A Monday of work to get through and we’re off to the city. Should be wandering around Midtown around 2 on Tuesday. Most likely first stop for a drink will be OH Rock. Curious given the anniversary party and week, what we’ll find on tap there and Centre st. Not sure how much people rip through and if they make a good dent and deplete.
The taplists on their website are usually reasonably up to date so it looks like they have a bunch of stuff from the past few weeks on right now. There might be some guest kegs also floating around but that's more likely to be at Centre St where they had the actual party.
Prolly want to check out the Brooklyn Brewery. Still in the original location on 79 N. 11th in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. However, they're moving into a brand new space a few blocks north at end of year. If you're nostalgic, it's an iconic space and well worth the visit even if the actual brewery has been dismantled and removed in advance of the move.
Great start to the week at OH Roc. Anniversary 4, 8, 9, banana universe. Dinner at The Smith was great with a fresh pour of Green City.
Glades I got try to anniversary 4,8,9,10,11 as of today swinging over to Centre St. On a side note, I remember that subway stop being pretty chill last time and walking to Folksbier was no worries. Was a wild scene there today. Has the area changed a bit? We will head over to McSorleys and the area as well. Can’t thank everyone enough for the help. And patience with our lack of knowledge to the area.
I was in China Town last summer and went to That Witch Ales You. Really fun, small spot with interesting beers. Check the hours to see when they are open! https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/59947/?view=ratings&ba=Redrover#lists
I use that stop a couple times a week and live around 1 mile away. I don’t recognize any changes other than the escalator construction at the station and a few new restaurant/bars. Maybe more people using public transportation due to snow/rain?
McSorleys was great, really enjoyed the Chili. Made it to Grimm today and shooting over to Torst shortly. We may check out food there. Or, any food recommendations around there? Had a few nice meals at steakhouse’s the last two nights so more of a lowkey burger or maybe tacos kind of night. Staying a few blocks from Rockefeller in Midtown East, if anyone might have good food recs around there too. Will give more of a synopsis of the trip later.
Head over to Lake Street Bar, it's on the same street as Torst (Manhattan Ave) it's about a block away. Awesome little dive bar. Shot and a beer combo for $8, I think. Last time I was there it was PBR + Old Crow. One of its owners is the drummer from my favorite band (The Hold Steady), so I have a soft spot for it. Great spot though. Fornino's pizza is a few blocks further down Manhattan Ave too and has killer "upscale" pizza. You'd be fine in normal clothes there though, no need to dress up.
Our trip was absolutely awesome. We got in the things we wanted to do, and left plenty to do our next trip. Tuesday: We rolled into NYC at 3 pm staying at the San Carlos. Dumped the car 3 blocks away easy enough and settled. Headed over to St Patrick’s Cathedral and some of the area then hit Other Half roc. The anniversary beers were great and we did get pours of Bananaverse. Have to say, we forgot that the breweries and bars in NYC will give you bottle pours in ounces at a pour price. At home it’s you open the bottle, it’s yours for god knows what price markup. It almost felt weird asking for them. We headed over to The Smith for dinner. Which was good, but our dinner on Wednesday for about the same price was certainly a step above. But, nothing bad to say about the spot or staff. They were great. I enjoyed two pours of Green City there. Actually had grabbed a can pour from Equilibrium since it had been a minute and he said let me check the date. It should be fresh. No one offers that so that was great. Opened it up and kind of both looked at it and I politely tried it and had a little. He kind of saw my look and kindly offered another pour of GC if I wanted no worries at all. I haven’t had a lot of luck with EQ cans. Lady had the Espresso Martini that was pretty good. Walked down to The Jeffrey from there. Enjoyed some Hill Farmstead and she had an excellent margarita. Had a few tacos for the hell of it and enjoyed them. Bar tender there is great and super helpful. Also, last time we were in town and sat there for drinks late on a Sunday, we ended up at the bar with a dude who was literally there a few down from us again. How the f does that happen a few years later in a city of the size. Ha Wednesday: We walked over to Esa Bagel. Enjoyed the lox and thought everything was excellent. Anyone I talked to seemed to agree. Nice to have blue bottle all over since we don’t have that at home. Walked down to Bryant park and saw the rink and area. Freezing at this point in the day. Dipped into the Library to see it. Huge and the architecture is impressive. But, not much that we saw for books ha. Made us laugh. Grabbed the subway down to Brooklyn and hit Other Half Centre St. Tried the rest of the anniversary beers and Bananaversiry. Maybe enjoyed the less bumped up adjunct version a tiny bit more. Still love their stuff so much. Wild East was the stop we were looking forward to. It was awesome and enjoyed everything we tried. The cask ESB was a real treat. The Czech style pils was damn good. The place was slow given the early time and that server went above and beyond letting us try samples and pours and pointing out lots in the area. Nice to talk about Notch and the like closer to home a bit. I had to use the restroom at one point and when I came back out the server had hopped on his laptop and pulled up a map and was showing us where to head and ideas. Great spot. Can not recommend them more. But, god damn is it cold in there! Someone walked in and just said holy shit it’s cold in here ha. Caught a ride up to Evil Twin after that. Had two great sours and enjoyed the all Nelson ipa. Thank god for 5 oz pours all over. Saved us ha. Their stuff is just fun to me. Well constructed, don’t get me wrong. But enough fruit and adjunct to get me sick. Shot back over the bridge to McSorleys and really enjoyed the spot and understand it now. It was pretty quiet so it was nice to chat and be shown around the pictures and items in house. We grabbed some chili and really enjoyed it. Had both light and dark and enjoyed them. Definitely picked up as we left. We were running a bit late so had to get back to the hotel and then walked to Gallaghers. Food was fantastic and they treated us quite well. They were very nice to her for her birthday. Some wine and a Margarita to switch it up was nice. Ended up feeling pretty beat up at that point from walking all day so we shot back to OH as it was along our walk, to try a few other things we hadn’t before. Thursday: Slept in a little and grabbed more bagels. Grabbed coffee and shot down to Lower Manhattan and did spend a few hours at the 9/11 museum. They really did a great job having it laid out for you. Having consumed endless footage, readings, books and podcasts about it over the years since(David De Solas zero hour podcast from 70’s to current is a must listen, but extremely long) I felt the museum really does get you as close to feeling it as you could ever be. Granted I know as a local I’m sure my thoughts on it may be very different. Felt a little guilty I had not visited prior. But twice timing didn’t allow us during peak season. What an emotional feeling. Shot back over to Brooklyn and hit up Grim. All of our pours from ipa, mixed ferm, stout, etc were great. Met some nice folks to chat with at the bar as well. Very impressed with their offerings and felt more inspired to seek out their beer. Shot over to Torst after. Also pretty chill so great to chat with the bar tender and try further offerings. Was nice to have a Hill Farmstead society and solitude pour. They did have Schenker cans so I was able to do a side by side of Emerald Gardens and HF. I said it last time we were at Folksbier but felt that his water profile and malt used along with house yeast just reminds me of HF. And it felt the same again this time. Was happy to support him. Grabbed a ride back over the bridge at sunset to the East Village to go to Proletariat(what a view!) Absolutely loved it. Bar tender was cool as shit and we also had a nice gentlemen from London sitting next to us to chat with. It was packed and loud when we got there with plenty of post hardcore and indie rock on. So it felt like home. Dark, crowded and stuffed in, great! Eased up as the night went on. We ended up staying there for quite a while. Tried a bunch of stuff from Fox Farm, Eridat, the Veil to a KCBC imperial stout. Later he asked the lady if she’d like to open some Cantillion, which we thoroughly enjoyed. I should point out, whether it’s a common thing or not at spots in NY, but most of the servers bought us a round on the house. For whatever reason we popped back into McSorleys after to see the shitshow. Which it was, but then it all kind of hit us, we were ready to head back. Any more and the ride home would’ve been brutal. Friday: Time to head home. After grabbing some breakfast sandwiches at cafe metro we had walked by DaeDay coffee. Had to pop in and grab their cold brew. Blown away by that one. That stuff was so fucking good. Checked out of the hotel and hit the road for some traffic. Made our stop at Treehouse in Charlton to stock up on cold brew cans and back home late as fuck. All of this was worth it. Can’t say enough thanks for all of the recommendations on everything. There was other sight seeing we did but I’ll spare you that. Given we wanted to take advantage of sun and warmer temps during the day we were pretty good to go by late evening so we didn’t stay out as late as I’m sure the city does. We’ll try that a bit more in warmer weather. As is, ABC, KCBC and the pub crawl near McSorleys will happen next time. Hope this is helpful for anyone else who visits and not annoying to others!
It’s too bad you barely got to drink. Maybe next time. I kid. It’s funny how you can bump into a familiar face in NYC. It happens. An occasion like that resulted in my marriage. I don’t remember the last time I was comped a drink by a bartender I didn’t know in NYC (barring kicked kegs or bad beer), but it happens. Your good nature (or multiple rounds) might have earned your luck. Regarding the doing of that East Village pub crawl in the future - you already did half of it… and it doesn’t sound like you left NY without scratching some good itches.
Around me buy backs is definitely a thing, at least at the places I go to often. One on the house for every two I buy is typical. My friend group and I do often bring in hard to get bottles and cans from out distro to share with the bartenders/etc. often though.
Haha, we both have had some very busy fall and new year weeks with work. I think we just wanted to relax a little and just try to hit as much as we could. We fit in plenty of sightseeing and walking as well. An ungodly amount of walking some days. And I walk an hour or so daily as well as lift in the evenings a few days per week. But man, was our step count high, and we both felt it at the end of the week. The weather really wasn’t too bad to walk when we could. Especially around Manhattan. Had everywhere we went been full pints. You could cut that list in half. Lady isn’t my size by any means and doesn’t drink a ton normally. She can certainly keep up, but only to a point ha. So I was very aware of making sure she was feeling ok later in the evening. It’s not fun if one of you feels sick or dizzy. I couldn’t imagine trying to go til 2 or 3am
Was looking online and could really only find pour sizes at Wild East and Threes. Are we generally looking at only full pours at most of the breweries in Brooklyn? I've only been to Other Half Domino before (and honestly don't remember the answer there). Will be going in a few weeks with intention to hit several over a couple days but the tolerance isn't quite what it used to be(!). Thanks.
Other Half does 4oz pours of everything. Evil Twin does small pours too. I think Finback is a mix, offering small pours for some of the options. Queue Beer (right by OH Centre St.) has 3 size options ranging from 4oz to 16oz depending on the beer/abv.
Wild East definitely does 10oz (not half pours but better than a pint). Also, I definitely had a 5oz pour at Threes about 5 years ago or so. Not sure they still do, but a lot of breweries dont advertise half pours. Better off just calling and asking.
Booked our hotel again for mid October, which will be a nice change of temps. looking forward to hitting all the spots around McSorleys and Proletariat this trip. Probably skip on OH CS since there isn’t much down there(unless I’m wrong?) and explore other parts of Brooklyn even more.
We just did our trip in February. We lived off of the 5oz pours everywhere so we could bounce around through the day and evening. Pour sizes and willingness to open and pour 5-10 oz bottle pours for the price of a pour, is fng amazing too. As opposed to around our area where if you want to try a bottle, you buy the $35 bottle and then are stuck with 750 ml to want to throw up later. We both agreed we have never been treated so well and offered tastes and free pours mixed into our tabs at so many places, anywhere else. For all the shit NYC people get, we felt they were some of the nicest we’ve met anywhere as tourists. I can’t recommend visiting Wild East and chatting while you taste, enough. Grimm also did different size pours which was great given the selection. I used to deal with 10x the attitude dealing with folks in San Diego on surf trips with my friends. Even when we’d be out at local bars with my local friend. Ya know, where people are supposed to be so “laid back”
