Jersey City Advice/Suggestions

I'll be honest with you here...go on the path and go into NYC. You'll have 10x the selection bar wise and bottle shop wise.

 

I second this. Take the short ride over to NYC and you will have a ton of places to visit.

But Departed Soles in Jersey City is a solid brewery.

 

I third going to NYC. However, if you want to hang out in JC then check out
Barcade, wurstbar, hopscotch, iron monkey and Cork city in Hoboken (special Kane and carton).

 

Cork City usually has an impressive Kane/Carton selection as @zeuiax pointed out. Also, Shepherd & the Knucklehead just opened up a location Hoboken

 

Heading into NYC is a fantastic choice if you want to try the great local scene we've got going on now, but if you're keeping to NJ, @zeuiax and @M-Fox24 pretty accurately answered your question about places to drink local-NJ and NJ-distribution beers that you might not see elsewhere.

As for buying bottles/cans, Thirsty Quaker in Jersey City is fantastic, and carries a lot of local NJ beers and a great selection of other craft. Super Buy-Rite in JC is one of the only places in the area that gets Carton Brewing's regular distribution cans. If you're here at the right time, you might be able to grab some things from them. Sparrow Wine and Liquor in Hoboken and CoolVines in JC also have a pretty great selection of national craft beer, if you're on the lookout for anything that you don't get by you.

 

Of course if you bring beer from California you can set up IPA trade locally.

 

Iron Monkey and Barcade.

 

Where in JC will you be staying/working? It's a big town...

 

City Diner is about 2 blocks from your hotel. It's a pretty standard diner, but for whatever reason they usually have at least 1 Kane beer on tap, sometimes more. Also being at the Hyatt you can jump on the PATH at Exchange Place and be in Manhattan in 4 minutes, though craft options by the WTC station there aren't great.

 

Yeah there's a bunch of like "districts" - Journal Square, the Heights, downtown, etc. You'll be in downtown so all the places people have recommended will be easy to get to.

JC downtown is awesome, and you can get Carton and Kane beers at a number of places in town - Barcade (our best beer bar) always has a great overall selection, usually has the newest from Carton/Kane on tap, Zeppelin Hall pretty much always has O'dub (Carton 077xx) on tap, Pet Shop always has Kane Head High, Left Bank always has Carton cans. Iron Monkey and HopsScotch have lots of taps, too, but selection is never quite as good as Barcade IMO.

For good food and beer, make it a point to go to Porta and Wurstbar. Awesome food, impressively curated beer lists. Left Bank is the best spot for a burger and a beer, though their tap list is short and a bit unimaginative (but like I said, they've got Carton cans usually).

The best beer store within reasonable walking distance for you will be CoolVines. Pretty cool selection, though they don't carry Carton in cans. Super Buy-Rite does get Carton cans (Boat and 077xx like once per month), but if you don't get there by like a day or two after delivery they'll probably be sold out. Call ahead if you're thinking of going there. Left Bank will sell you Carton cans but at $8/can so yeah.
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As others have mentioned, NYC has vastly superior distro (Other Half, Grimm, Hill Farmstead to name a few), but getting to a good beer bar might be a bit of a hassle from Exchange Place if you're pressed for time. Probably minimum 30 mins to places in the West Village (Blind Tiger, etc), 40 mins to Lower East Side bars (Proletariat, Augurs Well, Top Hops, etc).

Whole Foods Tribeca has an amazing bottle selection, and if you happen to be in town when Grimm does a can or bottle release, they will definitely have that. But as others will tell you there's always an absolute mad dash to get them, so you've gotta be on the Grimm BA forum the week of release and be ready to dart at a moment's notice (it's actually pretty goddamn ridiculous how insane ppl get about Grimm releases). Either way, the overall selection at Whole Foods' in NYC is amazing, and that one will only be 10-15 minutes door to door for you.

For the NYC bars/shops, check beermenus.com - pretty much every awesome beer bar/bottle shop updates their tap lists on the site regularly. Not so much the JC bars though.

 

Shouldn't be a problem, and you might have some luck with Kane bottles at Razza. Of course, you’ll be paying a premium. Also, Würstbar in JC is fairly new, and has a nice surfacing tap list.

I actually think HopsScotch has one of the better tap/bottle lists; however, it's not specifically curated to local NJ brews. So, even though you will not find Carton or Kane here, you will find some other rarities (e.g. BFM, OEC, LoverBeer).

 

For those interested: HopsScotch has a sour event this Thursday featuring OEC

 

Figured this was worth mentioning; Modcup and Gummy randall’s are eye-catching


http://barcadejerseycity.com/events/145/dogfish-head-night-with-sam-calagione/