2018 Summer Beer Tour

Yes I know it’s still winter 2017-18, I’m starting early. Last summer I had a plan to go to every brewery in NYC. Sadly I was not successful, when summer ended I was a few breweries short. While I was traveling around the city I hatched the plan for Summer 2018. Not being a backward looking person I am going forward with my plan, while I still have my list of NYC breweries and will be ticking the few remaining off my list.

My tour this year is breweries outside of the city that are easily accessible by train, light rail, or bus. By train I mean Metro North, NJ Transit, or LIRR. Light rail is whatever passes for what I would call the subway. The list of breweries I’m visiting this summer is much shorter which is a good thing since it’s costing me more to get to each one. Also this year I will be writing blog posts as I go along. Not reviews of the beer, those are plentiful and not what I’m good at. I don’t know what tasting notes and mouthfeel is, I say things like “Yummy beer” and “Meh”.

The tour starts in Yonkers at the Yonkers Brewing Company. The brewery is about 2 minutes by foot from the train station. While you can’t see the door from the platform you can see the building it is in. Exit the train station in the city side, where the taxis are, take a right, cross a four lane road. If you look right you will see this road goes under the train tracks toward the river, also looking right on the other side of this road is the brewery. Right now there is a big tree in front decorated with beer kegs. Yes I should have taken a picture.

First up was a flight, there are specific flights here, I got the Yonkers Ave Flight which was Squeaky Clean, Tilting Trolly, Descendant Cider, and Moral Turpitude. Except I asked to get the sour ale instead of the cider. Which they had no problem doing. I was not a fan of the sour ale and the imperial stout. The stout tasted like your typical stout and I guess I have gotten used to stouts with a little extra oomph to them, like milk stouts or Chipotle Porter. Still they were all rather drinkable, except the sour ale. I didn’t expect that. After the flight I had a glass of 914 which is their ‘flagship’ beer, a Viennese lager. Pretty good, then I got a growler (32 oz, so some would call it a crowler, filled with Squeaky Clean, which leads to why this brewery got 5 stars.

But before that, this Yonkers has a lovely taproom, and a good food selection. The bar is not huge but the room is big with lots of tables. I don’t know if you can bring dogs, but it does appear to be family friendly, in fact they had a ‘Pictures with Santa’ event. Now on to the crowler …..

The crowler, which was glass ended up on the floor. I think I need to stop holding things with my left hand, there is definitely a weakness there. Anyway, someone ran out with a mop and then the bartender picked up my bag and started rinsing it out in the sink. So now it just to dry so I can take it apart and re-knit it. The glass cut some of the yarn.

So they get 5 stars because of how nice they were, I am not even taking points off for no longer having the 32 oz. bottles, they now only do 32 oz. can crowlers, which the environmentalist in me objects to, but the klutz in me approves.