On tap at Ambulance, lemony white grape-skinned Nelson Sauvin hop skunking picks up mild bosc pear, green apple and white peach illusions at delicate Sauvignon Blanc finish. Dry pilsner malt base brings barnyard millet, spelt and wild oats acridity to the surface. 
SCHILLING JAKOBUS GERMAN-STYLE PILSNER
On tap at Taphouse 15, neo-traditional yellow cleared German pilsner sidles dry lemony herbage with peppery hop musk and sweet floral wisps above biscuity pilsner malts.
UNTIED MORNING BREEZE DRY-HOPPED PILSNER
On tap at Kitchen & Beer Bar, easygoing dry-hopped pils lets lemony Seltzer fizz spark mandarin orange spicing, white peach twang and herb-tinged Huell Melon honeydew spew over straw-dried white wheat breading.
WILD EAST FUNHAUS GERMAN STYLE PILSNER
On tap at Ambulance, brusque German pils brings musky raw graining, dry lemon herbage, dark floral daubs and wispy green peppering to corn-flaked salted cracker base.
FIFTH FRAME BARREL-AGED CLAWFOOT BATHTUB
On tap at Kitchen & Beer Bar, dry bourbon-aged Imperial Stout guides burgundy, port and sherry wining thru dark chocolate-syruped oaken vanilla tannins, leaving pudding skin crust on the tongue. In the recess, dark cherry, stewed prune and green raisin approach gentle Henry Mc Kenna Irish bourbon influence.
FIFTH FRAME CLAWFOOT BATHTUB: VANILLA, CHOCOLATE, COFFEE
On tap at Kitchen & Beer Bar, ‘velvety chocolate, vanilla beans & fresh espresso’ stage impressive overture for richly creamed dessert stout. Luxurious milk-sugared coffee roast meets chewy dark chocolate scamper and sweet vanilla onrush as well as tertiary toffee, mocha latte, fudged brownie, cookie dough and cappuccino illusions.
FIFTH FRAME CLAWFOOT BATHTUB GINGERBREAD TRUFFLE
On tap at Kitchen & Beer Bar, thickly creamed pastry stout showers cinnamon-spiced gingerbread sugaring with melted dark chocolate treacle before emitting earthen truffle musk. Sticks to the tongue like heavily viscous caramelized mocha and chewier than toffee.
FIFTH FRAME BOUNCE HOUSE MANGO MARGARITA
On tap at Taphouse 15, cocktail-inspired fruited gose regales moderately bitter salted lime zesting and juicily bittersweet mango tang, picking up Jolly Rancher candied tartness and sour guava/ green grape pucker. Lemony lime-juiced mango continuance gains slightly floral perfumed sweetness.
FIFTH FRAME DDH LITE UP
On tap at Kitchen & Beer Bar, hazy golden double dry-hopped India-styled pale ale regales semi-sharp lemony orange-peeled yellow grapefruit bittering, salted guava-kiwi tang, dank herbal residue and mild floral spicing over creamy oated wheat base. Simply put, a slightly less profound New England IPA (at 4.8% ABV) given American pale ale tag.
FIFTH FRAME DOLO
On tap at Kitchen & Beer Bar, eccentric Italian pilsner retains stylish floral-daubed lemon candy twang and light herbal spicing over doughy white breading, but provokes Tito’s vodka twist and tarter citric zing to spritzy Seltzer fizzed moderation.
DOUBLE TAP BREWING
WHIPPANY, NEW JERSEY
At a former flooded red brick post office in the Morris County town of Whippany, DOUBLE TAP BREWING opened its doors Labor Day, ’22. Inspired by Morris County’s colonial heritage and Ben Franklin’s description of New Jersey as “a keg tapped at both ends” by New York City and Philadelphia, Double Tap’s the brainchild of homebrewers John Coyle, Todd Townsend, Chris Mock, Jared Dougherty, and Jeff Mauriello, who met at regional homebrew competitions.
Steppin’ up to the eight-stooled stamp-pressed wood top bar, there are twenty-plus draught handles plus one pull-handled tap. The epoxy-floored pub also includes wood-metal tables, a loungey couch area and back-roomed windowed brew tanks.
Pendant lighting fills the one-room space and opposing TV’s at the bar show today’s pro football games. Blues music by Johnny Winter, BB King, and more plays as I consume all sixteen beers Double Tap had to offer on this cool Sunday afternoon in November ’23.
Easygoing cream ale, Friday’s For Da Werkas, let lemony grapefruit effervescence pick up mild herbal hop musk contrasting sweet corn sugaring under its fluffy vanilla-daubed head.
Another splendidly effervescent lightweight, spritzy Italian pilsner, The Boot, brought lemon-candied souring and mild floral-spiced herbage to muskily grained pilsner malting.
Festive light-bodied Oktoberfest, Take Me To Your Litre, tucked mild lemon musk inside grassy hop astringency contrasting its softly creamed honeyed Vienna malting.
Tropical fruited wheat ale, The Wheatorious P.O.G., snuck guava, passionfruit and orange adjuncts into its soft oats spine, leaving ancillary grapefruit-pineapple bittering and salted mango-kiwi snips at the powdered candied Jolly Rancher finish.
Pineapple habanero wheat ale, Tropic Heat, received mild habanero peppered heat for its tangy pineapple ripeness and floral citrus scurry.
Utilizing a piney citrus West Coast IPA recipe, Wren Song Pale Ale placed subtle dry lemony orange bittering above sugary pale malts.
Best selling Bent Brim Hazy India Pale Ale relinquished vibrant tropical fruiting as advertised Galaxy-Citra-Strata-hopped pineapple, mango and melon juicing, tangy orange-peeled grapefruit briskness and candied gumball souring retained dank pine-lacquered cannabis resin.
Another hazy IPA, Monotone Pilot, coalesced tangy tangerine, sour guava and citric passionfruit above lightly creamed oated wheat.
“Tropical flora” engaged smoothly clean NEIPA, Flood Plain, guiding orange-peeled grapefruit, pineapple and tangelo tanginess into mild piney bittering over vanilla-creamed oats.
Sessionable IPA, Low Hanging Fruit, merged lemony passionfruit, tart tangerine and white peach above fluffily oated wheat creaming.
Uniquely unconventional Basil Hayden bourbon-barreled saison, Postmaster General, let perfumed gin botanicals and buttery Chardonnay wined green grape tannins receive dry rustic barnyard acridity, finishing with a slight bourbon whiskey whisk.
‘Smooth brown ale,’ I Got A Rock Great Pumpkin Ale, allowed chai tea spicing to infiltrate caramelized pumpkin sweetness, anise-cologned vanilla tannins and dark chocolate whims.
Bettering most nebulous schwarzbier competition, Tightrope combined cocoa-powdered chocolate malting with earthen wood, burnt cedar, pine nut and Brazil nut illusions.
Wood-aged schwarzbier, Oakrope, sent mildly creamed dewy peat, oak-toasted rye whiskey and nutty wattleseed snips to a dry chocolate stead.
Fluffily creamed nitrogenated English pub ale, Nigel’s Daily (cask style), let dewy peat mossing and Fuggle hop herbage reach cardboardy caramelized wheat malts.
Lightly charred dark-roast coffee imbibed English-style porter, Nitro Pessimist, leaving walnut-seared dark chocolate on its nutty backend.
PERSONAL BEST BREWING
ITHACA, NEW YORK
Opened summer ’23 in a high-ceilinged 8,000 square-foot warehouse a few blocks from the town center, PERSONAL BEST BREWING is helping to lead Ithaca’s downtown revitalization. A multifarious concrete floored venue with roomy picnic-tabled pub area, large overhead-doored indoor shuffleboard room and grassy enclosed biergarten (with firepits and outdoor games), Personal Best’s entrepreneurial head brewer, Anthony Cesari, slung 22 precision-detailed beers on my initial November ’23 Saturday afternoon sojourn.
A former city health club, Personal Best got the wheels in motion fairly quickly for an independent microbrewery. Cesari’s lively suds depend on efficient stylistic clarity, mild recipe risking, unconfined malted hop blends and the beautiful Finger Lakes water source.
Whereas nearby Revelry Yards relies on steadfast authenticity re-creating popular beer styles, Personal Best has a more expansive lineup of individually diversified, wider ranging and impressively meticulous brews.
At the 20 wood-seat, slate-topped central bar, there’s a gray brick-walled draught station and to the left are the sterling state-of-the-art silver brew tanks and fermenters. A small right side kitchen serves fine pub fare. Wood beams, lights and pipes hang from the exposed wood-trestle ceiling.
Crisply dry-hopped Italian pilsner, Rental Shoes, let lemon-candied herbage pick up floral-spiced perfuming over corny pilsner malts.
Maize-dried spelt and millet graining anchored Nostalgic Value, a rustic corn lager with musty barnyard acridity countering mild citrus spicing.
Festive autumn lager, Ritual Consumption, pleated leafy hop astringency into desiccated orange spicing and musty raw grained minerality.
Peculiar rye lager variant, Short Ride, utilized IPA-related Nelson Sauvin and Moteuka hops to enable lemony green grape and guava souring to penetrate its dry rye bed.
Musky English pale ale, Cone Poem, retained a dry herbal fungi mustiness for its dusky floral-daubed peach and apricot splotch.
Another English-styled ‘pub ale,’ Cult Status, splattered lemon zest across rye-dried pumpernickel, peppery herbage and papery gluiness.
Dryly sea-salted coriander consumed the cologne-perfumed lemon lime zesting of tequila-twisted, agave-doused Gose Dubbed Over, a ‘tart wheat ale’ with champagne grape esters reaching its acidulated malt base (and informed by a Margarita cocktail).
Meanwhile, classic sea-salted coriander spicing gained mild limey bittering and wispy herbage for Adult Gose Tour, a grassy-hopped gose.
Summery kolsch, Another Scorcher, let champagne-sparkled green grape esters get secured by grassy hop astringency and grainy pilsner malting.
Sweet flaked brown rice, toasted cereal graining and creamed corn sugaring punctuated Cold Spring Helles Bock, spurting spritzy lemon fizz over its brown bread base.
Honeyed wheat dough sweetened mild hefeweizen, Billowing Cumulus, slighting its dried banana, spiced orange and rotted apricot fruiting.
Fruity Pebbles-inspired sour wheat ale, Fruity Treble, coalesced pineapple tartness, oaken cherry musting, key lime bittering and vinous green grape esters with light lemongrass pungency over acidulated wheat dryness.
Zesty pink guava and bittersweet strawberry adjuncts gained light milk-sugared vanilla creaming for Blushing Meadows, a striking sour IPA with lemony lime-salted grapefruit, peach and mango remnants.
Sessionable Simcoe-Mosiac-hopped India Pale Ale, Today’s Active Lifestyles, brought sunshiny lemon-peeled yellow grapefruit bittering to dry pine resin and grainy malt earthiness.
Dryly offbeat Imperial IPA, Gear Monger, permitted gin-soaked grapefruit, mandarin orange and pineapple tanginess to gain lightly cologne-soaked pine lacquering.
West Coast styled IPA, Pilot Season, sprayed yellow grapefruit misting and lightly embittered orange rind musk on dry wood tones over raw honeyed pale malts.
Peachy yellow grapefruit salted Another Green Whirl, a dry-hopped NEIPA, absorbed minty pine needling and grassy cannabis snips.
Another dry-hopped NEIPA, Fear Of Heights, piled sunny Citra-hopped grapefruit, orange and pineapple tanginess to sweet oats-flaked pale malting.
Milk-sugared Imperial Sour Smoothie, Personal Trainer, sprung peach-pureed blackberry and raspberry tartness upon oats-flaked wheat creaming, allowing tertiary lemon limed bittering, champagne-like saison yeast and dry rum snips to flutter.
Lessly milk-sugared Imperial Sour Ale, Immersion Bender, let bright tropical fruiting ensconce mild oats-flaked white wheat creaming. Zesty pineapple-juiced orange concentrate, salty guava-passionfruit-kiwi conflux, tangy tangerine twist, strawberry rhubarb tartness and perfumed apricot whiffs picked up latent vodka kick, briny lemon-limed Margarita spunk, hard-candied citric sourness and minty floral riffs.
Nifty autumnal Imperial brown ale, Pumpkin Spice Latte, placed milk-sugared latte creaming atop sweet brown chocolate, leaving pumpkin-spiced nutmeg and cinnamon seasoning on the bourbon vanilla-daubed espresso back end.
Dry Irish Stout, Short Shift, posted dark-roast coffee bittering and toasted pumpernickel breading to dewy peat and blanched hazelnut residue above dark cocoa powdering.