WEST KILL, NEW YORK
Located on a 127-acre historic dairy farm, WEST KILL BREWING utilizes locally grown and foraged ingredients to give many of its proprietary brews a slightly unique nature. Up a rickety unpaved road in the Catskill Mountains at the Devils Path hamlet of West Kill, this cozy porched barnhouse pub (with connected pergo-protected lounge area and separate merchandise/beer-to-go cabana) sits perfectly along hilly rustic tree-lined terrain.
Inside, the casual slate-floored roadhouse features eight elk-racked tap handles at the small eight-seat bar. There are several round and square tables strewn about. Outside, the fire-pitted front deck fills up at noon on a warm Friday in November '24.
My wife and I sat in the enclosed porch at one of the benches with a friendly Newfoundland pup, quaffing West Kill's entire mountain-watered liquid entourage.
Utilizing local Iroquois white corn for crisply roughhewn Brookie American Lager, its earthen barnyard graining, raw-honeyed lemon rot and dark floral whims added further musky rusticity to the maize-dried frontage.
Spritzy lemony orange fizziness welcomed mild Perch Golden Ale, a pale malt sugared easygoer.
Dry-hopped Kaaterskill IPA (Citra-Mosiac-Azacca-Columbus) escorted dank pine and cannabis resin to mild citrus bittering underscored by botanical gin-licked peach, tangerine, cantaloupe and honeydew snips.
Breezy floral citrus-bound Hazy IPA, Duck Camp, placed mild orange-peeled yellow grapefruit and pineapple tanginess plus light pining above honeyed pale malting.
An interesting dark mild variant with oak and maple leaves, Leave It To Be (a collab with Maine's Bunker Brewing) draped maple syrup upon toasted maple and oak bark, picking up subtle cocoa-dried chestnut, almond and cola conflux.
"Velvety" cocoa nibs-aged chocolate porter, Dark Hollow, let its nutty dark chocolate roast and dry coffee tones reach mossy soy-milked dewiness for a pleasant nightcap.
