The Yellow Brick Road to Liquid Gold

The "yellow brick road" behind
Dylan's Wine Cellar

There’s a yellow brick road steps away from the train station in Peekskill, New York.  According to a local historian, L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, traveled on this road as an adolescent on his way to the Peekskill Military Academy. There are several other claims to the inspiration of the yellow brick road that inspired Baum, though the Peekskill story is plausible.  The Peekskill Brewery is located just steps away from this road and is part of a booming restaurant and craft beer scene.

Opened in 2008, the Peekskill Brewery, a brewpub, never seemed comfortable in its original location.  With beer and food that has constantly improved, the brewery needed a larger space.  Now located in a four-story building, Peekskill Brewery seems to have hit its stride, pumping out great beer and great food; a welcomed break from the many mediocre brewpubs that sprang up in the 90’s.

Peekskill Brewery

In addition to their suds, the brewpub originally served a large list of beer from around the globe.  Perhaps with more confidence in their own product, they have significantly trimmed their offerings from outside.  This is a good thing.  The few brews they now serve from outside, which they call “guest brews”, tend to focus on other local/regional breweries.  This collaborative and regional effort seems to be part of the brewery’s approach.  They recently had a black IPA brewed with beans from Coffee Labs Roasters in nearby Tarrytown, and a witbier brewed in collaboration with Allagash and Bluejacket.  





Within the last year, the brewery has received two notable awards.  In April, they won Best Craft Beer in New York State at TAP New York for its Higher Standard, an imperial IPA.  In October, they were recognized nationally at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.  Their Amazeballs won silver for international-style pale ale.  The unfortunately named beer is delicious.

 

If dining for lunch, brunch or dinner, you can’t go wrong.  The burger is phenomenal.  If she could, my wife would probably drink the chipotle maple syrup they put on their fried chicken and waffle sandwich.

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Up the hill in Peekskill’s historic downtown, the Birdsall House gastropub was opened in 2010 by John Sharp and Tim Reinke.  Reinke is a co-owner of Manhattan’s well-known Blind Tiger Ale House.  The Birdsall House does not let down fans of Blind Tiger with their beer selection.  However, while the Blind Tiger has both quality and quantity, Birdsall House focuses on quality, and puts the rest of its energy towards food.  As with the brewery, there is a strong sense of local collaboration and support in their offerings for food and drink. 



Birdsall House

Birdsall also has an excellent beef burger, and its beet and grain burger is very popular as well.  Also not to be missed are the smoked pork nachos, fontina and peas mac n’ cheese, and excellent selections for charcuterie. 



The restaurant's design is really cool without feeling faux.  My guess is that they had the bones of a great space and didn’t mess with it too much.  The space extends to an outdoor dining area and a bocce court.  While it sounds like it could easily be overrun by the young and hip, there is usually a good mix of folks.  

The success of the Birdsall House has led to the opening of a second restaurant by the owners.  Located a few blocks away, Gleason’s has been serving up delicious flatbread pizzas since mid-2012.  

 

It seems that Peekskill is living up to the “opportunity” and “potential” seen by Sharp.  And he’s advocating these qualities not just for his own business, but for all of the downtown area as the President of the Peekskill Business Improvement District.  Sharp and his partners aren’t stopping with the two restaurants.  Noting “this is just the beginning”, he's been thinking about opening a diner and a distillery.   
 

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While the thought of a brewery and a gastropub in a town like Peekskill may have seemed like a risky venture, both places have proven to be very successful, drawing in regulars and newcomers.  But food and drink are not the only draws to Peekskill.  The City has a vibrant arts community.  There are a number of galleries, museums and events, including shows at the Paramount Theater, and exhibits at the HudsonValley Center for Contemporary Art.  You can find more information at the City’s Art Along the Hudson webpage.



Half pint of Amazeballs at Peekskill Brewery

Around town, you’ll find that Peekskill is a mix of charm and grit.  Like many U.S. cities, it suffers from post-WWII Federal housing initiatives, as well as local zoning laws, which restrict  residential development (i.e. regular housing) in its downtown area.  A significant number of historic structures were demolished to make way for large public housing towers.  The result is a city with a fragmented core, and a population heavily skewed towards low-income senior citizens.  However, the City is currently reviewing ways to correct this imbalance.

The brewery is located near the scenic waterfront, which contains a mix of parks, industrial development, and several eateries, including the recently opened Yellow Brick Road Café.  More dining options are on the way.  For better or worse, the view also includes Indian Point a nuclear power plant in the adjacent Village of Buchanan. 

Peekskill's Waterfront

If you need a little boost, the Peekskill Coffee House is a great place for a caffeine fix.  The large space typically exhibits local artist’s work, and often has live music.  Plus, they recently expanded, and now make a variety of crepes.  Next door you’ll find the Coop, which sells a variety of crafts, antiques, and other great products made by local artisans.  And upstairs is the Flat Iron Gallery.  In addition to the gallery space, there are a number of artist studios in the building, and you can usually wander around and check out their spaces.

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The train ride to Peekskill on Metro-North’s Hudson Line is the most scenic of any in the MTA system.  Make sure you get a riverside seat.  The hour-long ride from Grand Central takes you along the Harlem River, through Spuyten Duyvil, and into the Hudson River Valley.  On the way, you'll have views of the Palisades cliffs, as well as the Tappan Zee Bridge, and the construction of its replacement.  As Peekskill approaches, the Palisades fade, and the Hudson Highlands rise.  The Bear Mountain Bridge is visible just upstream. 

If you’re looking to do some beer shopping, you can get a growler from the brewery.  At Grand Central Terminal, you can stop in to the small, but well curated Beer Table Pantry.  Be prepared though, you’ll pay a premium for the selection and service.

Move Over Wine Snobs, the Beer Jerks are in Town

For a while, I've been thinking that beer enthusiasts have surpassed wine enthusiasts in terms of snooty imbibers.  Two recent magazine articles highlighted my thoughts on the beer world, and here we are...welcome to Blahg Kabin!

I've been a beer enthusiast for over ten years now.  It started when I worked as a tour guide at Brewery Ommegang.  At that time, craft beer's rebirth had proven its staying power thanks to the hard work of several pioneers who re-established the industry starting in the late 70's.  And despite the fact that there was some high quality beers being made at that time, products made with superior ingredients and skill, beer culture didn't seem snooty.  Craft beer drinkers felt more comfortable with working class Bud drinkers as opposed to snobby wine folk. Fast forward to today, with so many bars stocking interesting brews, it's hard to rub elbows with your average Joe while talking about the "notes" of some barrel-aged imperial wild sour ale you're drinking.

An article in Food and Wine magazine entitled "Beer is Going Highbrow (and Why That's a Good Thing)", identifies the "wine-ification" of beer.  The author, David Amsden, clearly doesn't realize that complex beers have existed for ages.  There is a long tradition of brewing interesting beers, which are stored and aged in "wine-style" bottles, as Amsden calls them, and served in glasses specifically designed for that style.  Despite his ignorance of beer's long established history, he accurately identifies the snobiness that seems to have increased exponentially in recent years.  The article includes an inset with the "Evolution of Beer Snobbery".

Amsden's piece also talks about the store Bierkraft in Brooklyn, "a store manned by clerks as dauntingly snooty as those in any wine shop".  It is true, and annoying, that some of the people that work in these places are as obnoxious as those you might find in a wine shop, coffee shop, record shop, the comic book shop owned by the guy on the Simpsons.  While this is unfortunate, it is also, perhaps, inevitable.

While the rest of the world is catching on to the many great pleasures offered in the world of fermented grain, the craft beer community is vibrant as ever.  Perhaps too vibrant.  You can barely keep track of all the new breweries that keep popping up.  I'm starting to wonder when the market will become oversaturated.

The explosion is fed by the demand for the biggest, rarest, and boldest brews out there, a trend that is featured in a recent article in Draft Magazine discussing extreme beer collectors.  The story identifies a guy who has gone so far as to follow a delivery truck around, snatching up as much rare brews as possible.  People are using Craigslist and Ebay to obtain rare brews, with prices that some might find startling.

It's true that there are many breweries producing great beer.  However, it seems many are good at making bold beers, but struggle to make a simple pale ale.  But maybe that's in-line with the demands of their customers, many of whom are no longer content buying a six-pack of a standard style of beer.  Why?  There's nothing wrong with a good pale ale or lager.  But when you review sites like RateBeer or BeerAdvocate, you find tons of bad reviews for solid beers.  Beers Michael Jackson gave high marks for.  How is this possible?  Have these people's tongues been destroyed by too many hoppy beers?  If so, that's a shame, but we shouldn't let their biased taste skew the idea of what is a good beer.  There needs to be more appreciation for subtle flavors.

I agree with many guidelines that may seem snobby, like food pairing, using the right glass, serving at the right temperature, storing properly, etc.  But I guess my point is that we can do all these things without being snobs about it.  A second point is that there is nothing wrong with drinking a well made, simple beer; and we should expect any craft brewery out there to be able to make these types of beers, along with their more complex, specialty beers.

It's true that David Amsden demonstrated some ignorance about beer.  That's fine.  In the end, as he discussed his experience standing in the basement of the new, and excellent craft beer bar Tørst in Brooklyn, his conclusion was well put:

The wine-ification of beer isn't without some irritations, of course.  The craze for acquisition, the ostentatious language, the pretentious experts-no one wants that to multiply.  But standing in the temperature-controlled cellar, there was no denying the pleasure of having my brain rewired, of beginning to see beer as more than just a beverage designed for quenching thirst and delivering a buzz, but one fit for accompanying those meals and rituals that mark our lives.

Can't argue with that.

P.S. - After reading this, my wife laughed and said "but you are a beer snob!"


(This entry referenced "Beer is Going Highbrow (and Why That's a Good Thing)", by David Amsden in the October 2013 edition of Food and Wine Magazine, and "Extreme Beer Collectors", by Christopher Staten in the September/October edition of Draft magazine.)