy.  It’s one of my favorite styles, and theirs wasn’t too peaty and had a nice caramel note to it that I really liked.   Of course, this was their special small-batch beer, in a small glass and not available for growlers.

All said, a very nice place for dinner and very solid beers.  They had a good variety, and everything was at least a solid effort if not my favorite style.

Two Brewpubs

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We’ve recently had the chance to visit a few brewpubs in upstate New York.  A couple weeks ago, we went to Bandwagon Brewpub in Ithaca.  Their menu was somewhat limited at about a dozen entrees, but did have some interesting options — and I loved the cornmeal waffles with shrimp and andouille sausage.  We got a flight of Bandwagon’s beers, which packed a few surprises:

  • Raspberry Jalapeño: I initially dismissed this as a novelty chili beer, but found it pretty enjoyable.  The raspberry was more creamy than tart, and there was just a little chili heat.
  • Ezra Red Ale: Very hoppy aroma, but pretty mild and even a little sweet.  Nothing wrong with it, but not really winning me over either.
  • High Step Weizenbock: Like a sweeter hefeweizen.  By this point in the flight, I was starting to wonder at liking the novelty beer best.
  • Pirate Eye PA: Very sharp resin.  I’m not a big IPA fan, but I found this undrinkable.
  • Sully’s Irish Stout: Smoky and dry.  I’ve warmed to stout recently, especially malty imperial stout.  But this is a very dry Irish stout, which I just didn’t enjoy much at all.

So their food was good, if not a ton of options.  And none of the beers really captured my imagination, though the Raspberry Jalapeño and High Step Weizenbock were both pretty good.  So I had a great time, but I probably won’t be drinking any more of their beer.  In fact, we took the kids there for lunch last week, but we got beers from other NY breweries.

One of those breweries is Rooster Fish from Watkins Glen.  We drove over to Corning to see the excellent glass museum and were driving through Watkins Glen on our way back and stopped for lunch.  They had a much bigger menu, with a lot of good options to agonize over, even for the kids.  Instead of having a pre-set flight, they let you get samples of as many beers as you want.  The next table had a couple with samples of all 12, but we stuck with just 5:

  • Aspen Wit: a nice and spicy hefeweizen, reminding me of some of the better spicy/herbal German hefeweizen we tried.
  • Summer Sky: much more tart and clean.
  • Tripel Witch: probably my least favorite of the bunch, this tripel was reedy and herbal, reminding me of some of the tripels we tried and didn’t like.
  • Mysterious Amber: tons of toffee and caramel, almost a little too sweet, but very nice for a malt-lover like me.
  • Scotch Ale: very peaty and smoky, a wonderful wee heavy that isn’t too sweet or chewy.  Ranks right up with my favorites.  We picked up a growler of this to take home.

So it was a much nicer experience all the way around.  Of the beers we tried from the two breweries, I think I liked my least favorite from Rooster Fish (the tripel) as much as my favorite from Bandwagon. Â