Showers in the morning, then cloudy in the afternoon. Morning high of 47F with temps falling to near 35. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%..
Tonight
Decreasing cloudiness and windy. Low 27F. Winds WNW at 20 to 30 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.
Pint-Sized - John Norris spotlights Capital Region beer and brewpubs
PINT SIZED - As an early Gen Xer, I was way ahead of the game when it came to appreciating highly hopped beers. In the late 1980s, I spent a college semester living and studying in London, where I was first introduced to brewpubs and learned the history of IPAs.
While at the Polytechnic of North London, I was a bartender in a pub called the Black Lion on Bayswater Road across the street from Kensington Gardens. I met a ton of world travelers and workers while behind the bar. Beer was the common denominator and social lubricant.
When I first came back to the States, I found a local enthusiast with a small shop in Albany’s Center Square. The proprietor was a true aficionado who showed me a recipe for a clone of a West Coast pale ale.
I was hooked. I was truly impressed by the fact that I could brew a beer that tasted as good or better than a commercial brewery. A few batches later, I made a Christmas ale that was good enough to give as gifts to my critical friends. I was a proud beer nerd, bordering on a beer snob.
Fast forward to today, and local brewpubs have sprung up all over the country in response to legislation permitting brewers to promote local agricultural products. It’s been wildly successful. There are now over 535 breweries in New York state alone.
If you know of a great establishment, please let me know. As the Daily Gazette’s new beer columnist, I'm looking for great local brews that may be off people’s radar. We cover from the Mohawk Valley, throughout the Capital Region and down to Columbia and Greene counties in the Hudson Valley, so don’t hold back because you think it may be too far away. You can email me at jnorris@dailygazette.net and tell me what I’m missing!
Following my passion for good brews, I’m beginning this beer column as a way to help fellow enthusiasts seek out and drink the best beers in the region, avoid small beers (lagers or ales with lower amounts of alcohol, usually between 0.5% and 2.8%), and learn about the enthusiastic small business owners that make this rapidly growing industry so important and fun.
Like it or not, beer has indelibly influenced society. In Shakespeare’s “Henry VI, Part 2,” Jack Cade declares that, when he becomes king, he will "make it a felony to drink small beer." Famous U.S. statesman Benjamin Franklin once wrote in a letter to a friend, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
