Pumpkin Ales at Bailey's

Tis the season to enjoy the great tastes of pumpkin beers.  I was pleasantly surprised to find a couple of early arrivals at one of my favorite local hangouts, Bailey’s in Blauvelt, NY.  Baileys is the perfect combination of local watering hole and great family restaurant.  It’s the kind of place where you are bound to run into an old friend or neighbor.  On this particular occasion, I caught up with a good friend’s younger brother and a local judge and his wife out for a quick bite.  My high school baseball coach was even in the house. 

Our group consisted of three generations and we felt right at home at a table near the bar.  It’s a mature bar crowd and there is never a worry about what the kids might hear from the bar. 

Bailey’s is known for their great pizza and BBQ.  The pizza is thin and crispy with just the right amount of cheese.  We didn’t opt for the BBQ but Bailey’s Smokehouse has some of the best ribs in Rockland County.  The pulled pork is also delicious. 

The highlight of this dinner however, was the beer.  Bailey’s has been growing their beer list to the point where they now have about a dozen taps and another 15 -20 in bottles including Keegan’s Mother’s Milk, Ithaca Apricot Wheat and even Gluten-free Red Bridge.  I chose a Post Road Pumpkin to start off.  It has a nice aroma and a smooth delivery.  The bitter finish lets you know it’s an ale.  I was very happy with my selection until I tried the Dogfish Head Punkin on tap. 

DFH does so many things well and this beer is no exception.  From the first whiff, it’s clear that this beer is going to be a treat.  The sweet spiciness delights the nose before the liquid hits your mouth.  The taste is hard to describe other than to say it’s all the good things you want in a pumpkin ale: nutmeg, brown sugar, slight hoppiness.  All together they make for one of the best beers of any style I’ve tried.

I ordered a second, took a bite of my slice and sat back taking in all the sights and sounds.  Family, friends and great food and beer; what else could a man ask for?

Peekskill is Beerville

This little town, 40 miles north of NYC and just about an hour ride on the Metro North Train, has a couple of the hottest craft beer houses in the metro area.  The Peekskill brewery is across the street from the train station with a view of the Hudson River.  I happened to walk in with a software developer named Ken Johnson, who is developing an iphone app called Brew View that is scheduled to launch in October .  He intends to log all the craft beers made in the North East and superimpose them on a map so beer lovers can find their favorite beer with a tap of the screen.  

Ken ended up joining our group from the Tristate Beer Lovers Meetup .  I had called the owner, Kara Berardi, to arrange for a food pairing for our group.  We settled on a menu of a flight of four beers, one pint of our favorite, an appetizer, entre and desert for $40.  Kara was off, but her husband Keith and waitress Kate met our needs to the fullest.

The most memorable brews of the flight were a vanilla bourbon stout and a Belgian Golden Ale called Rosemary’s Baby.  The stout was delicious and strong, a little too strong for my taste.  The Ale was just right with just a hint of rosemary at the finish.

Our group shared nachos, sliders and a rarity, deviled eggs, for our appetizers.  I had the fish and chips for my entre and was too full to finish it or indulge in desert.  The bar was packed throughout our entire stay and a walk down a long hallway took me to a dining area that was just as busy.

About a mile away on nearby Main Street sits the Birdsall House.  I had read a review that raved about the bacon ice cream and could not stay away.  First the beer:  they have about 20 taps, serving many New York beers.  I ordered a flight of five 5 oz. beers for $12. 

 Working from lightest to heaviest: Sixpoint Brevity Witbier (4.9% ABV) was light in color and taste, Empire Cream Ale (5.2) was creamy and smooth but left me a little flat, Capt. Lawrence Freshchester Pale Ale (5.6) had a citricy start and nice bitter finish, Sixpoint Signal Smoked IPA (6.0) was like tasting a nice smoked cheese, and Stone 15^th Anniversary Black IPA had tons of chocolaty flavor and a whopping  ABV of 10.8.   I like to support the local brews out of principle, but the Freshchester, made about 10 minutes away in Pleasantville, was simply just the best of the bunch.  It’s bitterness held up well to my spicy meal.

I went with the pulled pork nachos which were covered in shaved apple slaw and cream cheese.  The blue corn tortillas stayed crunchy under the mound of BBQ sauce and pork.  The nachos had the same dichotomy of tastes, sweet and spicy that make the Freshchester IPA so compelling.  Bacon and ice cream sounds like a bit of a mismatch but, take my word for it, they mesh well in this desert served over waffles covered with candied Pecans.

The owner, Tim Reinke, sat with me a while and spoke about his long time commitment to the craft beer movement.  He has been part owner of The Blind Tiger, a craft beer mecca in The Village, since 1996.  Tim lives nearby and wanted to open a place closer to his growing family so he chose Peekskill.  He tries to support his neighbors by using local ingredients whenever possible.  My pork came from pigs raised at nearby Hemlock Hills Farms which are fed the spent grain from Capt. Lawrence Brewery.  Talk about closing the loop.  He also tries to keep at least half of his taps occupied by New York brews.  Tim’s long standing relationship with brewers around the country put Birdsall on the short list for hard to find beers like Delaware's Dogfish Head 120 and Bear Republic Mach 10 brewed in Sonoma County, California.

As a Rockland County resident, it’s nice to know that such great craft beers can be found just a stones throw from the Bear Mountain Bridge.  Birdsall House and The Peekskill Brewery are surely putting this little town on the craft beer map.

Bacchus in New Paltz, NY

by Mike

Over the Labor Day weekend, my wife, Doreen, and I visited New Paltz, NY with the intention of trying some of the great food, wine and beer available in that area.  The full write up will be forth coming.  For now, let me make you aware of one of the best beer bars in the Hudson Valley. 

Bacchus sits just off the main drag in downtown New Paltz.  It was opened by a self-proclaimed hippie in 1974 who, along with his wife Linda, still runs it today.  Linda met us with a smile when we walked in and made us feel as though we were sitting down in her own home.  The décor is funky like the rest of this college town with sharks and moose heads hanging from the walls. 

Bacchus was the Roman god of wine, but here beer rules. The beer list is endless.  I have never seen such an extensive menu of craft and foreign beers; almost 500 in all.

The bar maid, Kate, took our orders: a flight of 4 different tap beers for me and a Sea Dog Raspberry Wheat for Doreen.  The Sea Dog brewed in Maine had a crisp sweet taste.  I would put it up there with the best fruit beers I’ve tried this summer. My flight consisted of: Blue point’s Rasta Rye, Smuttynose Brown Ale, Sierra Nevada Porter and Lake Placid Ubu Ale.  My goal was to experience the local flavors of the area so I ordered a pint of the Ubu as my pre-lunch beverage.  Ubu is named after a dog the brewer kept as a pet in the Adirondack brewery. This English strong ale pours dark red and has a nice caramel aroma.  Doreen and I both agreed that the maltiness of this brew hid the 7% abv very well. 

Kate is an energetic grad student at the SUNY college right down the road.  Doreen commented on her stylish, short haircut and Kate explained that she recently shaved her head bald for St. Baldrick’s day.  This fund raiser, which I have taken part in for 6 years, raises money for research into childhood cancers.  I am usually accompanied by hundreds of other guys who don’t mind shaving their heads for a good cause.  It is rare to find a woman who is brave enough to take it all off.  When asked what it was like Kate said, “It was freeing. I felt like a weight was taken off my head. Even the sensation of feeling the air on my scalp was a rush”.

We had lunch on the outdoor patio off the back of the building.  After the huge breakfast at our B & B that morning, our appetites were minimal. So I ordered a bowl of chili and Doreen got the black bean soup.  The beans in the soup were pureed, which took a little getting used to.  The beans in the chili, on the other hand, were hearty and accompanied by ample meat, cheese, sour cream and chives.  It was such a large, filling meal that I had to take half the bowl to go.

I found room though to order one more local beer from their list.  Keegan’s Old Capital Ale is brewed in nearby Kingston, NY.  Kingston is the old capital of New York.  This American blond ale was flavorful with just the right amount of bitterness. I could taste lemon up front and it had a crisp, clean taste that was perfect for session drinking on a summer day.  I drank it as I walked around the bar, which has another outdoor eating area off the front of the building and a large pool hall adjacent to the main bar room.

This is a “must see” for any beerophile.  It would be have been fun, had we been there for a longer stay, to work our way through their long list of craft beers.  As it is, I’ll have to settle for a taste of Bacchus and a commitment to return soon. 

IPA Lovers Flock to Lazy Boy Saloon; Dogfish 120 Minute on Tap

by Kelly

It's Friday, August 19th, 2011. Not a very significant day in history as far as notable world events are concerned. But the definition of "notable" depends, as always, on who you're talking to. Are you a member of the beer loving community, reside in either Rockland or Westchester County and have a burning passion for IPAs? If you answered a resounding "YES!" to all three of those questions, man oh MAN! Was last Friday night YOUR night!

Oh, what's that you say? You weren't aware of the one-night arrival of Dogfish's 120 Minute IPA at Lazy Boy Saloon last Friday?! Well, let me just be clear here: I don't pity you, fool. If you were truly passionate and truly dedicated to seeking out the rare and limited IPA releases in your surrounding area, you WOULD have been there. After all, I was. And I'm not really much of an IPA consumer myself. Yeah...take that!


Okay, so I didn't write this post to hurt your feelings. Instead, I wanted to share a discovery I had made while slowly sipping on my very own glass of DFH 120 IPA last weekend. (Just a reminder: the previous letter-number combination is not some bizarre form of an algebraic equation I just made up. It's an abbreviation of the beer mentioned in the title above. Pay attention!) So, what was this discovery of mine that was so enlightening, you ask?! Without further ado, I present to you: the stronger the IPA, the sweeter the taste!

As many of you know, the fundamental ingredient in all IPAs is hops. These female flower clusters, as hops are more commonly known, cause this particular style of beer to taste very bitter. The 120 indicates the time over which the hops were added during boiling.  Dogfish head also makes 60, 75 and 90 minute IPAs. The more hopping, the more bitter the taste.

The bitterness can make IPAs unpalatable for certain people. (Ahem.) But after three sips into my first glass of DFH 120 IPA, I actually found myself enjoying the drink. The hops, for once, were not staged front and center; what I was tasting most of all was the sweet maltiness. And this was not an accident. Apparently, the stronger the IPA means more hops, which means more malt. This was certainly an unexpected, but thoroughly enjoyed, surprise.

I'll be honest with you: I only drank one glass of the 120 that night. But it was a damn good glass. Sitting at around 18% ABV, you can't really expect to drink more than a couple of these bad boys and make wise, coherent decisions by night's end. I opted for a pint (or two) of Weyerbacher's Pumpkin Ale instead, which were both garnished with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. Ahhh, fall is certainly descending upon us!

Hallo Berlin German Beer Garden

Took the train into Manhattan to meet some friends at Hallo Berlin on 44th and 10th ave. I'd heard a lot about it from another friend who is a history teacher and a lover of everything German. He said it was his favorite German restaraunt in New York. It was even included in a recent New York Times article about historic beer gardens. As a result, I was kind of surprised when I almost walked right by it. First of all, the awning out front has the name as "Hello Berlin". Inside is a narrow bar and about a half dozen tables in the back. There are tables outside on a small patio - the beer garden. It was a hot day so we opted to sit inside.

We each chose different beers to start and sampled each others selections. The Hefeweizen was sweet and delicious. The black lager had the interesting taste of a dark ale with the drinkability of a lager. By far the most interesting beer was the Augustinus Maximator. Rich, who is a retired Latin teacher, informed us that the word "maximator" comes from a latin word that means extreme. This doublebock was extreme with tons of flavor and a 7.5% ABV.

Just as memorable was the food we had to accompany our drinks. My wieiner schnitzel was cooked to perfection and the sour kraut was a meal in itself. We all agreed that even without the amazing German beers, the food alone waranted a return trip to Hallo Berlin.