Favorite brew pubs by Syracuse, NY.

If you're willing to travel an hour or so away, you need to hit Prison City in Auburn about 40 mins outside of 'Cuse. Fantastic, fantastic beers. Good Nature is also about half an hour outside of 'Cuse and just built a beautiful new taproom/beer garden so that's for sure worth checking out. Empire is right in Armory Square, and while the beer isn't anything special, it's a cool spot and the food is good.

There are also options depending on where you're coming from. If you're driving West to Syracuse from Albany/HV/NYC or whatever, hit up Woodland Farm. One of the most under-the-radar spots in the whole state but killing it in a wide variety of styles. It's only like 3-4 miles off the Thruway near Utica.

 

Now and later has a crazy good selection. They get Grimm cans (I don't think this release will hit distro though), LIC on tap, OH once in a while.

Thirsty Pug in Auburn. Crappy town that basically you can only take one road to get to but the workers are all chill and they always have a good selection.

Eat at Dinosaur BBQ. Thank me later.

 

My only complaint about Prison City would be their taplist is small, and depending on what's on, the beers can be more or less exciting. I was there a few weeks ago, and they only had 5 beer available and three were your pretty basic brown/amber/stout variety. No IPA available at all.

 

Blue tusk downtown also

 

Yeah that can be a problem since their batches are so tiny and they just don't produce enough to have more than, I think at most, 6-8 beers at a time. So check Untapp'd/Beermenus before you go but if they have even one IPA or sour on it's worth the trip.

 

Willow Rock is decent. Nice guys, good beer. No food (don't know if they do food trucks), but could be worth a visit.

I second everything @IGaveYouPower said, and Now and Later is a cool place. As @bdogdm3 said, awesome selection with a lot of great beers. Well-curated tap list. Last time I was there (4 months ago or so) they had Grimm, Evil Twin, Suarez, Hudson Valley and KCBC on tap, among other things. Tons of cans for now, or, uh, later.

 

Now & Later and J Ryans are by far my favourite places to drink beer in Syracuse.