Catskills/Hudson/Berkshires recommendations?

Shire Breu House in the Berkshires. They have cans available at some stores if you don’t make it to their brewery.

 

Roe Jan in Hillsdale, not too far from Suarez, has great food and very solid beer. The space itself is also pretty beautiful, and apparently now they have an outdoor patio/beer garden area.

 

If you're into cider or want to do pick your own apples, Rose Hill Farm is about 15 minutes down route 9 from Suarez. I'm not really into cider, but their stuff is really good.

 

Gonna strongly co-sign both Roe Jan and Subversive, the latter especially. I'd also make it a point to go to Kingston Standard and Crossroads (great bar food, underrated beer). Old Klaverack flies way under the radar too but I really dig their stuff.

Further south for sure hit Arrowood Farms as you head into the Catskills and depending on where you go there's Upward Brewing (GORGEOUS space and really good beer), Catskill, West Kill (some of the best beer in NY IMO) and Woodstock Brewing.

Also depending on when in the fall you end up going Return Brewing may be open in Hudson and I'd bet on them being very, very good when they do.

 

Went to From the Ground Brewing when I took a trip to Suarez a few weeks back. Nice little farm brewery with decent beer and good local snacks.

 

Like these guys a lot but pretty sure they've closed up for the year already.

 

Thank you for the vote of confidence! Much appreciated :-). We are targeting early summer to open our beer garden, fingers crossed. We are already beginning some ingredient process testing in our raw warehouse space though. For now we'll be distributing beer brewed over at Crossroads and doing some events locally. We'll be at Underground Coffee and Ales this Thursday (10/7) and at Maine St Publick House 11/5. Probably more in between too but feel free to message me anytime about that. Cheers!

 

Old Klaverick. When I went it was literally just the guy's garage space converted into brewery and taproom, but the beer was excellent.

 

Gonna be in the Pittsfield, MA area next month so was looking for recommendations for breweries or bars.

 

I'll be honest, I live in Pittsfield and it's not the best town for beer, but there's some cool stuff in the general area (+/- 45 minutes, listed closest to furthest). How long are you going to be in town? If it's more than a couple of days let me know and I'll meet up for a beer if you'd like.

• The Lantern on North st. in Pittsfield is a great, clean, dive bar. Great burgers and I'd call it a "classic" craft tap list. They had Smutty Brown Dog, Cambridge Amber, and Dogfish 60 on tap the last time I was there. Lines seemed clean and the beer tasted fresh, so it was a great little throwback.
• Patrick's Pub in Pittsfield has very good wings and pub food. It's your basic pub taplist though (Sam's, Guinness, etc...)
• Teo's or Hot Dog Ranch are must stops for chili dogs. Both places have your most basic B-M-C taplists, but it's perfect with a chili dog. They're mini hotdogs, I think $1.35 a piece at either place, covered in meat sauce, mustard and onions. They're divine. Perfect with an order of cheese fries and a Bud Heavy.
• Spirited in Lenox is your best bet for a beer shop, they're a little pricey but generally have a really good selection. They have one cooler where you can grab singles, it's not super varied, but there's some interesting stuff generally. The beer guy there is REAL big on Relic Brewing. Some beers of theirs are great, and some aren't so hot.
  
• Shire Breu House in Dalton makes solid beer and has some good food.
  
• Moe's Tavern in Lee is a renowned beer bar for a reason, I feel like their taplists aren't as great as people said it used to be (they just reopened after a two year hiatus and remodel, so who knows, maybe they need to do some relationship building again,) but it's a great bar in general.
• Bright Ideas Brewing in North Adams is the definition of "fine", but they're attached to MASSMoCA which is definitely worth checking out.
• If you want some Heady go right over the border from Williamstown to Pownal, VT there's a little liquor store, Dwyer's State Line, which always seems to have it in stock, along with a good amount of other fresh VT stuff.
• If you're OK with a bit of a drive (40 - 45 minutes) you NEED to hit up Saisonnier in Kinderhook, NY. Generally an incredible tap list focused on Saisons, Lagers, and the occasional NEIPA. They got a couple of Hill Farmstead kegs a few months back, and almost always have a Suarez tap. They do most of their tap beer to go in crowlers too, and have an absolutely silly selection of lambic to drink on site, or at home.
• If you're taking the trip to Saisonnier, you're going to drive by Reifenberg Brewing, which focuses mostly on German style beers, and they do them very well.
• Suarez is a little less than an hour away if you want them Crispybois.

Hope that helps!

 

Echoing pretty much everything that Matt said, can’t go wrong with anything he posted.

Spirited is definitely the best best for beer selection. There’s also Kelly’s Package Store in Dalton that usually has a pretty solid selection (check the walk-in cooler section), and Liquors Inc in Pittsfield where you can sometimes find some hidden gems (found 450 North 4-packs for $19.99 a week or two ago).

There’s also The Hangar, which if you’re familiar with the Amherst area, you’ve probably heard of/been to. Killer boneless wings and usually a great tap list with a bunch of Amherst Brewing beers on tap, which are solid.

Moe’s Tavern definitely lost a little of its charm with the remodel. But there’s no doubt that it’s cleaner and bigger than it used to be. I think the issue with the tap list is that 3-4 years ago, Moe’s was the only place to find beers that used to be “whales” or at least hard to find in MA (CBS, Sip of Sunshine, Bourbon County Variants, out of distro one-off drops). Most of this stuff can be found at package stores now, so it’s not as much of a destination anymore. Still an awesome spot to hit if you’re in Lee though.

Finally, Teo’s > Hot Dog Ranch. Matt’s a recent transplant to the area, so he doesn’t have an allegiance yet. But everyone from the area has their favorite. Teo’s steams their buns, and the onions are cooked. It’s a better dog. If you want something more than a hot dog and a frosty mug of PBR, Hot Dog Ranch does have a bigger menu.

 

Thank you, both! This is very helpful. We are meeting friends out there for a weekend and will probably have a decent sized group, so I'll see what places best fit for that. Might have to grab a hot dog on the way in or out or both.

 

Hearty co-sign on Saisonner. One of the best beer bars I've been to in all of NY. Reifenberg is great for classic styles, too. Also there's Cosmic Donuts which rules if you're there early enough in the day.

 

Teo's!

 

The Northampton area if awesome, New City, Progressive, Fort Hill, Treehouse not far. Great railtrail.

 

The bagel place on that same block is fantastic too. Second best I’ve had, only to Rosenfeld’s in Newton, MA.

I had a surprisingly fantastic NEIPA at Reifenberg too, I talked to the brewer about it and his take was: “well, I don’t want to make it, but people want to drink it. So I may as well make the best damn one I can.”

The Hefe I had at Reifenberg might be the best that I’ve ever had.

 

Haha can't fault his logic.

My one and only gripe with them is zero outdoor seating but we're getting to the point in the year where that's moot so I gotta go back soon. It is for sure a place to sit on a cold winter day and have some hearty, traditional styles of beer.

Good to know on the bagel spot, too.

 

I second Moe's Tavern but was there for my one visit 6 years ago. Had a road trip to Saratoga Springs for a weekend conference and visited Henry Street Taproom on the Friday & Sat night for my first taste of Rushing Duck which was nice. Then hit Moe's in Lee for the 1pm football game on the way home.

It was just me and the bartender watching the Pats at first, with some people filtering in during the game. Good selection, weighted more towards west coast IPAs and regional breweries like Victory, Sixpoint, etc. at that time.