Suarez Family Brewing (2019)

How does it compare to Schlenkerla? That's what my mind immediately jumped to when I read about it.

 

According to beermenus, Palatine cans showing at theShop@Threes, and while you're at it, Crispy Little on tap.

 

Yes they are, grabbed a couple Palatines last night at Threes. Threes takes a daily picture of their fridge on IG, worth a visual verification of beermenus' intel before heading out.

 

Caveat is it’s probably been ~12-18 months since I had a Schlenkerla. Would like to do a side by side before making any grand proclamations. But from (my very bad) memory, i’d say this had slightly more of a hop bite while being a bit less smoky.

 

Schlenkerla is rich on smoked malt intricacies with spiced, light-hop bitterness and dried fruit sweetness. Suarez takes a more subtle and confined approach to the smoked lager realm. So, in true Suarez fashion it’s light, restrained, “smooth and agreeable”

In any case, hoping Grodziskie is somewhere on the docket…Finding Stand to Reason to be a pleasantly soft, moderately crisp, multifaceted thirst-quencher given the lightly smoked, chocolatey bacon, campfire esque aroma with a grassy, citrusy, floral-earthy sweetness

Notes are roasty and develop pleasantly with the sweet, dark, bready malt workings. Opens for more deliberation, as lacing takes an admirable form, to more chocolatey bacon goodness, light caramel, woody-wheated grains, grilled ham, smoked meat, birched lumber, and pine with lemon zest, herbal spices and delicacies of dried up figs, pears, prunes…

Feel has a crisp, clean, biscuit-y touch that’s also quite creamy, rich and smooth: it’s a nice balance of malt, smoke, and earthed-spiced bittering hops that’s not too sweet or intense, but simple, sessionable, and sensationable




…love when Palatine is on for fills

 

Stand to reason beat my expectations which were moderate. The beer is so smooth and delicate and with the smoke component that is really tough to accomplish

But Rest Assured is the best Pale Ale I’ve ever had, hands down. It beats any fort point variant and is the best moderate/low ABV PA I’ve had.

 

So I'm looking into trying to visit Suarez. I would be coming from San Diego. Flights on American to Albany are ridiculous, making me take three total segments. Some are as ridiculous as going through both DCA and Boston in between. My friend also tells me flights are regularly delayed out of Albany.

Would I be better off finding a flight to Newark and training as close as possible rather than dealing with those crazy stops? I see I could get a train at least as far as Poughkeepsie from NY Penn. I may end up doing this trip solo so I'm trying to minimize rental car expense.

 

Rent a car man. Not that expensive using Priceline or something like that. Then you can hit Suarez and other great places at your leisure and fly in and out of the airport of your choice. There’s no train from Albany to Hudson/Livingston anyway.

Flying from SD to Newark and taking nj transit train to the city then walking across town to get metro north at grand central to Poughkeepsie (does not leave from penn station btw), then arriving and still needing a car service to go 45 minutes or something...or going into penn station and getting Amtrak...will be a horrendous and absurd trek, and take longer than if you flew to japan.

Also if you crunch the numbers on trains to and from the airport, then upstate ny and back, and car services, you’ll find it would likely be pricier than just picking up a rental car at Newark or JFK.

 

Just another vote for rent a car and Newark. Much greatness to visit nowadays with a car, Suarez for sure is the top of that list

 

Hudson is actually the closest Amtrak stop I think, but Amtrak is pretty pricey, and you'd still need to Uber/Lyft/cab to Suarez, so if you were to take a cab from Newark to Manhattan, pay for round trip Amtrak tickets, plus a cab back to the train, plus a cab back to the airport, any extra money you pay for a rental would probably be worth avoiding all that hassle.

Also if you're coming 3000 miles just for beer, I'd recommend checking out some of the other breweries in the region, which you could do with a car.

 

Your scenario makes it sound like you are essentially doing this just to visit Suarez... but you want to avoid painful hassles and expenses. Perhaps I'm giving an obvious recap or perhaps I'm missing something... but I just don't get it.

 

The cost of cabs/uber/train would easily cover the $70 or so for an econo rental.

I love Suarez beer, and their taproom, and while some might disagree, it doesn't really have that mecca thing going on like Hill Farmstead or Treehouse. I would strongly recommend adding some more breweries to your itinerary. It's a pretty far drive.

Sloop brewing (10 mins away), Hudson Valley Brewery, Industrial Arts, and District 96 would all be on the way.

 

My dad lives in Beacon, NY... He often finds flights that beat EWR/LGA/JFK prices out of Stewart (SWF)... If you could find flight there you would be sitting pretty on touring the Hudson Valley.

 

Yeah Stewart is WAY cheaper to fly in to and out of than Albany.

Also, to echo others, there is no point in coming all the way to Suarez and not spending an entire weekend in the Hudson Valley. In addition to the breweries (Suarez, Sloop, Plan Bee, Industrial Arts, District 96, Hudson Valley, Rushing Duck, Newburgh, Equilibrium, Obercreek all being worth a stop, among others) there's a metric ton of good food, museums, historical sites and outdoors stuff to do. Really if you're coming all the way here from CA you should allocate yourself at least three full days.

 

I thought about Stewart. But from San Diego you’d need to connect and it looks more expensive than a direct flight to Newark. The difference would prob cover some/all of a car.

Let’s not overthink this. Fly to Newark. Rent car. Go to a bunch of breweries in HV. Will work our to be the cheapest option on top of being easiest.

 

Also one could just trade for a bunch of Suarez stuff.

 

Thanks for all the input. I'm open to possible trades but don't really like the idea of trading through the mail. I like the experience of visiting the brewery directly whenever possible. Suarez is really the last major spot that i really want to hit that I haven't previously. I've previously been to Hill Farmstead, Tree House, various Boston breweries, NY area breweries, Kane, Portland Maine breweries, Pittsburgh breweries, Philly breweries plus Tired Hands, some others.

My last MA trip I was close to driving to Suarez from Northampton area where I was staying but time did not permit and I was drinking all the Tree House beer. While I would like to return to HF, it is comparatively much further out of the way than trying to get to Suarez. I have also considered a trip to visit Ommegang but we get at least a good amount of their beer in distribution.

I like the idea of visiting other Hudson valley area breweries especially places like Sloop that are close enough to be within the range if staying nearby, I'm happy to add a few spots on my trip.

Despite the usual suggestion that I should spend at least X days in the area to fully explore it, the larger cost for me is usually hotel or Airbnb and being away from home and unable to take on certain work that requires me to be in my home town. Thankfully there are red eye flights to Newark, which are my favorite. So I could conceivably fly in on a Friday night and go back on a Monday afternoon and make it worthwhile for my goals.

 

If you like baseball do Ommegang in the summer after spending the day at the HOF. The HOF is worth the trip cross country.

 

Sounds like a fun trip! Suarez is a great place to visit. I’d recommend staying in Hudson (lots of good restaurants, near hiking, etc.) and sticking around to visit sloop on Sunday afternoon. They usually have live music and it is pretty fun.

 

How far is it from Newark to Suarez?

Maybe fly into Harrisburg International and then get a car, stop by Pizza Boy, and then drive the 200+ miles to Suarez. Out of the box thinking

And.......NVM....it's about 145 miles extra each way.......