Traveling in for work around the Garden City, Lake Success, Hempstead area and am looking for bottle shops and beer bars around that area. Anything decent?
It's a bit of a ride (15-20 min) but I'd hit Barrier Brewery if you want a good representation of Long Island beer. They have like 5 different cans, all different styles, and 3 different 16.9oz bottles (an imperial stout, a wheat wine and something else, don't remember). The tap room there is pretty cool and they usually have food truck outside. Edit: they just released a kolsch, a common-type, and a farmhouse with Brett. They really have every style of beer right now, and you can take them home with you. Win-win I'm not huge on what shops or bars are close to there because I don't live around there, but Rockville Centre, which is a few towns over, has some decent beer bars near the train station.
I work in the area...best bottle shop I've found is Connolly Beverage. Best beer bar by a country mile in that area is Black Sheep Ale House. They have one of the best tap lists on Long Island and often have stuff from overseas too.
The new Total Wine in Westbury. Beverage Barn in Garden City Park. +Black Sheep Ale House in Mineola Check out beermenus.com for nearby places and look for places that have updated their taplists recently.
Follow up question to the above thread. Any shelf beers exclusive to the northeast that will be around in mid August that I should be picking up? Mostly looking for stouts and ipas.
I'll echo some of what has already been said because homogeny is terrific: If you want a brewery - I'd go to Barrier If you want a bar - I'd go to Black Sheep Ale House (you can use beermenus to see what they have on tap, or the bar's website) (I think this is the one stop that's a must given your location) If you want a store - I'd go to Beverage Barn East Meadow (note that there are different stores with the same name in different locations) (you can buy a single from any 6 pack there) (Total Wine would be a runner up)
If you are looking for stuff exclusive to Long Island, Barrier does have plenty of stuff in cans to bring home that should be in the better local bottle shops. Money is an IPA of theirs that would be a good find, but just about any of their IPA's are solid. Other northeast options are Lawson's Sip of Sunshine, Zero Gravity Conehead, and stuff from Jack's Abbey. You may want to check out Garvie's Point brewery given your location.
Captain Lawrence has been releasing some good NE IPA's of late that are seeing distribution on Long Island. Your best bet is to follow the local stores on Instagram and BeerMenus to see when the post what they have in. If you look at past posts, you can figure out which days they get deliveries from the craft distributors, which is mostly handled by 2 companies on Long Island - Union and Sarene.
