I’m back home in New York after an amazing road trip through Colorado and New Mexico over the past week, and while my friend and I referred to the trip as “The Green Chile Run,” there was plenty of beer to be had in between the green chile stews, green chile grilled cheese sandwiches, and green chile enchiladas. Our trip wound us through Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico and we uncovered some gems along the way.

We were barely an hour out of Denver when we found our first gem: OCC Brewing in Colorado Springs. Not only were the views of Pikes Peak from the rooftop deck breathtaking, but the beers were impeccable. Their OCC Helles and Bushtit Bitter showed the breadth of their beer-making skill, and the Gringos Perdidos Corn Lager made with local corn and Union Made Märzen were lovely second acts.

We moved on to Pueblo where Brues Alehouse showed us how vibrant this often-derided town can be. Their multi-tiered location on the city’s Riverwalk was buzzing on a Thursday night and the people watching was great while sipping on a well-made Kellerbier.

After we crossed the border into New Mexico, we stopped at Comanche Creek Brewing Company in Eagle Nest, a lone building on a vast high-elevation meadow at the foot of the state’s highest point, Wheeler Peak. I soon found out that this is where longtime New York City brewer Flint Whistler, who these days brews at Sixpoint in Red Hook, got his start in brewing. On a nice day, this is an amazing spot to camp out, sip some beer, and enjoy the scenery.

Santa Fe was an embarrassment of riches when it comes to beer, and while our stops at the city’s largest brewers, Santa Fe Brewing and Second Street Brewery, were quite memorable and full of great beer, and Tumbleroot was a charming little local brewery and distillery, it was Keeping Together, Averie Swanson’s first brick-and-mortar location for her long time brand, that really stole the show. The taproom is housed in a beautiful open-air greenhouse full of plants and communal seating and a well-polished bar. We ended up camping out here for most of an afternoon, running the table by trying each and every beer on the menu. The Saisons were all standouts (unsurprising, as Swanson is best known for her time working at Jester King), but you really can’t go wrong with a single beer on the menu.

We went up to Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos to hike, and uncovered what’s easily the most unique brewery visit I’ve had this year. Piedra Blanca Brewing Company is literally housed in the garage of brewer Dave Hayes, who got a commercial brewing and wholesale license so he could brew at home and send beer around to local bars and restaurants in Los Alamos. There’s no taproom per se, though he offered us samples of all of his small-batch beers (the Bock and the Oat Stout were favorites of mine) before we took some hand-filled cans to go. Our visit was by appointment — or rather, we just texted his number posted on his website and asked if he was around to sell us beers.

On the trip back to Denver, we stopped off at Peaks N Pines Brewing in Fountain, Colorado, another highlight in the area around Colorado Springs that shouldn’t be missed. It’s just a stone’s throw from Interstate 25, so getting in and out was easy. Maybe getting out was harder because I wanted to stick around for another round because of how great their Ohana Nut Blonde Stout was — a white chocolate and macadamia masterpiece.

Overall on this weeklong trip, inclusive of a few new stops in Denver, I hit 25 new-to-me breweries, but that’s not nearly as memorable as the scenery we saw along the way. I strongly recommend seeing this part of the country that’s often overlooked in favor of more popular National Parks nearby. The varying landscapes, charming small towns, food, and beer all made this an incredibly worthwhile roadtrip.

Upcoming Beer Events of Note

• Brooklyn: Messorem 7th Anniversary at Queue Beer, Saturday 9/5 from noon, free entry

• Queens: 4th Annual Beer Towne at Beer Town Ozone Park, Saturday 9/12 from 1-5pm, tickets from $65

• Brooklyn: Ecktoberfest 2026 at Eckhart Beer Co., Saturday 9/19 from noon to close, free entry

• Staten Island: Flagship Oysterfest 2026 at Flagship Brewery, Saturday 9/19 from 2pm-midnight, free entry

• Brooklyn: NYC Slice + Pint Crawl at Threes Brewing Greenpoint, Saturday 9/19 from 6-9pm, free RSVP, In the Fold Passport $20

• Queens: Blocktoberfest 2026 at Culture Lab LIC, Saturday 9/26 from 1-5pm, tickets from $45

• Staten Island: Faßfest '26 at Kills Boro Brewing Company, Sunday 9/27 from 11:30am-3:30pm, tickets from $75

• Manhattan: Oktoberfest Beer & Cheese Pairing at Murray’s Cheese, Friday 10/2 from 6:30-8pm, tickets $110

• Brooklyn: Brooklyn Craft Beer Fest at Industry City Courtyard 1/2, Saturday 10/10 from 1-9:30pm, tickets from $60

• Brooklyn: 20th Anniversary Party at 4th Avenue Pub, Thursday 10/22 from 4pm, free entry

Brewery Tracker

Total brewery count: 4,047
Total breweries visited in 2026: 124
Total breweries visited in New Mexico: 39

Brewery Visit of the Week

Brewery #4045, Travel Bug, Santa Fe, New Mexico (Visited 30-Aug-2026)

Travel Bug is not a brewery first. Heck, it might not even be a brewery third. Travel Bug is a travel bookstore, map store, cafe, and bar that also happens to make its own beers on premise. You can see two small jacketed fermenters as you walk in the front door, next to a world map and a rack of rolled wall maps. There were just two beers from them on tap, along side some local guest taps, pouring behind the bar that also doubles as an excellent cafe. You might not even notice the beers, but they’re there on the menu: a Pale Ale and a Blonde. My friend and I sat and sipped them, but then wandered the store with the rest of the beer in hand. I ended up buying a Pocket Guide to Seoul, as I’m headed there late next week for the first time. There were novels, biographies, and local interest books for sale along with travel books, and the shop often hosts talks with local authors. It’s a great space to wander and drink any beverage, but they just happen to make their own beer, too. This place contains multitudes… great multitudes.

The Doom and Gloom Tracker

At least 1 brewery I’ve visited closed or announced their closure in the past week:

• Brewery #639, Lake Monster Brewing, St. Paul, Minnesota [Visited 15-Sep-2016]

The Weekly Reader

• One of New York State’s largest breweries has a new owner [Will Cleveland, Cleveland Prost]

• The newest trend in beer across the pond is… fruit lagers? [Jeff Alworth, Beervana]

• What do you do when an authoritarian childishly changes the namesake of your beer brand? [Karl Klockars, Guys Drinking Beer]

• It’s me, on another planet [David Bailey, Pellicle]

One Last Thing

My 40 Bars in 40 Days project rolls on into its fifth week this week, with new profiles of Carroll Garden’s Bar Great Harry, Park Slope’s Brewer’s Row, and Williamsburg’s Barcade all published since Monday. Hope you’ll take some time to read this side project and support your local beer bar!

Cheers,
Chris

I could’ve ventured to one of Greats of Craft’s two locations in Queens, but it was time for me to go back to where it all began on First Avenue. This space opened in 2019 and immediately became one of the city’s great, if seriously underestimated, beer bars. Being in Sutton Place will keep a place like this out of sight and out of mind to most beer drinkers. Perhaps that’s why their second location in LIC is so audacious, with a rooftop with sweeping views and a space many times the size of this corner storefront in Manhattan. Regardless, it maintains the same formula: an all-day space with coffee, pastries, sandwiches, and beer, where people can effortlessly work the day away as it fades from coffee to beer. Visiting here late afternoon and ordering a beer, you might think you’re being judged by the people around you working off their laptops over a coffee. But they’re just about to switch to beer themselves.

One thing about Greats of Craft’s original location is the sheer number of beers they serve. Many beer bars twice this size have half the number of taps. 30 taps in all, some dedicated to wine and cider, but still an extensive list of beers that allows me to order a Harvey’s Best Bitter in the U.S. for the first time ever (it’s a favorite of mine in the UK, and my possibly favorite brewery tour of all time). The options on the list include a house lager brewed with LIC’s Rockaway Brewing, a Wild Ale from Crooked Stave, Ayinger Doppelbock from Germany, and Maine Lunch IPA. Even more are stocked in the coolers to go. It’s a stellar rotating list of beers among good wines, cocktails, and coffee. And the space itself is quite polished — marble countertops, leather barstools, and some nice wood and tile finishes throughout the bar. Most bees are served in Teku glasses, and there are regulators on each tap to control the flow, which bartenders pay careful attention to. Despite the attention to detail here, it’s a very unpretentious place, which makes the bar’s superlative name even more surprising. But it is indeed a great place to drink craft beer.

The Tab:
1 Harvey’s Best Bitter (12 oz) $12
1 Wayward Lane Apogee (12 oz) $9

The Location:
The Greats of Craft
983 1st Avenue, at East 54th Street
E/F Trains to Lexington Av-53 St, 6 Train to 51 St

Can a beer bar still be cool in 2026? That’s what I’m wondering as I sit with an old friend catching up over beers at Bar Great Harry and scanning the room. The bar has a youthful spirit, and I feel like I’m actually one of the older people sitting in this unpolished spot where the front French doors are open to the street at happy hour on a buzzy Monday afternoon. There’s not a stroller in sight and the conversations around me are more about vacation plans than kids’ dance lessons. Maybe it’s not what I expected at this well-worn spot in Carroll Gardens, but I’m definitely not complaining that 20-somethings are coming here for reasonably-priced good beer.

Bar Great Harry was ahead of its time, opening in 2007 before the big wave of craft beer bars seemed to put a cask engine on every corner of New York City. It has hardly changed. The plywood floors, the red walls, the pinball room in the back all give me nostalgia at this point. BGH has always been huge supporters of local beer and remain so. I remember coming here in 2009 for Sixpoint’s invite-only anniversary party, back when they were still just a small operation over in Red Hook. They’ve hosted countless events for local breweries through the years. I tend to keep my beer choices local, though they do have a pretty broad selection from elsewhere, including Oxbow, Weldwerks, and Schilling. They also have Kirin on tap (for a very reasonable $7/pint outside of happy hour), a nod to the bar’s namesake, a cocktail bar in the Chinatown section of Yokohama, Japan that’s still going strong after 33 years. Speaking of going strong, Bar Great Harry is celebrating 20 years in business next year, and in that time, it’s become a neighborhood staple, a local beer haven, and just a lovely little spot to drink a pint.

The Tab:
1 Schilling Alexandr 10° (Happy Hour) $7
1 Industrial Arts Screwdriver (Happy Hour) $8

The Location:
Bar Great Harry
280 Smith Street, at Sackett Street, Brooklyn
F/G Trains to Carroll St

Park Slope’s beer scene seems to be thriving. My theory is that’s because the neighborhood is populated by a lot of middle-aged dad types that came of age as craft beer had its boom in the 2010s. But whatever the reason, it’s still an area where new beer bars are opening. While most recently, it was Mash Inn that opened this summer, the previous newcomer to Park Slope was Brewer’s Row, a spot on 7th Avenue that opened back in 2024. It’s a dream for beer nerds in the immediate vicinity who no longer have to walk down to 5th Avenue to The Gate or 9th Street to The Owl Farm. But it’s an excellent bar in its own right: 16 drafts (including beer flight options), a wide array of bottles and cans priced separately to-go and for on-premise consumption, and a long menu of robust bar snacks. The narrow main space is deceiving — turn a corner and you’ll find a spacious side room with seating, turn another corner and you’ll find a door to their backyard, a well-manicured outdoor space wedged between some neighboring residential buildings. The decor is full of brewerania from the distant past (vintage cans and beer trays) to recent history (a Birreria shirt from the short-lived brewpub on the roof of Eataly in Manhattan, a nod to the bar owners’ former life at the sprawling Italian market). It’s a wonderful beer bar that should get more attention than it does.

My only gripe with Brewer’s Row is charging $10 for a pint of Genesee Cream Ale. I’m never going to tell anyone how to run a beer bar and price their beer in order to be successful, but that feels like the worst deal in beer I’ve found while trekking across the city. There are plenty of folks in the city that might be nostalgic for Genny Cream, but they wouldn’t be nostalgic for that price tag. But that’s a small criticism for an otherwise lovely neighborhood beer bar.

The Tab:
1 Kills Boro Oktoberfest $10
1 Other Half/Junior’s Strawberry Dream (Can) $12

The Location:
Brewer’s Row
228 7th Avenue, between 3rd and 4th Streets, Brooklyn
F/G Trains to 7 Av

One time in October of 2004, my roommate came back to our apartment in Greenpoint after a night out, telling me that he had just visited this huge bar in an industrial part of Williamsburg that had a whole bunch of craft beers on tap and tons of 80s arcade games you could play for a quarter. It almost seemed too good to be true, so the next day, I went to see for myself. 22 years, some minor cosmetic changes to the space, a few more pinball and modern games installed, and probably hundreds of visits later, I find myself sitting at the bar at Barcade drinking a Harpoon UFO White and Victory Prima Pils, two beers that were on the menu on their first night of operation on October 13, 2004. It’s my first visit since their recent announcement that they’d be closing this location when their lease ends in 2029, so it’s a bit bittersweet, especially when this spot has so many memories for me.

My love for this spot had hardly anything to do with the video games, though I was partial to Tetris and Tapper back in the day. Barcade was crucial to cementing my interest in beer, hosting tons of beer events and tap takeovers. It’s where I met Dogfish Head’s Sam Calagione, Bell’s’ Larry Bell, and Victory’s Bill Covaleski for the first time. It’s where I had my first Two-Hearted Ale and countless other out-of-state imports in the city. It’s where a friend from across the country surprised me at my 30th birthday party. It’s where the Barcade chainlet started, launching a pair of “Barcade Crawls” where I traveled by transit with friends of mine to every Barcade location in one day — we reached our limit when the crawl went from Philly to Jersey City to Chelsea to St. Mark’s Place to Brooklyn. These days, there are locations in Los Angeles, Detroit, and New Haven that would make a crawl to every Barcade a bit more challenging.

You’ve still got well over 900 days left to visit this Barcade location, and the three others in Manhattan aren’t going anywhere, so the legacy will live on in the city even after the doors close on Union Avenue. But in the meantime, I’ll be playing a few more rounds of Tapper with a Prima Pils resting beside it.

The Tab:
1 Harpoon UFO White (Happy Hour) $6
1 Victory Prima Pils (Happy Hour) $7

The Location:
Barcade Brooklyn
388 Union Avenue, at Ainslie Street, Brooklyn
L/G Trains to Metropolitan Av-Lorimer St

I hadn’t stepped through the doors of Sunswick in 11 years when I went during happy hour on a Friday in August. A giant “20” in bright lights was hanging over the bar to mark their 20th anniversary, the first reminder that this spot was pouring good beer in Queens long before it was cool. Owner Juan Cruz took the place over in 2006. I met Juan not long after that during various New York City beer events, and Sunswick was a pioneering beer bar at the peak of beer bar hype in the city in the early 2010s. While I hadn’t visited the bar since the Obama administration, it felt like it hadn’t skipped a beat.

I’m happy to report that Sunswick, if a little more well-worn after 20 years, is still going strong. 25 beers on tap, dozens by the bottle, and enough beer nerdery to keep me satisfied. The brewery stickers amassed behind the bar here over the years present a living museum to old-school craft beer. Kelso, Clipper City, Fort Collins Brewery, Pretty Things, and Shmaltz stickers are on display behind the bar, relics of a different era of craft beer. A newer cooler is covered with stickers of the new wave of breweries: KCBC, Kills Boro, Round Table, The Alchemist — much more representative of what they serve today.

Hit with a pang of nostalgia when I sat down at the bar, I couldn’t resist having two beers that have been around for a long time: Trumer Pils, admittedly new-ish to New York, but a West Coast staple for a generation, and Smuttynose Old Brown Dog, a food-friendly beer that paired wonderfully with a Chicken Tinga Gordita. Speaking of food, the kitchen is open here until 3:30am and the bar until 4am, so Sunswick is not just a nice corner beer bar, but a neighborhood beacon for late-night eats. But whether you’re going for Sunday Brunch, an afternoon beer or one last beer at last call, you’ll still have plenty of great beer at your disposal.

The Tab:
1 Trumer Pils $8.32
1 Smuttynose Old Brown Dog $8.32

The Location:
Sunswick 35/35
35-02 35th Street, at 35th Avenue, Queens
N/W Trains to 36 Av, M/R Trains to Steinway St

Hello! I’m back from my annual August break. I’ve spent the past two weeks going places, both as a tourist in my own city and traveling beyond the five boroughs, so here’s what I’ve been up to…

First off, I’ve been visiting beer bars around the city to profile as part of my 40 Bars in 40 Days series. We’re now up to 19 profiles, from The Bronx to Manhattan to Queens to Brooklyn, with more to come over the next four weeks. I hope you’ll dip into the series and maybe even find a beer bar you’ve never visited before.

I traveled out to Pittsburgh a couple of weeks ago for my first visit to Barrel and Flow Fest, a celebration of Black breweries, artists, and small businesses. It was a great event where I had some really great beers from breweries I’d never been introduced to before, and it’s without a doubt an empowering event for Black brewers. Around the fest, I ventured out to some new breweries in town, including Coven, Lolev, Golden Age, Old Thunder (see below for more on that), and Aslin’s Pittsburgh outpost. I didn’t even have time to venture back to some of my favorites like Trace, Dancing Gnome, or Grist House, but the trip reminded me just how vibrant the Steel City’s beer scene still is, even with the industry in flux.

I also got up to The Drowned Lands’ Wild Acres festival in Orange County, New York for the first time. While the vibes were great, the setting was lovely and the beer was excellent, I still can’t help but think they’re sitting on a huge opportunity to provide transportation from a nearby train station so the event is more accessible for people from the city, since it’s barely 50 miles away (one attendee I talked to paid nearly the cost of a ticket to the festival just for an Uber to the event from a nearby train station — and that didn’t guarantee a ride home). On the way back, we stopped into Rockland County’s newest brewery, Noble Experiment Brewing Company, which just opened back in February.

Finally, I flew out to Denver, Colorado, where I’m sitting and writing this today. Actually, by the time this publishes, a friend and I will be road tripping down to Santa Fe, New Mexico for a weekend in the nation’s highest state capital. I’ll tread lightly given the elevation, but looking forward to some lovely beers and lots of green chile. Always love to hear some your recommendations in Santa Fe, if you’ve got them! Feel free to drop them in the comments.

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Blocktoberfest returns on September 26th

The New York City Brewers Guild’s annual fall fundraiser is at a new venue this year. Save the date for Saturday, September 26th from 1 to 5pm, when Blocktoberfest, a celebration of New York City beers, is held at a new venue this year: The Lot at Culture Lab LIC in Long Island City, Queens. As always, the party will feature a long lineup of locally-brewed beers from more than 30 New York City breweries, plus food pop-ups, local art, and live music… this year, outdoors with views of the Manhattan skyline and a stone’s throw from three of the city’s breweries if you’re looking for a beer before or after the fest. Tickets are $60 and come with all you care to drink tastings and a souvenir pint glass and are available now.

Upcoming Beer Events of Note

• Manhattan: Messorem 7th Anniversary at City Beer, Thursday 8/27 from 5:30pm, free entry

• Brooklyn: Farewell Party at Brooklyn Brewery, Saturday 8/29 from 9pm, free with RSVP

• Brooklyn: Messorem 7th Anniversary at Queue Beer, Saturday 9/5 from noon, free entry

• Brooklyn: Ecktoberfest 2026 at Eckhart Beer Co., Saturday 9/19 from noon to close, free entry

• Staten Island: Flagship Oysterfest 2026 at Flagship Brewery, Saturday 9/19 from 2pm-midnight, free entry

• Queens: Blocktoberfest 2026 at Culture Lab LIC, Saturday 9/26 from 1-5pm, tickets from $45

Brewery Tracker

Total brewery count: 4,026
Total breweries visited in 2026: 103
Total breweries visited in Pennsylvania: 120

Brewery Visit of the Week

Brewery #4016, Old Thunder Brewing Company, Blawnox, Pennsylvania (Visited 9-Aug-2026)

I love a repurposed building that houses a brewery. I’ve seen churches, mills, factories, silos, and schools all reused as breweries. And I’ve now seen at least two post offices-turned-breweries with my visit to Old Thunder (the other that I recall is Willimantic Brewing Company in Connecticut). It’s on Blawnox’s main street about ten miles northeast of Pittsburgh on the north shore of the Allegheny River and well worth venturing out if you’re in the Steel City. The building itself is well-preserved — the brick and steel on the exterior is still in place, a vault door is visible from the space, and you can even sit in the Postmaster’s office and sip your beer.

Beer production happens in an adjoining garage, and the beer coming out of there is excellent. The 340 Lager, a clean Munich-style Helles that’s named for the brewery’s address, is a delightful food-friendly easy-drinker (I paired it with pizza from a food pop-up in the corner of the taproom). The Blawnox Export is a nice find — a well-balanced Dortmunder that’s biscuity and flowery. False Kingdom, their flagship IPA, is bright and fruity and not cloyingly sweet or unpleasantly green. Every beer strikes a nice balance and nothing is over the top. Old Thunder is an absolute gem, and there were more than a few Pittsburghers who insisted that I couldn’t miss this spot, so I’m glad I didn’t.

The Doom and Gloom Tracker

At least 6 breweries I’ve visited closed or announced their closure in the past two weeks:

• Brewery #3, Brooklyn Brewery - North 11th Street, Brooklyn, New York [Visited 5-Jun-2004]

• Brewery #274, Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens, Escondido, California [Visited 6-Dec-2014]

• Brewery #1753, Terrapin Brewing, Athens, Georgia [Visited 2-Nov-2019]

• Brewery #2564, Kiitos Brewing, Salt Lake City, Utah [Visited 4-Feb-2022]

• Brewery #2963, Source Urban Brewing, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania [Visited 8-Mar-2023]

• Brewery #3525, Supermoon Beer Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin [Visited 1-Sep-2024]

The Weekly Reader

• The un-doing of a Rochester brewery [Will Cleveland, Cleveland Prost]

• Beer is having a World Cup hangover [Dave Infante, VinePair]

• Imploding tanks and the state of Lagunitas [Natalie Hanson, The Press Democrat]

• Across the pond, interest in CAMRA is waning [Helena Horton, The Guardian]

One Last Thing

While some U.S. schools have eliminated their brewing sciences programs due to lack of interest, it’s nice to see that Metropolitan State University in Denver’s Brewery Operations Program is not only still going strong, but thriving in a space on campus that acts as a training ground for both brewers and other hospitality workers. Degree Brewpub reminds you of this on their menus, and if the Belgian Tripel I had last night is any indication, these students have a bright future ahead of them.

Cheers,
Chris

There aren’t a lot of bonafide tourist destinations in The Bronx, but Arthur Avenue — the borough’s Little Italy — is definitely one of them. The Arthur Avenue Retail Market is the epicenter of that, as can be seen from the t-shirt shop, the gawking tourists staring at meats they have no intention of buying, and even the Bronx-adorned trinkets sold at the bar at The Bronx Beer Hall, the beer bar that occupies the center of the market. It’s a very humble looking spot, with a well-worn bar, six taps pouring directly from the cooler behind the bar, and a couple dozen can options.

The selection is a bit more limited than I remembered when I first visited here when it opened thirteen years ago, but maybe I just had on rose-colored glasses in 2013 because I was happy to see another beer-centric spot open in The Bronx. This spot is still going strong, branching out into wine slushies and spritzes in keeping with the theme of the neighborhood. I grabbed a pint of the Snowfall Brewing Running Trees, a delicious hazy IPA from a husband and wife team that’s contract brewing in the Hudson Valley. I’ve actually noticed that beer spots in the Bronx tend to have more easy access to self-distributing small breweries in the Hudson Valley that aren’t willing to trek deeper into the rest of the city. Our loss is The Bronx’s gain. There are options from KCBC and Finback on tap here as well, and their house Italian Pilsner is brewed by Gun Hill.

Anyway, while the beer is quite pricey here (you’re paying the tourist tax), there’s no other place in the city where you can get a good beer, an Italian combo on a hero, and a t-shirt that says “You Talkin to Me?” within mere feet of each other. Only in Da Bronx, baby!

The Tab:
1 Snowfall Brewing Running Trees $12
1 Gun Hill Bronx Little Italy Italian Pilsner $10

The Location:
The Bronx Beer Hall
Arthur Avenue Retail Market, 2344 Arthur Avenue, between Crescent and East 186th Streets, The Bronx
Metro-North Harlem Line to Fordham

It was a different time for craft beer when The Gate opened in 1997. Small brewpubs were sprinkled around the city, including nearby Park Slope Brewing Company. The IBU Arms Race and the Hazy IPA Craze were still more than a decade away. And the city was intrigued by this new “microbrew” trend. Even still, The Gate was a pioneer and its longevity is a testament to how it has evolved over time without really changing all that much. The bar still sports a 20-deep list of draft beers full of old classics (Dale’s Pale Ale and Guinness) and new favorites (Threes Timbo Pils and Kills Boro Killsner), a stellar selection of cans and bottles, and a famously sunny patio that’s popular among local people and local dogs. There’s also some sidewalk seating for excellent people-watching along bustling Fifth Avenue, within a stone’s throw of where the Battle of Brooklyn took place 250 years ago in the Revolutionary War.

The contrast between the indoor and outdoor vibe at The Gate always been stark to me. The interior feels well-worn and quite dark, even with afternoon sun coming through the windows. That sun shines down on the patio, particularly earlier in the afternoon, and makes for a vibrant outdoor space on the corner of 5th Avenue and 3rd Street. It’s a bit of a Choose Your Own Adventure kind of spot. As they approach their 30th year, The Gate remains a neighborhood staple in Park Slope, has adapted to serve the changing tastes of beer drinkers over the years, and still is a beloved bar within New York’s beer community.

The Tab:
1 Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale $7
1 Foam Disco Lemonade $9

The Location:
The Gate
321 5th Avenue, at 3rd Street, Brooklyn
F/G/R Trains to 4 Ave - 9 St

I’m embarrassed to say that this series is what finally got me to visit Doppelgänger, even though I’ve known about it for well over a year. A lager-focused tap list, a spacious backyard, and hospitality industry vets running the place? Sounds like a great time to me. Obviously, it is. And it’s a welcome replacement for Cardiff Giant, the New York-focused beverage bar that sadly closed in this space last March. There were only modest changes to the space itself, but the beer approach changed substantially. Two Lukr taps are pouring excellent lagers into some mugs with substantial heft to them. I opted for the Schilling Pohoda Dark Lager for my first pour, joining a friend at the long communal table at the front of the bar overlooking Myrtle Avenue.

The backyard here is a big draw, and it’s no wonder: it’s well-landscaped, quite spacious, and nicknamed “the beertanical gardens.” There was a birthday party going on in the backyard on my first visit, which left the inside quite serene. There was a pop-up from a bakery in the back serving bar snacks, one of many food events that Doppelgänger hosts on a regular basis. They have a raw bar pop-up every Wednesday, and in August alone, you could get tacos, Indian snacks, ceviche, and southern French food on certain nights. The other unique appeal is crokinole, a tabletop board game that involves flicking discs offered at round tables in the back of the bar — definitely the only place I’ve seen the game in New York. Kudos to Doppelgänger for taking a great beer bar space and making it their own.

The Tab:
1 Schilling Pohoda 12° $9
1 Threes/Highland Park Timbo Pils $9

The Location:
Doppelgänger
415 Myrtle Avenue, at Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn
G Train to Clinton-Washington Avs

Beer Run got its start in Chelsea in a pint-sized shop with a bar space hardly wide enough for people to navigate behind someone sitting at the bar. So I was overjoyed when they opened a second location on the Upper West Side in 2024. It’s far more spacious, and it has a nice outdoor sidewalk cafe on Columbus Avenue that gets some afternoon sunshine during the summer. On Mondays, their run club braves that summer heat (and cold, come winter time) for group runs from here — the “run” part of Beer Run, which also shows in the runner-friendly Beer Run-branded merch they sell.

The Upper West Side outpost offers five coolers well-stocked with cans for here (with a $3 corkage fee) or to-go from the likes of Grimm, Lawson’s Finest, Hudson Valley, and Schilling, just to name a few. The taps are equally excellent, with Prison City, 3 Floyds, Fox Farm, and Hill Farmstead all represented on my visit, with most prices hovering around a reasonable $9-10 (bottles of High Life are $5 behind the bar, because nobody can resist the Champagne of Beers). Half pours are available, too, and the happy hour knocks $2 off a full pour on weekdays from noon to 6pm. Nothing complicated, no real bells and whistles, a comfortable bar and a clean interior… Beer Run is a fairly simple place, but the simplicity is what makes it so wonderful.

The Tab:
1 Dutchess Ales Kerwa Kellerpils (Happy Hour) $7
1 3 Floyds Zombie Dust (Happy Hour) $6

The Location:
Beer Run UWS
547 Columbus Avenue, at West 87th Street, Manhattan
B/C Train to 86 St, 1 Train to 86 St

The first bar I associate with good beer in the Bronx is Bronx Alehouse. It’s no wonder — it easily has the best tap list in the borough in terms of diversity of styles and nods to top-tier breweries like Oxbow, Hop Butcher For The World, and Allagash. It’s been serving great beer since 2009, and on every visit I wish a bar like this existed in my neighborhood. 16 taps in all, a whole bunch of bottles and cans on the menu too, and classic bar food (I have reservations with the choice of crinkle-cut fries, but I’m writing about beer, not fries). This is one of the few bars I’ll profile here where it is certifiably a great sports bar. Tons of TVs wherever you look, eight in the main bar room alone all showing sports. I’d come here for a football Sunday if it didn’t require leaving my place in Bushwick at 10am just to get up here (speaking of Sundays, their weekend brunch menu includes a draft pour).

I picked a relatively quiet, early hour to come up here, but the crowd started rolling in for lunch not long after and I heard conversations about different beers on the board, including one in Spanish. The Alehouse found its crowd by creating a great atmosphere and then getting them back in the door with great beer. It’s a mix of college students, locals, and workers around the neighborhood, and the neighborhood has kept them going strong for 17 years while they put their heads down and keep selling good beer. Yes, getting here requires a trip to the next-to-last stop on the 1 Train, but it might be time for you to discover what folks in Kingsbridge have known for years: Bronx Alehouse is a top-tier beer bar.

The Tab:
1 Wayward Lane Apogee (16 oz) $9
1 KCBC Beach Zombie (12 oz) $9

The Location:
Bronx Alehouse
216 West 238th Street, at Review Place, The Bronx
1 Train to 238 St

There have been countless articles written about how Harlem Hops is a pioneering Black-owned beer bar. I don’t need to write another one of those to tell you it is simply an excellent beer bar. 16 draft lines, a ton of local stuff, and an incredibly varied list from a Transmitter Fruited Sour to a Brewery Ardennes Belgian Stout to a Messorem Double IPA. Just the right amount of beer options to keep everyone happy. Also keeping me happy? A soul-heavy playlist that envelopes you and a bartender (shout out to Taylor) who absolutely shines and is wildly passionate about beer. I’ll note that the draft list can get aggressive here — 10 of the 16 options on my visit were over 7% ABV. The subway ride back to Bushwick was interesting.

If you come here and don’t look at the can and bottle list, you’re sleeping on a treasure trove of great beer options. Obercreek, Suarez Family, and Fidens from New York, Beak, Rivington, and Track from England, Montclair, Oakflower, and The Seed from New Jersey… it’s a dizzying list of excellent options. They’ve curated a list that even makes the most grizzled beer drinker get excited about beer again. I had moments of discovery just exploring the list. Tin Barn has a hard seltzer brand, apparently. New Jersey Beer Company is still making great beer these days. Montclair is still brewing Black is Beautiful and it’s still delicious. Sometimes you have to escape your little Brooklyn bubble to learn more about craft beer. Harlem Hops is consistently an excellent place to do just that.

The Tab:
1 Harlem Hops/Cantina Cantina Harlem Crisp $11
1 CLAG Surrounded By Pillows 16oz Can $11

The Location:
Harlem Hops
2268 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, between West 133rd and 134th Streets, Manhattan
2/3 Trains to 135 St, A/B/C Trains to 135 St

There have been a couple of beer bars that I visited for the first time so I could include them in this series, but this is easily the most egregious. Heart of Gold opened in 2020, and the fact that it took me six years to get here is downright embarrassing. I’m going to chalk up to the fact that it opened during Covid, but you should not wait longer than I did. It’s the quintessential neighborhood, community-minded beer bar. As you walk in, there’s a community bulletin board — something you’re more likely to find in a coffee shop than a beer bar. Their event calendar is packed with trivia nights, a creative hangout, a gay book club, a backpack drive, an art market, a nerd night about open streets, and a ton more. It’s not a run of the mill place at all. After all, there aren’t many places in New York where you can drink a Rotbier while participating in a piano bar singalong, or in my case, watching an episode of The Nanny on the TV behind the bar (we are in Queens, after all).

The beer list here is as unique as the event lineup. Eight draft lines from the likes of Dutchess Ales, Kills Boro, Round Table, and Grimm. They tend to keep their beer list exclusively to New York breweries, and other food and beverages are sourced from New York as much as possible. Several places around the bar, there are reminders of some of their specials. Happy Hour (Monday through Friday until 7pm) offers $2 off drinks and half off hot dogs. Tuesdays have $2 hot dogs from 6 to 10pm. Fridays have free hot dogs with a drink purchase from 10pm to Midnight. Sundays feature an all-night happy hour. These deals might sound too good to be true, but they’re very much real.

The bar tends to stay pretty dark, but those seeking natural light can find it outside in the spacious backyard. As seems to be the case in beer bars that give a damn, Em Sauter’s artwork is on display on the wall. There’s local art on the walls and occasional photos of regulars that are part of the community that the bar has built over the past six years. I’m ashamed that it took me this long to get here, but now I understand just how special a place Heart of Gold is and how it clearly has found a special place in the hearts of so many Astorians.

The Tab:
1 Dutchess Urbier Rotbier (Happy Hour) $7
1 Kills Boro Island Vibes (Happy Hour) $7

The Location:
Heart of Gold
37-14 31st Avenue, at 38th Street, Queens
M/R Trains to Steinway St, N/W Trains to Broadway

I’m a sucker for a good bar playlist. I’m also old enough to be permanently locked into a fondness for pop punk and emo from the mid-2000s. So walking into d.b.a. to The Starting Line, Coheed and Cambria, and Something Corporate playing instantly put me in a good mood this afternoon.

Ray Deter probably wouldn’t have loved those bands, but he did know how to run a good bar. He founded dba back in 1994 in its original location in East Village, later opening since-closed locations in Williamsburg and New Orleans. The formula was the same: a long list of good beer and good bourbon. He was a pioneer when it comes to good beer in an era where people had only recently opened their eyes to imports and a handful of widely available “microbrews.” Ray was a co-host of the Beer Sessions Radio show when it launched, and his coolness and calmness was always admirable. Ray tragically passed away when a driver slammed into his bike on Delancey Street in July of 2011, but his spirit still lives on here on 1st Avenue.

The bar is more beer-focused than it was in his day, with a long list of bottled and canned options sorted by style front and center over the bar where the spirits list once resided. Twenty draft options supplement that list, with lots of local options from the likes Talea, KCBC, Endless Life, and Mad Love, and a dedicated section of imported pours from Chimay, La Chouffe, and St. Feuillien available. They have a $5 Narragansett Happy Hour special until 8pm on weekdays, which is probably one of the later happy hour deals I’ve come across on this journey.

I’d be remiss to mention d.b.a. without a mention of their annual Crown of New York tournament, an absolutely ridiculous bracket-style competition each Spring that pits breweries against each other to see whose beer can sell fastest. The winner in each round advances, ultimately ending in a championship where the winning brewery earns a dedicated draft line at the bar for a year. Catskill Brewing won this year, and it’s even mentioned on the menu under the description for their Ball Lightning Pilsner. Speaking of, the beer descriptions here are pithy and clever. Narragansett is described as “one of the great frosty American lagers without a thumb up its ass” and Lagunitas Hop Stoopid as an “icon of the American West Coast style” that “has sworn an oath to play no games.” The top of the beer menu still has that unabashed praise for good beer that defined d.b.a. long before I was of legal drinking age: “No Bud, No Miller, No Coors, No Corona, No B*llsh%t.” They’re as true to their values now as they were three decades ago.

The Tab:
1 Mill House Cucumber Cream Ale $9
1 Narragansett Lager (Happy Hour) $5

The Location:
d.b.a.
41 1st Avenue, between East 2nd and 3rd Streets, Manhattan
F Train to 2 Av

I’d say the best time to visit Blind Tiger is when it’s not busy. But it’s so rarely not busy that those times are very inconvenient for most working people. On the very first day of unemployment, I figured there was an opportunity to take advantage of a slow holiday week in the city and the ability to arrive at the bar before 5pm and actually get a seat at the bar.

I managed to get one near the corner of the bar, practically in the center of the room, but this is not nearly my favorite seat at Blind Tiger. When it’s free, I opt for the corner table by the fireplace and the windows, which I mentioned in a newsletter piece a few years ago. Unfortunately on this day, a father and son were occupying that table to watch the World Cup match between Belgium and Senegal. I noticed the son was drinking a Diet Coke, which I initially thought signaled his age, until I noticed his father had made the same order. 28 amazing beers on the menu, and you order a Diet Coke? Set a better example for your son.

I got to the old Blind Tiger once. It was on Hudson Street and on a bar crawl in 2004, we crawled in. That space closed the following year, and the space predictably became a Starbucks. The move to its current Bleecker Street location was not without controversy — the bar’s owners had applied for a liquor license, but a dispute over its proximity to a house of worship put the application in jeopardy. Thankfully, some legal maneuvers enabled Blind Tiger to secure a beer and wine-only license after months of selling coffee and pastries, and that’s why during those busy times, the unaware often order a cocktail from the bartender and it becomes a whole thing.

It’s particularly cringe-worthy when you’re sitting at the bar and there’s a thicket of humankind behind you and both parties have to exchange words into your ear. Yes, can I have two vodka tonics? No, we don’t serve liquor. Okay, what do you serve? Only beer and wine. But your menu has cocktails. Those are sake cocktails. Oh, okay, I’ll have two Bud Lights. (This leads to a similar conversation about why Blind Tiger doesn’t serve Bud Light.)

Blind Tiger has always had a good rhythm when it comes to the tap list. It tends to maintain a handful of classic staples among the madness of long beer names with esoteric descriptions. Guinness is always on tap, along with the beer I dreamed of drinking during Covid when Blind Tiger was closed: Allagash White. I returned to the Tiger as quickly as I could when they reopened after the first shutdown. The list definitely skews more local than it did back in its days on Hudson Street, but that’s also just an indication of how much more local beer exists now. Heck, at the time of my first visit in 2004, you could count the breweries in New York City on one hand. It’s amazing now both how many more options exist and that Blind Tiger is still going strong. Here’s to three more decades.

The Tab:
1 14 oz Threes Vliet $9
1 14 oz Allagash White $9

The Location:
Blind Tiger Alehouse
281 Bleecker Street, at Jones Street, Manhattan
1 Train to Christopher St-Stonewall, A/B/C/D/E/F/M to W 4 St-Washington Sq

The first thing you’ll notice when you walk into Sweet Avenue is the beer menu. The hand-drawn, aesthetically accurate boards with brewery logos are just one part of what makes Sweet Avenue one of the spots that very clearly cares about beer in every aspect. The selection of 12 beers always offers just the right amount of variety and always features something unique and something local. The decor features nods to beer in pop culture. The coolers are well-stocked and sorted by style. Yes, it’s another bar/beer shop hybrid, but you’ll rarely see the bar empty. Heck, despite being a member of Sweet Avenue’s Mug Club myself, I don’t think I’ve actually taken a beer to go (you can also drink the packaged beer there, which I’ve availed myself of countless times).

Speaking of that Mug Club, it’s one of the few I’ve come across at a beer bar in the city. A hundred different beers, logged on paper in a huge three-ring binder, will get you a permanent spot in the club, a dedicated large mug kept on a shelf that can be filled with beer for the same price as a normal pour. It’s a great deal if you’re willing to put in the work. It’s also a carry over from the now-closed One Mile House on the Lower East Side, Sweet Avenue owner Gerard Leary’s previous spot that had many of the same features you’ll find now in Sunnyside. This spot is a bit smaller and a bit more refined, but it’s part of what makes Sweet Avenue a place where you feel right at home.

The Tab:
1 12oz KCBC Penguins on the Pitch $7
1 12oz Weldwerks Scarlet Static $9

The Location:
Sweet Avenue
40-05 Queens Boulevard, at 40th Street, Queens
7 Train to 40 St

I’ve probably written more beer material at ABC Beer Co. than at any other bar in New York City. And I’m probably not the only one, judging by the sheer number of open laptops here on a weekday afternoon when I visited. They open daily at 9am with coffee and pastries, so this beer shop and bar has evolved into an all-day neighborhood hub in the East Village. Not to say that it’s lost its edge at all — it’s still a fun affair at night, with plenty of socializing happening at the big communal table set among rustic decor in the back of the bar. Still going strong in its fifteenth year, ABC Beer Co. remains a beloved part of New York’s beer community. The number of memorable local brewery events I’ve attended here over the years is off the charts, with tap takeovers, dance parties, and karaoke nights all etched in my memory.

ABC Beer Co. is a bit of a mullet — business up front, party in the back. Up front, you’ll find an impressive array of bottles and cans for sale in the six coolers and shelves as you walk in. There’s tons of local variety in the lineup and the options range from cans of Allagash White and Heady Topper to bottles from Orval and Oxbow to a dizzying selection of Grimm beers that could only be matched by the brewery taproom itself. The tap list is small but mighty: 12 in all, 10 rotating, with Narragansett Lager and Guinness as permanent staples. Threes, Grimm, Talea, and Hudson Valley represent the locals on the day I’m visiting, with the pleasant surprise of Atlanta-based Halfway Crooks’ Rice Lager on tap that I reflexively ordered without even looking at the rest of the menu. Eventually I come back around for another perusal of the draft list and am still torn, but thankfully there are half-pours priced on the menu so I don’t have to settle on another full pint. I love to dabble in a few beers I haven’t tried, and ABC Beer Co. is a lovely place to do that.

The Tab:
1 Halfway Crooks Super Super Turbo Turbo $9
1 Threes Shapeless Days (Half) $6
1 Talea Over The Moon (Half) $6

The Location:
ABC Beer Co.
96 Avenue C, between East 6th and East 7th Streets, Manhattan
L Train to 1 Av, F Train to 2 Av

This is less a profile of The Owl Farm and more an ode to a beer near and dear to my heart. I ended up at The Owl Farm during happy hour on a Friday, when they serve a glistening 20-ounce glass of Jack’s Abby House Lager for $7.

I introduced my dad to House Lager in 2017 at a beer festival in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He wanted to join me for a beer festival to see how I operate, I think, taking an interest in my passion for beer. My dad was a fizzy yellow beer drinker — Miller Lite was his go-to before Coors rolled into Rhode Island with Coors Light and Keystone Light, which were beer fridge staples when I would fetch him a beer as a kid. He later graduated to Sam Adams Light, perhaps because he appreciated its hop character, but also perhaps because of his loyalty to New England. That beer was hard to find and later discontinued, so he was in the process of becoming a beer free agent. Knowing Jack’s Abby’s lager prowess, I brought my dad to their booth at the beer festival and insisted he try the House Lager. The smile it brought to his face was all I needed to know I had found a winner. I left my dad at that booth to wander around the festival, and 45 minutes later when I circled around to find him, he was still there, drinking tiny plastic cups of House Lager.

Six months later when I came back to visit my family in Rhode Island, my dad’s beer fridge was fully stocked with House Lager, as it was on every subsequent visit until he passed away in January of 2020. My friends and I toasted his memory with House Lager at his memorial service. Even though it was a mere blip relative to his years of beer drinking, it’s the beer I associate with him.

Last month, I came home again to visit family, and the beer fridge is still there, and it’s now stocked by my little brother. When I opened the fridge to load in my Dogfish Head 30-Minute, there were cans of House Lager staring me right in the face. My brother, never as much an appreciator of beer as of whiskey, has adopted it as his go-to beer.

Anyway, The Owl Farm has $7 imperial pints of House Lager on weekdays from 4-7pm. It also has 29 draft lines in all pouring beers, ciders, wines, and cocktails, including two Lukr faucets, an encyclopedic list of boilermakers, and an impressive list of cellared beer and cider — one of the few beer bars left in NYC that maintains a hefty bottle cellar. It’s a lovely place to spend a couple hours escaping the summer heat, and it’s been a staple of Brooklyn’s beer bar scene for nearly fifteen years. It would be a true gem even if it didn’t have a happy hour deal on House Lager.

The Tab:
1 The Seed + West Kill: Redbud $10
1 Jack’s Abby House Lager (Happy Hour) $7

The Location:
The Owl Farm
297 9th Street, at 5th Avenue, Brooklyn
F/G/R Trains to 4 Ave - 9 St

Chris Maestro might be one of the most determined people I know in beer. Long before BierWax would become a bar, I knew about BierWax as an idea. Chris would regularly talk about his concept of a beer bar and listening room that would focus on hip-hop. It was a concept that hadn’t been attempted, and through years of hard work and dedication, his vision would become a reality in 2017 on Vanderbilt Avenue in Prospect Heights.

The narrow, dark hued bar is backed by an overwhelming selection of records, with some rows of CDs, with a DJ booth up front. The draft menu is presented in refrigerator magnet letters, spelling out names of stellar beers from the likes of Hudson Valley, Wild East, and Schilling — 12 in all, with a nice lineup of bottles and cans, too. The backyard is nearly as big as the bar itself, offering a nice shady space to sip a beer outside. There’s also outdoor space in front of the bar, and on Saturdays, the Vanderbilt Open Street offers an even bigger space to watch the world pass by. Nearly every night, there’s a DJ spinning vinyl from that booth, and there’s a monthly Hip Hop trivia night. It’s a music-focused spot, for sure, but famously, a sign behind the bar instructs customers that there are “No Requests.”

It’s been amazing to watch Bierwax evolve into exactly the spot that Chris Maestro envisioned, and on the cusp of ten years in business, it’s exciting to see where he’ll take the place next.

The Tab:
1 Wild East Patience & Fortitude (Happy Hour) $7
1 Hudson Valley Pink Lemonade Silhouette $10

The Location:
Bierwax
556 Vanderbilt Avenue, at Dean Street, Brooklyn
C Train to Clinton-Washington Avs, B/Q Train to 7 Av, 2/3 Train to Bergen St