Interesting - I just visited both of these places this past weekend, for the first time. I was more impressed with Oakflower - their taplist was much more diverse. Autodidact had 8 beers on tap of which 5 were IPAs.
It wouldn't be the least surprising thing and would make some sense, and I guess the timing is a little early, but I think it's an April Fools. Apparently they've done April Fools collabs/bits in the past, but who knows could be a boy who cried wolf. Also, I was just made aware of Fallside Brewing in Cohoes, apparently one of the old Fidens owners went his own way. Did a quick search for it didn't see a mention of it here, apologies if redundant. Had a 7.5% NEIPA from them the other day, pretty good.
Been a fan of Bye-I since the beginning and think they flew extremely under the radar with what was already great beer, but Allen from Fidens is gonna take that place to the next level. You can already see a huge improvement in their branding, social media presence and visibility and he's definitely putting the mark of old Fidens on the beer program too. I see great things coming down the pike there.
GREAT 518 news -- Mixed Breed has bought the old Unified location and has huge plans for it. They're totally revamping the taproom, making it more homier and less industrial, and they want to be a destination for NFL Sundays, World Cup, Masters, UFC cards, ect. There's nowhere to go in Ballston Spa/Malta for that kind of thing now (brewery-wise, anyhow) so pairing that with the great beer MB puts out is a killer recipe.
Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant grand opening in Center City today. The other four locations are "coming soon". https://ironhillbrewery.us/
