Tag Archives: SARATOGA SPRINGS NY

TREE HOUSE BREWING COMPANY – SARATOGA

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NEW YORK

Taking up a sprawling Saratoga Springs complex at Route 9, TREE HOUSE BREWING COMPANY now operates six fabulously gargantuan wood-designed franchises in the Northeast. Inside an aluminum-roofed lodge with brown wood siding, Tree House’s first New York brewhouse opened for biz March 10, 2025.

A world class enterprise proudly ‘pioneering hazy India Pale Ales,’ Tree House has emerged as one of the finest IPA and ‘big beer’ makers nationwide.

Surrounded by several pavilions with multiple Adirondack chair and firepits, Tree House’s sprawling epoxy-floored interior features a large 40 draught tap station, a few brew room trees, multiple TV’s and cavernous skylight at the black metal ceiling (with hanging bulbs, white sailcloth design and exposed pipes). The enormous left side dining space benefits from a stone-based central hearth with surrounding lounge chairs, couches and tables. A rightside pizza kiosk serves hearty pies.

I initially perused the Saratoga pub on a Thursday afternoon, March 2026, revisiting the next day dinnertime.

For St. Patrick’s Day (a few days prior), Tree House crafted two superb nitrogenated Irish-themed suds.

Soft nitro-frothed amber-grained Irish red ale, Cleona, left nutty cocoa remnants and wispy rye splotch on brown-leafed black tea earthiness.

As for dry nitro Irish stout, Oh Danny Boy, its bristling hop-charred coffee nuttiness subsumed black cherry, blackcurrant and blackberry whims in a bitterly cocoa-dried Black malt setting.

Frothy English brown ale, Bear (With Coffee), draped dark chocolate syrup over medium-roast coffee nuttiness, gathering wood-burnt chicory bittering to counter caramel-candied molasses, fudgy cocoa and hazelnut paste atop brown breaded mocha malts.

Bold “classic stout,” Sojourn, allowed upfront dark-roast coffee nuttiness to consume fudged caramel, chocolate and toffee sweetness contrasting oncoming dark-roast piney hop char, picking up mild hazelnut molasses, pumpernickel rye and espresso sway.

While watching the NCAA basketball tourney and listening to a spry female acoustic guitarist, drifted back to Tree House within 24 hours to consume more excellent fare.

Sessionable Czech pale lager, Easy Does It, doused mild herbal Saaz hop spicing and dried maize starching with spritzy lemon zest over doughy pilsner malting.

Amiable Hallertau-hopped wheat lager, Quiet Satisfaction, let lemony passionfruit, mandarin orange, clementine, white grapefruit and white peach spritz prickle light basil-tinged spicing and dry Pinot Gris wining above hay-like torrified wheat base.

Dry hop-forward straw-yellowed New Zealand pilsner, Hopsy, utilized tropical Motueka, Rakau and Nelson Sauvin hops to lightly embitter lemony white grape, passionfruit, guava, gooseberry and mandarin orange zesting given mildly pined juniper sashay.

Belgian-styled pilsner, Parel, put dry compost-wafted wild oats next to zesty lemon peel, musky orange rot, musty herbage and juniper-tipped lemongrass.

Wee heavy Scotch ale, Old World, caressed dried cocoa stead with peat-smoked dewiness, hazelnut molasses and cola nuttiness.

Upping the citric Tangier hop influence, 7% ABV “American lager” variant, Tangier, spread orange zest, tangerine tanginess and tangelo tartness across dry grassy herbage atop creamy oats base.

Virant mango puree sweetness anchored Imperial IPA, Big Mango, a juicy hazy golden medium body with peachy guava, pineapple and papaya tanginess settling across juniper-tipped piney bittering.

Fudgy brown chocolate and chewy marshmallow aligned for delicious melted S’mores dessert, All That Is And All That Ever Will Be, a rich pastry stout with vanilla-spiced dark cherry, raisin and anise illusions seeping inside honeyed Graham Cracker sugaring.

ARTISANAL BREW WORKS

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NEW YORK

The perfectly named ARTISANAL BREW WORKS crafts a wide range of proprietary beers and pub cuisine at its spacious beige cement-fronted North Plaza mall space in Saratoga Springs. Opened 2016, the ‘mod’ prairie-styled, metal-furnished, glass-fronted bistro welcomes patrons to the main space thru a brown metal-awninged entrance.

A marble-topped eight-seat bar in the back of the green tavern services the barny community-tabled, yellow-walled dining room off to the left. A beautiful hop-designed barrel-crossed chandelier hangs from the ceiling while a covered side terrace provides more metal seating.

Former homebrewer Colin Quinn started at Olde Saratoga Brewing, then partnered with fellow Saratoga high school teacher, Kurt Borchardt, to begin Artisanal’s decade-long journey. Originally well known nationally for having created Warheads Extreme Sour candy ales and seltzers plus nifty Belgian-styled ales, the dynamic duo crave experimentation. 

Burgers, pizza and salads were available on my April 2026 trip (alongside local wines, spirits and cocktails).

Easygoing golden bohemian pilsner, Hip Czech, sprayed Saaz-hopped herbal lemon zest upon popcorn-buttered cracked barley and bread crusted biscuity oats.

Another simple pleasure, casual dry-hopped Italian-styled pilsner, Intermezzo, matched raw-grained barnyard oats to floor-malted grains as its spritzy lemon pep gained minor floral herbage.

Perfectly centrist dry light lager, Artisanalager, let lemony orange fizz tickle pasty pale malts and mild hop astringency. Dryer variant, Artisanalager with Lime, was a limey offshoot for Mexican beer lovers.

Award-winning golden tripel, Trappist At The Track, utilized house Belgian yeast to guide its banana bubblegum sugaring, candied pineapple sway, light rum spicing, white-peppered coriander whim and slight butterscotch saucing over cereal grained pilsner malts.

St. Patrick’s Day ’26 Irish Red Ale, Rattlin’ Bog, snuck dewy peat into red and orange fruit spicing over tobacco-roasted amber grain toasting.

Flagship New England IPA, Saratoga Squeeze, sprayed lemon zest onto orange-peeled grapefruit bittering and peachy pineapple-guava-tangerine tanginess, leaving light pine hop resin upon contractive spicy pale malt sweetness.

Sharp West Coast IPA, Derailleur, spread floral-perfumed pine lacquer across lemony grapefruit bittering and sweet orange peel tanginess in an Amarillo-Cascade-Simcoe-hopped setting contrasted by less assertive caramel malting.

As for the dark ales, English-styled brown ale, BB Brown, plied light roast coffee and sweet chocolate to toasted rye graining while scattering Macadamia, almond and butternut snips across the dry mocha plain.

Milk-sugared coffee set up smooth oatmeal stout, Total Darkness, placing cocoa powdered tartness alongside oats-charred molasses sap.

Fudgy chocolate and Madagascar vanilla saturated the caramel coffee creaming of lactic milk stout, Multiple Infinities Vanilla Mocha, a decadent cacao-nibbed cold brew coffee alternative with espresso-laced cola nuttiness and black cherry tartness.

The soft-toned nitro Multiple Infinites version brought dewy earthen weediness to dark chocolate and medium roast coffee conflux, upping the dark-roast hop char.

As for the rich Irish Cream extract variant of Multiple Infinities, its cocoa nibs, vanilla and coffee adjuncts promoted milk chocolatey sweetness, picking up fudged Brownie and Neapolitan cookie illusions over oats-flaked mocha malting.

SMART ORGANIC IPA

Using organic barley-hops, Smart Beer became New York’s first organic brewery in 2016. Closer to a Brit-styled IPA with its dewy mossing and cellared fungi musk overtaking any bitter piney grapefruit expectancy – yet surprisingly diverting to dried-fruited raisin, prune and apricot sweetness. Molasses-honeyed sorghum syruping seems to coat the cocoa powdered bottom. A decent changeup.

WALT & WHITMAN BREWING COMPANY

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SARATOGA SPRINGS, NEW YORK

Inside the Old Saratogian building in downtown Saratoga Springs, impressively designed and family-owned WALT & WHITMAN BREWING COMPANY opened in 2020. A multi-tiered, multi-faceted operation with an exquisite lounge leading to a pristine coffeehouse and spacious brewpub section, its catacomb lower level features a glass-encased brewroom, benches, couches, wood tables and walled pop culture pix. A large caged patio offers further seating.

The main 20-seat slate-topped pub area offers 20 draughts (listed on the wood menu) plus two opposing TV’s and a refrigerator with cans to go. Several community tables fill out the room while exposed pipes, old wood columns and Edison lights give the wood-floored bar a rustic old Americana glaze.

Fine pub fare from the right side kitchen includes Detroit-styled pizza, wings and sandwiches.

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During my sunny noon time visit in November ’22, I bought several brews for the road (in canned version listed below) and consumed a lovely milk stout at the corner of the bar.

A soothingly creamed confection, Written In The Dark plied coffee-dried dark cocoa to mildly hop-charred cola, walnut and Brazil nut illusions as well as peaty chocolate truffle snips.

In the can and bettering most lo-cal light lagers, dry aluminum yellowed Dick Murphy Lite placed mildly grained German pilsner malts alongside salted lemon fizziness and phenol hop astringency while avoiding some acridity.

Clear beige-yellowed, billowy cumulous-headed “American wheat,” Agrarian Society, let its rustic amber graining and hay-like acridity dig into its sour lemon wedging.  

Rangy Oktoberfest lager, Festbier, secured a stylistically upscaled profile as unexpected spruce-tipped perfume musk seeped thru autumnal brown leafy astringency, straw-dried barnyard acridity, raspy lemon oiling and wispy basil herbage.

Crisply tart lime salting stays dry alongside sour lemon twist for easygoing Rough Day Gose, leaving lightly vinous white grape acidity upon mild coriander seeding and cologned agave nectar.

Rangy frail-headed pale golden farmhouse ale, Le Petit Poete, awakened the senses with mildly spiced orange tanginess, bruised banana sweetness and lemon custard tartness penetrating salted white pepper herbage and cellared mushroom fungi in a spritzy flow.

Murkily dense purplish Berliner Weiss, Now, Forager Blueberry rode tart blueberry pureed pomegranate essence thru sweet milk sugaring, picking up vodka-licked purple grape, cranberry and crabapple illusions as well as mild tobacco leaf crisping.

Briskly tropical IPA-like fruiting paced crisply clean moderate-medium-bodied pale ale, I’m So I’m So… Citra, serenading zestful lemony grapefruit-peeled pineapple bittering and navel orange sweetness with polite pale malt spicing contrasted by dry wood tones at its grassy hop stead.

Floral-spiced yellow grapefruit entry of The Infinite Nick IPA picked up mellow mandarin orange, peach and pineapple tanginess against dry herbage and hay-like acridity in clean mineral water setting.

‘Candied orange, mango and grapefruit’ spicing gained floral-bound mango, pineapple, papaya and tangerine fruiting for Big Kids Table NEIPA, leaving grassy hop resin upon the fizzy salted citric finish.

RACING CITY BREWING COMPANY

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SARATOGA SPRINGS, NEW YORK

Leaving his Sussex County home in Jersey to start successful Fort Edward-based Oliva Winery northeast of horse racing capitol, Saratoga Springs, entrepreneurial spirits venture, Tony Oliva, decided to brew professionally soon after. After moving his nine year-old winery to Saratoga’s outskirts with wife, Debreen, and son, Anthony, in tow, he hooked up with Olde Saratoga brewer, Yuri, and began crafting some of the most interesting brews in the area under the equine moniker, RACING CITY BREWING COMPANY.

Utilizing a fresh well water base, Oliva’s crew offer free-spirited, oft-times hybridized, originals that usually go one step beyond stylish conformity with uncommon herbal-spiced eccentricities.

Open for business since the night before St. Patrick’s Day, 2018 (and closed March 2021), Racing City’s based in a freestanding 20,000 square foot grey-bricked warehouse. A sportsbar-related microbrewery with excellent light pub fare to go alongside a baker’s dozen tapped selections, its warm and friendly interior features a 10-stooled, wood-topped, corrugated sheet metal-sided serving station (with 3 TV’s and handsome beer menu) fronted by five community tables, several high-top bar tables and a mid-spaced sofa lounge atop an apoxy concrete-polished floor.

A beautiful 3D fiberglass horse racing mural signed by famed rider Angel Cordero (and previously hung at Saratoga’s old city center) graces the front wall.

When Oliva initially opened the joint, the only beer available was light pale ale, Break-In Maiden, a favorite amongst local dart and cornhole leaguers. By my early December 2018 noontime visit, there were fourteen diverse brews readied for draught.

While my wife nibbled on cheesy pretzels, I consumed all but Backyard Harvest, an autumnal Cascade-Centennial-hopped English-styled IPA.

A popular summertime easygoer given year-round status, Lemon Hop Kid, an adventurous lemon ginger wheat ale, let its lemon-peeled ginger juice soak up dry cologne-spiced lemongrass, basil, fern and lime sentiments.

Similarly off-the-beaten track, mint-leafed Colt Classic Dark Cream Ale (the base beer for the bourbon-aged Kentucky Classic) brought unexpected wood-toned Chinook-Saaz hop rusticity to the maize-dried Mint Julep furlough, leaving latent chocolatey cola nuttiness upon its busy mix.

Popular centrist libation, Fishin Lager, stayed crisply clean as its musty maize-flaked earthen grains gained rotted citrus notions and distant herbal musk.

Finely hybridized autumnal moderation, Punkinhead Pumpkin Lager (with its Fishin Lager base) brought perfumed-hopped wood lacquering to squash-dried pumpkin spicing.

Sessionable pale ale, Turning Point, kept the hop bittering light and caramel malt sweetness subtle while streamlined apple, peach, orange and grapefruit tanginess may’ve provoked far-off banana liqueur illusions.

Equally sessionable Top Choice Hopped Lager, a maize-flaked cream ale blend, allowed buttery honey-dried grain malts to pick up mild floral-spiced tropical fruiting.

Reliably abstruse LSH Saison boasted ‘natural herbs’ as primary lemongrass, sumac and hibiscus adjuncts received floral lemon niceties as well as birch-barked fern, lilac and rosewood reminders.

Rounded fruitiness stimulated wholly delectable JustifIPA, a juicy India Pale Ale submitting perfume-hopped peach, clementine, tangerine and pineapple tanginess to briskly coniferous pining.

Pureed blood orange desiccation saddled King 7 IPA, a tart dry body with constrained orange peel, tangerine, mandarin orange and clementine sweetness.

A winning collaboration with local brew friends, Taylor & Sons and Northway, vibrant amber-browned Big Red Double IPA (no doubt inspired by Secretariat) regaled floral-bound orange, pineapple, tangerine, peach and clementine tanginess as well as subtle apple-pear fruiting to creamily cookie-doughed caramelized rye malting (and creamy vanilla snips).

Silkily smooth English-styled Oatmeal Stout, Dark Horse, allowed oats-sugared black chocolate syruping to ride above earthen dewiness, charred hops and subdued nuttiness.

Nutty coffee tones reminiscent of Guinness Stout silkily pervaded Black Beauty Nitro Black Lager, a dark-roasted Irish stout with casual espresso, cappuccino and Bakers chocolate asides.

Impressive black-lagered Short Stack with Maple and Hazelnut let elegant chocolate-chipped bourbon vanilla sweetness lift its Kahlua-creamed pancake battering to decadent dessert heights. It proved to be an excellent Sunday afternoon sendoff.

As a certified farm brewery (utilizing local grains and hops), Racing City is also licensed to serve distilled New York spirits for refreshingly brisk cocktails. They’ll take on distribution in January ’19.

racingcitybrewing.com

DRUTHERS BREWING COMPANY – SARATOGA

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.

In downtown Saratoga Springs on Broadway, the first DRUTHERS BREWING COMPANY opened for business in 2012. Home of Skidmore College (one of America’s best party schools) and a few miles from Saratoga Raceway, this affluent community’s picturesque landscape draws summer tourists to its lovely historic splendor. Owned in part by former Albany Pump Station brewer, George di Piro, each distinct Druthers location benefits from spacious layout design, well-realized decor, diversified craft beer and excellent food.

Initially visited during January ’16, a black archway leads to an extensive courtyard that fronts Druthers pristine yellow wood-furnished dining lodge. Upon entering, the 20-seat slate-topped bar showcases the mezzanine level glass-encased brew tanks while a separate dining area adorns the backspace. An eclectic food menu (sandwiches-salads-burgers-entrees) includes the outstanding Chili Con Carne and Roasted Vegetable Puree (with sweet potatoes, butternut squash, fried leeks and parsnips). A selection of fine wines and spirits complement the ambitious hand-crafted beers.

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First up, Strong Gose may be less sour than Druthers’ standard gose, but its lactobacillus-derived salted coriander expectancy stayed firm above tart lemon liming. A similarly soured lemony orange spritz engaged Rye Saison, a Vienna-malted moderation with caramelized rye toasting and soapy sugarplum notions.

One of the most popular elixirs, assertive All In India Pale Ale placed piney Amarillo hop sharpness inside floral-spiced grapefruit-peeled orange rind bittering without depleting its back-end honeyed pale malt sweetness.

Toasted Munich malts frame Fist Of Karma, a chocolate-y caramel-spiced brown ale gaining hazelnut, pecan and almond tones above maple molasses sugaring and walnut-seared hop char.

A stronger version of a traditional hefeweizen, lofty Weizen Bock circulated dried plum, fig and banana fruiting around clove-coriander spicing and wheat-grained hop astringency. Decisive Strong Porter loaded molasses-sapped brown chocolate onto roasted nut resilience.

Sweet holiday delight, Winter Warmer, dripped caramelized molasses onto fruit-caked sweetness and toasted Munich malts for a surefire cold weather treat.

During March ’17 revisit, lemony banana-clove-bubblegum expectancy guided Against The Grain Hefeweizen as mild coriander riffs reached the subtle beechwood-smoked malting.

Scottish Style 80 Shilling brought caramel-toasted malts to dewy peat, dried fig, unripe orange and earthen hops.

Easygoing Irish-styled Dry Stout planted unmalted barley inside moderate black malt bittering and subtle dark-roasted coffee, chocolate and nut remnants.

www.druthersbrewing.com