New York Road Trip Advice

Word. A little Finger Lakes couldn't hurt. And nobody's mentioned the tofu yet, eh @Cholansky1?

 

Wow I have to disagree on Rochester. There's definitely a lot going on with upstart breweries and established breweries. I would even say there are more breweries in Rochester area then Buffalo. Also, the finger lakes are nice to enjoy, but a lot of the beer is horrible especially if it is winery/brewery.

 

New money amateurs.

 

There are sad parts of Rochester, just like there are sad parts in literally every other place you could go to. Rochester is absolutely worth a stop, Stoneyard and Swiftwater Brewing are specifically absolutely well worth the stop. There are really solid beer bars in Rochester, too, that I could give suggestions for, if you end up going that route.

There are a lot of mediocre breweries in the Finger Lakes Area. Taking that trip is great in the summer- it's an absolutely beautiful area, but I wouldn't really go specifically for the beer. If you're taking the logical route to VT on 90, I wouldn't bother.

 

Would you commit here to naming what you consider to be the "mediocre breweries in the Finger Lakes Area"??? Just how many of the Finger Lakes area breweries have you visited?? Your comments are unqualified reckless slander posted not in the spirit of Beer Advocate..

 

I think anyone could write that out... Hopshire, Wagner, Keuka Brewing, War horse, Starkeys, the beer at the Miles winery... The list can go on.. Scale house and bandwagon in Ithaca.

 

well to be fair, if youre going to scalehouse you should really be going to Northeast Pizza and getting a popeye pizza anyway.

as for bandwagon, i thought some of their beers were pretty solid. they did a cherry sour a few years back that was pretty much a sour patch kid in a glass. clearly this all could have changed though

 

That's still in the mediocre zone to me. Bandwagon might be better then some, but it's not blowing people out of the water. Some are definitely below mediocre. People need to start being honest to these Brewers or the market will wash them out anyways.

 

Both band wagon and Keuka Brewing have won top awards at Tap NY in the recent past. Band wagon for a Raspberry Pepper beer. Keuka is releasing a 9.5% 85 IBU IPA this month. Not your average blonde or Amber beers. Wagner won GABF honors with their Sled Dog Dopplebock a few years ago. I think you just can't let go of your Rochester roots...

 

Not my roots. Keuka was also contract brewing with CB, but I'm not sure if that changed. I like Prison City and think they are doing good things. I live in Ithaca and every beer person I've talked to complains about the finger lake breweries for the most part. It comes down to just being mediocre and a lot of time bad brewing. I've tasted more IPA s that have a sweetness to them like under fermented in the finger lakes then any where else. There are some good ones, but mostly not good riding the wine trail money train.

 

Can't speak to Bandwagon, haven't been there, but a ton of the Keuka beers I've had have been riddled with inconsistencies and brewing flaws, such as underattenuation, metallic off-flavors, and over sweetness, as @chefduff2 mentioned. It certainly doesn't help that for a while (not sure if they still do) they were contract brewed by Custom Brewcrafters, a brewery that uses the same malt bill for every single beer they make, with that same characteristic metallic off-flavor in 75% of the beers. The fact that Keuka won an award at Tap NY just shows that those awards are a joke and not to be taken seriously.

 

I should just let this thread die, but I can't help myself tonight. Calling @chefduff2 un-BA-like for not naming breweries seems a little rough. There's really no brewery in the Finger Lakes that I'm really high on, though Upstate has been showing some promise when on draft. Ithaca has a few options and is slowly improving after a low point, but people generally know about them. Overall, we get lots of foot traffic from tourism, and that keeps plenty of mediocre breweries afloat.

It's pretty obvious that TAP gives awards to newer breweries in the spirit of promotion. I went several times, and most years I was astonished when I heard the winners announced.

 

Duff's are better, mind the sign though.

 

Especially with the way the weather is right now, I'd much rather drink mediocre beer in the Finger Lakes than slightly above mediocre beer in Rochester or Buffalo. You still have Abandon, Prison City, Two Goats, and Ithaca which are all certainly worth a visit, among others.

 

well i dont know if you have checked out Columbus beer scene its pretty good right now as well as cleveland(fatheads,brewkettle,platform), and i dont know whether on way back or on way out but should hit up Voodoo in Meadville Pa. awesome spot 5 min off 79 on way to/from southern tier. great ipas/stouts and have great one off series. if do stop in erie, hit up Lavery! enjoy new york as well but i think everyone else covered that already!

 

Oh for god's sake, get off your high horse. This crap of "being a beer advocate" is insane. Beer is a business. This website is a business. Everyone is trying to make money so enough with the moral high ground BS.

Kevin was restrained in his comments calling them mediocre. Some of these places are brewing absolutely awful beer. Calling his comments reckless slander is absurd. The idea that you can't even say something is mediocre is ridiculous. Everyone is supposed to like every beer? C'mon. Honest discussions like this only improve beer quality everywhere. The fact that you're trying to discourage negative commentary is bad for the industry.

I've been to plenty of places around the finger lakes and there's no doubt that they are just not producing high quality beer. I don't see how anyone can think places like Twisted Rail, keuka, climbing bines, rooster fish, two goats, etc, are producing anything but mediocre beer. They are nowhere near the likes of stoneyard, prison city, Galaxy, or even Horseheads, and Abandon. And those are just NY breweries. In the spectrum of breweries around the US these finger lakes places are nowhere near the likes of other smallish breweries like Tree House, Grimm, Singlecut, HF, Trillium, etc. And nowhere near larger more established breweries like Sierra Nevada, Stone, Southern Tier, Ballast Point, and the list goes on. Calling these finger lakes breweries mediocre is more than generous when compared to those that I've named.

Demanding better from these breweries only improves overall beer quality.

 

Yes, Thank you. Ill just say there are many places the best thing you can say is, At least the view is nice.

 

I'd put Swiftwater and Naked Dove in the same bracket as Stoneyard/Prison City/Galaxy/Horseheads, but other than that, I agree 100%. It's time to stop being scared or unwilling to call out bad breweries for being bad. Not doing so is only going to perpetuate low-quality beers riddled with brewing flaws at these places. Being a "Beer Advocate" what ever that may mean, should be about working to create a better beer scene, not coddle along mediocre breweries.

 

Ive done the drive from Syracuse to Indy and I've done then drive from Syracuse to Burlington/waterbury/n Greensboro. I have also been to 20 or so breweries in the finger lakes region. IMHO breweries in Ohio (from Columbus to Cleveland) are vastly superior to breweries around the finger lakes/1-90 corridor. I would advise making columbus, fat heads, brew kettle, great lakes (and hoof hearted, rhinegeist and jackie o's if you can fit them in) all a much much higher priority then any NY brewery (big ditch, abandon, ithaca, galaxy, climbing bines, keuka, naked dove, nedloh, prison city, swiftwater, hopshire, bacchus, cortland, twisted rail) mentioned thus far in this thread. Maybe being from Indy you have experience with a lot of the Ohio breweries and (of course) a lot depends on the type of beer that you prefer, however, seeing as you are willing to drive 2000 miles round trip for heady I think you should focus on Ohio more than New York.