Blue Point Brewing Company
161 River Ave
Patchogue, NY 11772
(631) 475-6944
web: bluepointbrewing.com
hours (tasting room): T & F 3p - 7p, Sa 12p - 7p
Owners: Mark Bruford and Pete Cotter
In addition to their
excellent beer
being available in hundreds of fine
taprooms all over Long Island and NYC, they have a taproom/tasting room of
their own which is open on the weekends. If you drop by between 3 and 7 pm
on Thursday and Friday, and on Saturday between noon to 7 pm, the tasting
room will be open. You can get growlers to go as well as bottles and
t-shirts. The standard line up is free for a taste. Dollar tastings for
the special stuff. They have a total of twelve taps making it Long
Island's best taproom for local beer when they are open. Pints can be
purchased for a modest price.
Drop in and you'll see a friendly face.
Reader Reviews
Blue Point Brewing: Local Beer for Every Season
When I moved to Long Island in 2002 I didn't know anything
about the local beer culture. I didn't even know where I could find a
decent beer store. Fortunately, the corner grocery in my new neighborhood
had six packs of something called Toasted Lager from Blue Point Brewing Company.
So after unloading my moving truck I was able to quench my thirst with that
caramel colored, roasty brew. That was a little more than three years
ago.
There was a time when in most restaurants on Long Island, if you said you wanted a Blue Point, you'd would get a pint of Toasted Lager. This flagship brew has been the foundation on which a solid house of beers has been built. However, as Blue Point has grown and expanded, they are starting to be known for more than just their Toasted Lager. In fact, their latest release Blueberry Ale is extremely popular with Long Islanders. Taps all over Long Island are now flowing with Blue Point Blueberry Ale.
Blue Point Brewing Company got started in 1998 as a partnership between Peter Cotter and Mark Burford. Prior to launching their microbrewery, both were homebrewers and lovers of craft brewed beer. Burford opened a homebrew shop in Franklin Square in the early 1990s. Later, he was brewmaster at Long Island Brewing Company in Jericho, but left that post long before that brewpub was closed by the IRS in 1999.
My introduction into the world of Blue Point brews came when I first
visited the Brickhouse
Brewery in Patchogue.
They had a couple of Blue Point taps. I remember ordering the Oatmeal
Stout on my first visit. Prior to that I had only had Toasted Lager in the
bottle. After tasting the Oatmeal Stout, I knew that Blue Point was a
serious brewery because now I knew they had at least two superb beers. I
was so impressed with the Oatmeal Stout that I bought two growlers of it to
share with my house guests during our first Christmas on Long Island.
Blue Point's brewing facility in Patchogue is where they brew the beer that is put into kegs for distribution to restaurants and taprooms all over Long Island and in New York City. Their bottled beers are brewed and bottled at Clipper City Brewing Company in Baltimore, except for the Blueberry Ale which is contract brewed in Saratoga Springs, New York by the Olde Saratoga Brewing Company.
So Blue Point on tap is a little different from Blue Point in the bottle. I first noticed the difference when tasting the Winter Ale. I sampled several pints on tap at the Brickhouse and at Painters. Then I bought some bottles. I could tell immediately that the bottled product was a little different, but different in this case isn't a bad thing. I like Winter Ale in bottle as much as I like it on tap. On a recent trip to Baltimore, I had an opportunity to try some of Clipper City's own beers in their native habitat and I was impressed.
By
last count I've spotted at least six Blue Point beers in beer shops:
Toasted Lager, Winter Ale, Summer Ale, Hoptical Illusion, Pale Ale, and
now Blueberry Ale. These beers are distributed beyond Long Island and
Manhattan to parts of Pennsylvania and Maryland.
The variety of Blue Point beers on tap around Long Island and Manhattan is greater than five, if you know where to find those other special beers. Not far from where I live is a little taproom called Mobo Bar. When I was there last Thursday, three of their five taps where connected to Blue Point kegs. Mobo had Toasted Lager and Summer Ale. They also had something they called "Mobo Brew" which is in reality Blue Point's Double Blonde. According to the bartender, all the Blue Point beers sell well. "The people that come in here that drink Blue Point like all the beers," said the bartender.
If you are in Manhattan, two places you can find Blue Point are The Ginger Man (11 E. 36th St) and The Spotted Pig (314 W 11th St) where one of the two cask taps dispenses elixir from a Blue Point firkin.
The best place to find Blue Point beers is at the brewery's own tasting
room in Patchogue (161 River Ave).
In addition to their standard lineup of beers (the stuff found in bottles),
there are taps devoted to more exotic brews. You'll find a total of twelve
taps, all pouring Blue Point beers. Recently, I drank a cask conditioned
Extra Special Bitter that had matured for some time in a bourbon barrel.
That beer was smooth and malty and had a slightly lemony finish (a
contribution from the barrel, no doubt). It was an excellent beer -- like
no other ESB I had ever tasted in my life.
There are other interesting beers on tap at the Blue Point tasting room that you won't find anywhere else. So you have to just show up and see what you'll find. The tasting room is open Thursdays and Fridays from 3 to 7 pm and on Saturday from noon until 7 pm. You'll find plenty of parking on the side street or in back of the brewery.
The Beer
Winter Ale
I’ll be going local for the next beer of Christmas. I live on Long Island and I support my local brewery, Blue Point Brewing Company down in Patchogue (bless you!). My friend, Daniel, lives across the street from this brewery and, more importantly, their tasting room where the regular line up can be sampled for free and special editions for a dollar. You can also order pints and growlers which makes the Blue Point tasting room a nice little weekend tavern. (The Blue Point website is pretty fancy and the flash animation begins with a panning image of the entrance to the tasting room.)
I’ve been drinking Blue Point Winter Ale for the last four winters. My first experience of it was in the bottle, but by volume, I’ve had more of it from the tap or a growler. The bottled product tastes a little different from the on tap variety. I’ll be providing tasting notes for the bottled beer.
Eyes: Rich brown in color with a velvety head. Pours clear and sparkling.
Nose: I get green apples and grapefruit. Yes, this is a hoppy beer, but not one of those muscularly hoppy beers that wrestles you to the ground and pins you.
Taste: Experience the malt, the wonderful malt. The brewer has successfully brought the malt flavor through those deliciously fruity hops.
Overall: A bitter, malty, dark beer with a hint of sweetness in the finish. Very satisfying. Have two!
My Rating: 13/20 or 6.75/10
Pro: Full bodied, dark ale balancing hops and malt.
Con: This is a regional brew and may not be available to the left coast readers.
A version of this was originally published on The Spirit World as "The Twelve Beers of Xmas - Blue Point Winter Ale" on December 30, 2005.
Directions
The brewery is south of Montauk Highway on River Avenue just past the railroad tracks.
References
- "Blue Point Charts New Course in Long Island Beer Market" by Bernie Kilkelly
