Day 1:
We’ve finally made it to Long Island. After years of pretending that the geographical land mass attached to Brooklyn and Queens didn’t exist, we finally had a reason to acknowledge the expensive and hideous New York tail that is Long Island. It’s also the birth place of Little Lauren, an individual so unique we thought it must have something to do with the water. The Bluepoint Brewery 10 mile road race finally dragged us into the thick of the island. Melissa had mapped out an excellent weekend to maximize our body count and minimize the miles we’re putting on my new car. She does a great job at planning and coordinating our adventures; you guys should see the crazy spreadsheets and maps she makes prior to every trip. This wallet depleting beerventure had 17 breweries spanning Friday to Sunday.
Our first leg of the trip doesn’t seem to make much sense but sometimes you gotta be flexible with your beerventuring!
Sand City Brewing Company (Northport, NY)
A great introduction to these Long Island towns was our stop at Sand City Brewing Company of Northport, NY. This CT facing town shared two similarities with other small, quaint seaside towns: 1) It was overly expensive and 2) it was a b*tch finding a place to park at 11 am on a Friday just in time for the first call.
Hidden in a back alley, Sand City has one of the more unique atmospheres we’ve seen in our excursions. Most breweries we visit are industrial chic so it was a great change of pace to see a brewery that really absorbed the nature of its surroundings. The small tap room showcased its 10-tap system, barrel program and a plethora of Long Island history and photography books which I really enjoyed flipping through.
The beer: Tafelbier (patersbier), Southdown Breakfast Stout, Stormborn Blonde Ale, Mofosaic IPA and Oops I hopped my Pants IPA. Tafelbier was not our pint of beer, and neither was the breakfast stout. The breakfast stout was mediocre at the start and we thought it had an off flavor in the backend; but this may have been a bad batch because it gets extremely high props (4/5) on Untappd. Skipping the blonde, I’d like to turn your attention to Mofosaic and Oops I hopped my Pants. Aside from the excellent names these beers have, they are also excellent IPAs by any beerventurers standard. Oops is a clean and fruity, but not quite “juice bomb” IPA that was flanked perfectly by Mofosaic. Mofosaic might have used similar base wort, but it was certainly hopped for more “juice bomb” like quality and was slightly stronger abv at 7.2% to Oops 6.5%.
Sand City set the bar high for our introduction to Long Island brews. The venue is great, and the IPAs are excellent. We wish we could have understood the hype surrounding their breakfast stout, but sadly we must have had a bad batch. Sand City earns a 4 taken parking spaces on Main street out of 5.
Oyster Bay Brewing Company (Oyster Bay, NY)
Oyster Bay Brewing Company of Oyster Bay, NY was our next stop on our Long Island tour. We’ve heard nothing but great things about Oyster Bay headed into this weekend, so we were expecting big things from them; and we were not disappointed.
Unlike Sand City, Oyster Bay did not maintain the seaside town theme despite being less than a mile from the bay. We’re not going to hold that against them since the character of the main strip it was located on didn’t seem to be the most tourist friendly of locations.
Oyster had 12 brews on draft but like most visits, we had to settle on only 6 beers. Honey Ale, The Walking Red IPA, Zero Dark Thirsty porter, Grapefruit IPA, Alexa IPA and Right of Way Tangerine. While we know Melissa isn’t the biggest fan of IPAs, she was certainly impressed by the three offered by Oyster. Scoring a 4/5 on Untapped, Grapefruit was our least favorite IPA on the flight. We just don’t really like grapefruit, and it was there. So our score was biased in nature. Alexa the DIPA is going to be a love or hate brew. DIPAs are not everyones favorite due to the abv, or bitterness. This DIPA was hopped heavily by citra and mosaic, and was by definition a “juice bomb.” Just remembering the brew makes my mouth water and dread my Friday evening workout which is in about 20 minutes…
Lastly the Tangerine IPA. We’ve encountered only a handful of tangerine brews previously, and certainly none of them tasted quite like this beer. This is also a DIPA, so again this won’t be for everyone, but it’s a DIPA with a superiority complex and has been infused with a lovely tangerine flavor. I’m not sure if it was real tangerines, or some sort of extract/flavoring. Whatever they did, it worked and we highly recommend trying it when you stop here. The only drawback here is the pallet crushing 8%. It would seem like any more than a few oz pour, you wouldn’t have the taste buds left to enjoy the tangerine. I’d love to see a session variant of this beer.
Oyster Bay lived up to the hype. This warehouse had a couple of arcade games, a friendly bartender and excellent IPAs (is this going to be the L.I. trend?). If you’re headed out to the island, Oyster Bay is certainly another stop you will want to make during your time out here. We shucked 4 oysters out of 5 at this bay brewery.
Great South Bay Brewing (Bay Shore, NY)
This is one of the few L.I. breweries we knew of prior to our research because we’ve seen it in stores and had a few at various flight nights. We were expecting a larger size brewery but we were not expecting a massive 4,000 sq foot tasting room with 14 taps, foosball, Ping-Pong and dart boards. This would be a great place for happy hour on Friday.
We decided to pick up the five most interesting beers from the board of 14. Melon Hopsy Watermelon Session IPA, Massive IPA, Lethal Cupcake Porter, Muscat Love Belgian Tripel, Hoppocratic Oath DIPA. We had extremely high hopes for the melon hopsy with watermelon, but we were sorely disappointed by the significant lack of watermelon. Maybe the flavor had just dissipated since kegging? We did note that the nose was amazing, but there just was no follow through. Massive IPA wasn’t so massive. I don’t mean this in a bad way, but more in an average, solid IPA (that didn’t really deserve the title Massive). Lethal Cupcake Porter was also more porter and less lethal and cupcake. There was some chocolate, but not a whole lot to make it lethal. So the name must come from the 9% abv which you didn’t really seem to notice at all while sipping. Could be dangerously fun in medium to large quantities.
Muscat Love is a Belgian trip with grape juice and it makes for a tasty change up on a flight. We don’t run into many Belgians in our adventures so this under tapped style always makes our flight. This strong ale is infused with grape juice and made for a crisp, fruity and boozy drink. Lastly, Hoppocratic Oath DIPA. Melissa did not like this one, but I felt it was an above average DIPA that is worth a pint or 6-pack. South Bay drove the abv to 9% (which is 1% more than most of those pretend DIPAs like to settle at) and hopped it with 6 different varieties of hops. If you’re a purist, this won’t be for you. But if you’re into a bold IPA flavor you should check it out.
Great South Bay Brewing has a crazy large taproom, with tons of entertainment and enough taps to please even the pickiest of drinkers in your group. While we didn’t try anything that was extremely unique, we certainly enjoyed our flight and time there. We give Great South Bay 3.85 slurred oaths out of 5.
Destination Unknown Beer Company (Bay Shore, NY)
Destination Unknown or DUBCO of Bay Shore, NY is a brewery for locals if there ever was one. This nano craft brewery, like most small breweries, is in a tiny space in a tiny industrial park but is full of character; unlike most of its peers. The wood bar and wood taproom was nearly full by the time we got there around 4pm on Friday afternoon. One of the things you notice right away is that this place is a locals hangout. All the patrons, the bartender and owner all know each other, and it made us miss the North Brewery more than normal.
Enough sentimental stuff aside, this 3 barrel system had 9 beers on tap for us as well as 1 guest tap which was a cider. In order from least to most enjoyed: Simcoe Like You Mean It IPA, Birthday Stout, Cinco de Rye’o barley wine, Dubbel Rainbow Belgian Dubbel, and Sore Thumb DIPA. Simcoe and Birthday were your average IPA and stout so lets skip to the Rye’o. Rye’o was a collab beer with Spider Bite brewery (we visited them that Saturday) for their 5 year anniversary; so we’re not sure how often this beer is available. The rye flavor was very full bodied, and also very bitter. It didn’t really taste like most barley wines we’ve had previously; but in a good way.
The Dubbel Rainbow was more or less the opposite of Rye’o because it is a prime example of making a dubbel the right way. It didn’t try and do anything crazy or unique. Normally we would call a beer like this “solid,” but in our opinion it certainly exceeded that definition. Lastly, the Sore Thumb DIPA. Interestingly enough, we struck up conversation with a local patron at the bar, who was missing a thumb. We didn’t even notice it was gone until we were discussing the beer. This 8.2% DIPA barely qualified as a DIPA, but we enjoyed the malty character. This beer has differentiated itself from the stiff competition of hophead DIPAs due to its unusually smooth, malty body. The hops are there, and the back end is no doubt bitter, but it is no pallet crushing juice bomb or pine flavored beer by any stretch.
Destination Unknown is a great destination to travel to. Its small 3 barrel system pumps out a wide variety of beer styles that should please everyone in your group. We also noticed their logo is extremely similar to ours; great minds think alike. However, unlike us, these guys can brew some excellent beer. Destination Unknown earns 4.2 thumbs out of 5.
Port Jeff Brewing Company (Port Jefferson, NY)
Now, I do have a race tomorrow, so it’s probably in my best interest to not hit another brewery. But, eh. Port Jeff Brewing Company of Port Jefferson, NY is less than ¼ mile walk from the Bridgeport, CT ferry. This is another one of those quaint, seaside towns and it seems that PJBC kept that in mind when designing their modest sized taproom.
Since this was the last stop we decided to have one of everything that was on draft. From average to above average we had: 5inko IPA, Shiznit IPA, Port Jeff Porter, Ice Breaker Winta Warma, Trippel H Belgian Trippel, Dis-Go Session IPA, Party Boat IPA, Overboard Russian Imp stout, Cold North Wind barley wine. With the exception of Overboard and Cold North Wind, the rest of the beers hardly put any wind in our sails. They were good, but they were very average.
Overboard is a 9.3% Russian Imperial Stout that isn’t overly boozy or extremely complex overkill of a stout. They seem to have struck a great balance with this beer. Its really smooth, not overly sweet, and the abv is sure to sneak up on you. Cold North Wind is PJBCs barley wine. Unlike Overboard, North Wind wants you to know its abv rich at 8.5%, and has a strong malt and brandy flavor. The nose is also really pungent. If you’re not a fan of barley wine to begin with, this will not change your opinion of the style. But for those of you who like your drinks a little stiffer than an average ale, you should give this a go.
Port Jeff Brewing Company of Port Jefferson, NY had a lot of average beers and two really good ones. The tiny tap room featured a “boat” styled bar top which is ascetically pleasing, but functionally a pain in the a$$ considering how crowded the space was. Port Jeff was not our favorite brewery of the day, but it certainly has its appeal. Port Jeff Brewing Company earns a solid 3.6 shipwrecks out of 5.
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