Craft beer… you guys know we love it. So it probably comes at no surprise that we went to 4 breweries over the month of February. We weren’t planning on it, but it just worked out that way.
Finback Brewery
Our first beer adventure took place at Finback Brewery. This decently sized warehouse is located in Ridgewood, Queens and is a super easy drive from Astoria. There’s also M Train access for those of you who don’t have a car.
Right away we knew we were gonna love this place. It just has a super cool relaxed vibe (no bros if you know what we mean). To top that off they had a great beer list!
As always we did some tastings because with a beer list this killer you can’t have just 1. We were especially excited because they are doing interesting things with IPAs like their Yellow Cake IPA. It was a weird balance of sweet and hoppy. Somehow it really worked. IPAs are a dime a dozen these days so we really applaud them for doing something different.
We also tasted their classic Finback IPA. It was pretty standard for a hazy IPA, but very good none the less. We also had a beer that was a take on a Dark and Stormy cocktail. It was malty and rich, but the hint of lime brightened it up perfectly. We also had the I Feel the Universe which is a passionfruit gose. Everything we tried was amazing!
Finback allows you to oder takeout from local eateries. We used seamless to get really good food from Bella Nova. I had a broccoli roll and Tom has a Philly cheese steak.
I have a strong feeling you will see us back at Finback many many times!
Big Alice and Hellgate Farms
For New York Beer Week Big Alice and Hellgate Farms teamed up to create some spicy beers! We of course had to check it out with our fellow beer lover Erik.
They were serving up 2 special beers for the occasion both brewed with peppers from Hellgate Farms rooftop gardens.
The first was a mango habanero sour. This perfectly balanced beer was tart to start with a slow spicy hitting the back of your throat. The mango added a nice subtle sweetness.
The second was a barrel aged version of their Jalapeño Rye. It was surprisingly spicer than than mango habanero and the heat mixed with the heavy malt notes was awesome! Tom and I always love barrel aged beers.
We also took some time to sample the hot sauces from Hellgate. We’ve already tried them and bought them many many times, but we love free samples. Well, Tom tired them I had to give up most spicy food. They also started making hot honey and it’s so so good!
We got 2 other tastings in before calling it a night. We were so hungry that we got off at Astoria BLVD. for some cheese burgers from the Neptune Diner. It was a pretty good night.
Singlecut Beersmiths
We love Singlecut! We talk about them all the time. They make great beer and just have a super awesome place for you to hang out with your friends. So it was no surprise our friend Peter wanted to celebrate his birthday there again this year. It’s just got a great vibe.
We hung out for a couple of hours and enjoyed their flagship beer Dean. If you haven’t had this malty piney masterpiece you are missing out.
We also consumed some killer nachos! We’re really glad this catering company changed up the menu from those soggy steamed buns over the summer.
Threes Brewing
Threes is the only Brooklyn brewery we checked out in Feb. My old roommate and wonderful friend Swara invited us to go with her husband Jack. We got there upon opening which is the best advise we can give you on a Saturday. It gets crowded!
It’s a pretty big space and has a cool industrial look to it. We sampled a few on their beers and they were cloudy hoppy enjoyable IPAs. They described them as having other flavor notes like fruity pebbles cereal and fun things like that, but we couldn’t really pick up on them. It might just be a gimmicky thing to get people interested in trying which is cool too. The beer was solid none the less.
The food on the other hand was KILLER! We got a massive cheese plate and these incredible beef fat fries! It was really good.
As the crowd picked up we noticed that the element of people started to change. It wasn’t your typical chill brewery crowd and it felt less friendly so we decided to head out.
Definitely get there early, get a seat, grab a beer, and order this awesome food!
The Cocho Life 