Good friend owns Second Chance Brewery. Would recommend. Ale Smith barrel room also a must

Best bars in NYC?

My favorite is Proletariat.

Other good ones: As Is, Fools Gold, Blind Tiger, DBA, Arts and Crafts. This is a very Manhattan-centric list, if you are looking for beer in the outer boroughs someone else might know better.

All fantastic places. Add One Mile House in Manhattan. Augurs Well is down the street from Proletariat if the place is totally mobbed and has a great list usually too.

Credit where credit is due, I think I got most of these recs from you posting earlier in this thread!

Spivey,

Went to As Is on Mullen’s rec and thought it was really great. Also really enjoyed beer and atmosphere at underdog/growler and Clinton Hall, which also has great bar food and is more of a sports bar atmosphere vs some of these places which are more low-key beer bars.

I haven’t been but have heard good things about Owl Farm and Cardiff Giant in Brooklyn, those are on my list for next trip.

http://www.homesbrewery.com/nucleate

Going to this in June.

I know the more local places pretty well (jolly, transient, speciation, homes). But I’m not all that familiar with a lot of these breweries outside of say cantillon, trillium, and weldworks.

Any of these places stick out specifically to anyone?

Trillium is amazing. Weldworks is also good

However .....

Narrow gauge is absolutely amazing. They are based out of St Louis, and I'm lucky enough to live walking distance from them. I'm a huge beer nerd....they are awesome.

Trillium has supposedly fallen off per beer expert KIDCOLIN

Dancing Gnome, Other Half are must hits for IPAs. I’ve had some great stuff from Aslin and Hoof Hearted but also some meh stuff so it probably depends on what they bring.

Belching Beaver IPA, Phantom Bride, is really excellent. Purchased a growler full recently and love the taste. Never had it before. I recommend it for all IPA nuts out there in the terminal void of the Beer Universe.

FWIW I actually have Dancing Gnome #2 on my list of Western PA IPA rankings. They're really good, but Brew Gentleman is off the charts.

Uhh IPA children, that looks like a lambic fest for ****ing adults! **** I think I was busy that weekend, maybe I should have reconsidered, that list looks amazing.

If you like lambic:
God tier:
3F/Cantillon ldo, Black Project, Casey, Tilquin

Also great:
Off color, rare barrel, speciation, yazoo, Horus

Some of those other breweries might be great or have a wild/sour/fakelambic brogram that I am not familiar with, of course. E.g. I think Trillium also has a program? Idk. There may be good sour stuff on there that idk, of course. Hop Butcher makes pretty k IPAs imo so if you take your kids, maybe give them that.

Cliffs: If you don't like lambic, then that is sad and don't go to such a good lambic* (and #notlambic) fest imo. Again looks amazing though. Enjoy.

Just went to arts and crafts. Was solid.

Yeah, Yazoo on there is a bit weird. If it's the Embrace the Funk line, which I suspect, that'd make sense, but that's typically mentioned. The Yazoo core beers are good I just don't know why they'd bother sending their stuff up there.

Has anyone ever been to the Shelton Brothers' The Festival before? The 2018 lineup looked absolutely insane. 2019 tickets went on sale yesterday, so I grabbed Saturday tickets for my wife and I since Buffalo is only about a 90 minute drive from where we are moving. They haven't put out the 2019 list yet, but based on what I could find for past years this seemed like a thing I shouldn't miss.

Never been but Shelton is definitely the importer and distributor of the most premium craft beers so it should always be nuts.

Thanks for all of the NYC recommendations. I feel like I've seen them posted before, so appreciate relisting.

Right now is craft beer week in Madison. This used to be something I actually really looked forward to, 3-5 years ago. I feel like if you go to a really good bar these days, every day is craft beer week.

Of course the hazy IPA is insanely congested, but one that has started getting distribution out here that has really impressed me is Drekker from Fargo, ND. I'd put this up with the best IPAs in the midwest and northeast.

Beyond that, Funk Factory continues to absolutely kill it here.

I’ve heard that but I think I need to go to the source to get it. Dancing Gnome pops up occasionally in bars here and at festivals but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Brew Gentlemen represented here.

Hey everyone. Heading back to the States for work: a few days in Philly and then a few in Boston. I'm going to have precious little time between meetings, and pretty much confined to downtown (etc) areas - so what is the shortlist of bars / other places I should look for in each city, please?

I guess I'm an IPA person above all else (but I appreciate pretty much anything that isn't stout) and I already have access to the best of Europe so am only really looking for local / national American suggestions.

Yup, I've had Dancing Gnome at a few festivals, but I've never drank (or seen) BG anywhere other than the brewery itself. I think it's even really tough to find in Pittsburgh, though if anyone knows bars that serve it I'd love to hear about them!

Can't speak to Philly, but Trillium and Night Shift's new set-ups are both pretty close to each other in the Seaport area. Trillium obviously has better beer but they both have good food.

Thanks - good to know!

Monk's Cafe is downtown Philly and one of my personal favorite bars worldwide.

A few weeks ago I had a 20 Ans D'Amitié, a special Cantillon blend made for monk's of iirc 70% nath and 30% lpf. The lpf really softened the nath beautifully into something special. Not too fruity but dry and nice, not too funky (yet), but some classic cantillon flavor and just the best beer possible imo. That said, I got the impression that I talked my way into it (I'm an obnoxious lambic person) and that they normally don't have a case open. Also had a tilquin pinot noir, really nice. I get the impression they get a lot more tilquin there than Chicago. Monk's draft list is solid too. Outside of wandering up to tired hands (kinda far if you're primarily downtown), I would never leave Monk's. Solid non-lambic list too imo. Enjoy.

Ah yes. Thank you. Monk's Café is the one bar I already had on my itinerary. Couldn't miss that one! That Cantillon sounds pretty great.

Wrapping up a fun weekend in Berlin and I'll go with Brlo, Lager Lager, Kaschk, and Hopfenreich in descending order for best places to drink beer here.

I almost always prefer IPAs but the Aegir Breck I BBA stout is probably my favorite beer of the weekend.