Dry-uary? More like Drink-uary amirite?!?

-
Dryuary: The art of not drinking alcohol for the entire month of January. I considered it this year, probably for the first time. However, we had some things already planned. A beer festival in Syracuse and a brewery trip with another family (although it ended up being just us). Guess I'll make it a Drinkuary then!

 Thanks to the festival and two visits to local breweries, some good beer was had though. K2 Brothers was a brewery pouring at the festival and had some excellent beer, including some juicy DDH offerings and a wonderfully balanced jalapeno cream ale. They are a new brewery in the Rochester area and we already have a trip planned to visit in early March--gotta use up that membership to the Strong Museum of Play anyway, right?! 
Thin Man's version of Smooth Maneuvers
was packed with tropical juiciness.
Thin Man Brewery (Buffalo) had some beer at the festival as well, but the highlight might have been the beer we had from them on the drive to Syracuse. We decided to make a little pit stop as we were all a bit hungry, and we've been wanting to find a place in the Cortland area that would make for a good stop. I think we officially have it in Bru 64. It's a "coffee lounge by day, pour house by night." I miss these types of places from Houston and we don't really have a good equivalent here in Ithaca. Ithaca coffee comes close. The fact they have beer to go is great, but their extremely limited seating and slightly earlier closing time really work against them. (I honestly wonder how much business their market gets and if they'd be better off switching to more seating). 

 We really enjoyed our stop there. We grabbed the kids some snacks, some bagels for ourselves and split a delicious IPA brewed by Thin Man in collaboration with Sloop and Collective Arts! It's not a long trip, but it still makes for a nice pitstop that we'll look forward to.
Liquid State's La Trapeze,
a tasty Belgian dubbel.
Over the course of the month, we also made a trip up to Aurora Ale and Lager to try out some of their new beers. I wasn't as impressed as I hoped to be with their more NE-style IPAs. However, we still enjoyed our trip out to see their new taproom (same building, different part/configuration) and enjoy some wood-fired pizza.

 Of course, we also made a stop (okay two stops) to Ithaca's newest brewery, Liquid State. I need to do a longer post on the vibe there, because it's a truly great spot. The beer is solid--nothing spectacular per se, just good. (Favorites: the pils and the black lager). The service is welcoming. The setup is what you'd want out of a community focused joint. I can dig it. Oh and their new belgian dubbel was on point too.

 Let's roll that beautiful January 2018 beer footage...

Unique Beers of January 2018
A good number of unique beers, again in large part to the festival. K2 stands at the top for this very reason.
Row Labels Count of beer_name
K2 Brothers Brewing 5
Thin Man Brewery 3
Liquid State Brewing Company 3
Peak Organic Brewing Company 2
Four Mile Brewing Company 2
The Good Shepherds Brewing Company 2
Collective Arts Brewing 2
Aurora Ale And Lager Co. 2
Lawson's Finest Liquids 1
Tröegs Independent Brewing 1
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. 1
Genesee Brewing Company 1
Otter Creek Brewing 1
Grand Total 26


Across the breweries, surprise surprise--I had a lot of different IPA! I had been recently leaning away from NEIPA, but January certainly didn't follow that trend. I don't know if it was the influx of NEIPA in the area or if I'm just wishing for a tropical juicy vibe here in the dead of winter. 


Favorite Drinking Locale
For the month, I think we enjoyed some beers in some pretty good spots. I'm not sure, however, it got any better than drinking with good company at F Shed for the Syracuse Winter Brewfest.

Favorite New Check In
It goes to K2 without a doubt. Their DDH Double IPA was spectacular. It was a supercharged version of their DDH IPA series and offered a great juicy punch.

Honorable mention: Peak Organic offered up some tasty IPA recently. I thoroughly enjoyed both their Winter IPA and Ripe IPA.

Favorite Overall Check In
Tough decision. K2 made a push for this spot as well.  As did Liquid State with their dubbel and a cask version of their Sonic! IPA. In the end though, I think one beer shined ahead of the rest: Lawson's Finest Liquid and their Sip of Sunshine. They entered the market a few months ago, but I had yet to pick any up. Finally I fixed that mistake and got remember how much I enjoy this beer. Oh and Super Session #8 is pretty dang good too!

Cheers!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New England Craft Beer HoF

-
Image
It started with a tweet . It ended with a blog post . Well not ended I guess, because here I am keeping the "conversation" going here. Having come of age while in college in Boston (go Huskies!), I still  feel a strong connection to the beer in the region; it certainly helps being back in the northeast! So what would my New England Craft Beer Hall of Fame be? Hoo boy. That's quite the challenge. I'll start with the criteria listed by @HoppyBoston :  The beer must be brewed by a New England-based brewery. I know that Sam Adams and Shipyard make some of their beer in other parts of the country but they are based in the region so their beers count. The most important factor is the impact the beer had on the craft beer community in the region. While many of these beers still hold up today, I care more about the influence they had on a generation of beer geeks and aspiring brewers than how they would do in a blind tasting against current versions of their respective
Read more

Beering in NY

-
All that recent reminiscing on twitter about Saint Arnold had me wondering something. I've had a a lot of their beers. Are they the brewery I've had the most unique check-ins from? Thanks to recently becoming an Untappd supporter, I could easily find out... And the answer is? Yes. Buuuut...not for long. I'm about to become primarily a NY beer drinker. Well at least according to Untappd. I don't religiously check in to beers. Sometimes I am better than others and probably moreso recently, but I do usually remember to check-in to a new beer. Mostly because I'm a beer nerd who likes seeing the numbers. Seeing my "unique" beers gives a nice revelation. Saint Arnold of Houston, TX is my top brewery for unique check-ins. Makes sense after living there for 5+years (although I was on Untappd for just under 4 of those). As of today, I have checked in to 53 different beers of theirs. However, they are soon to be dethroned. I'm now up to 52 unique check-ins f
Read more

Shiny New Pennies for 2019

-
Image
For over a month I've been meaning to put together a bucket list of beer for 2019, but I just haven't been able to carve out the time. The beginning of a new semester always seems to kick my butt. I've even been nearly non-existent on twitter the last couple of weeks! However, I see the "finish" line approaching as we are about to turn the page on January, so here goes! Ithaca(ish) This past year brought us the great addition of Liquid State to the Ithaca beer scene. It is one of our favorite places to go and enjoy a pint, especially given how kid-friendly they are. Also, Salt Point opening in Lansing gave us an option on that side of town. While seating may be limited, they too are family friendly, and the quality of the beer has been a nice addition. This year, I'm planning on checking out two others, one growing and one brand-spanking new. Summer Hill Brewing out in Groton has been up and running with tasting hours when possible. Unfortunately, those h
Read more