New York Breweries

New York Breweries. by Lew Bryson Virginia, Maryland, & Delaware Breweries. by Lew Bryson Lat year I bought Nicholle the Pennsylvania Breweries book. We enjoyed it so much that I bought her the NY Breweries and the VA, MD, DE (which includes WDC as well) Breweries for this years birthday. Both books are similar in organization and style to the PA book. And as such they are very good purchases. I did sit down and actually read them. I have even sampled some of the beer from a couple of the places in NY. The NY book has a really good section on regional foods and devotes a bit of ink to the whole Buffalo Hot Wings phenomenon. Some of the regional foods things I knew, some I did not. The VA, MD, DE regional food coverage is not as in depth as the NY one but is covering more ground. The author waxes poetic about VA ham and MD blue crabs. Based on my sampling in NY I would say that the author is fairly spot-on. Though it will surprise some "beer geeks" that he is not an attack do when it comes to Anheuser-Busch who does operate a major brewery in NY. In fact he defends A-B for its fanatical attention to quality and consistency. He is correct when he says that prohibition did a lot to help A-H and in a sense they just gave America what it really wanted. Based on their market share you have to agree with him. Budweiser is very good as a beer for what it sets out to be. It may not be my mug of ale. I did enjoy his small essay on beer tourism in the glossary. As a "beer tourist" myself I echo his thoughts. All told these books are an excllent additionto our touring collection an dwe look forward to using them to help better enjoy our travels in these areas. They are certainly well worth the cost of purchase. As with the PA books you cancheck out his website [...] for updates on any of the places covered in the book and on new places which are not covered

This book is presented as a travel guide for 50+ breweries and brew pubs in New York State, but even if you just drink beer in your own NYS town, it's fairly useful. Bryson gives 3-4 pages per place, which typically covers background and anecdotes, recommendations, stats (year opened, # of barrels, etc.) and info for the tourist (map, lodging, nearby attractions). There are also several brief essays sprinkled throughout. Written in 2003, this book is fairly up-to-date. Still, there are some dead breweries mentioned and some new ones absent (most notably Southern Tier, opened in 2004). Bryson does provide updates on his website.