KERHONKSON, NEW YORK
On a winding rural road in the hilly Catskills hamlet of Kerhonkson (ten miles west of New Paltz), ROUGH CUT BREWING COMPANY took over Oscar Restaurant and began brewing operations June 11, 2019. Inside a rustic weathered-shingled shack with stone hearth, antique furnishings, creaky wood floors, railroad-tied bar back and cupboard-bound brewtanks, this amiable roadside tavern also offers casual ‘comfort food.’
Co-founding brothers, Jesse and Bart Cummings, hired hop-head brewer, Kayne Konecny, to design a host of approachable IPA’s alongside a variant of rangy styles going from saison to ESB to oatmeal stout.
My wife and I congregate at a yellow picnic table on the left side grass patio for 90 minutes as I imbibe each tapped offering late afternoon, July ’20.
Raw-honeyed buckwheat and musky wet grains consume gently flowing pilsner, Station 33, leaving delicate floral sweetness upon polite lemony grapefruit-pitted bitterness.
Soft-toned rose petals bring floral subtlety to toasted amber grain sweetness, mild beet sugaring, teasing mandarin orange tanginess and wavered baked apple tartness for blanched light body, Roseability, a wispily arid Belgian pale ale.
Dark chocolate syruping draped cedar-smoked maple oats for sweet milk stout, Holstein, relegating its day-old coffee reminder.
The following beers were obtained in oil-canned 32-ounce crowlers for off-site consumption.
Smooth wheat ale, Sunny Day #3, utilized Barbe Rouge hops to nudge its lightly floral-spiced citric hop mosaic ahead of candied peach-pineapple-apricot-tangerine tartness – letting lemony grapefruit bittering gain mild wood tones to contrast sugary cereal malts.
Sessionable ‘summertime IPA,’ A Rough Summer, brought dry lemony orange perkiness to mild bark-dried astringency and rustic truffle earthiness atop brown-riced grain malting.
Limey guava souring imbibed Beach Weather #2 Pink Guava Saison, leaving floral-tinged barnyard leathering at the salty bottom.
Boldly fulsome IPA, Deserted Island, anchored its brisk citrus thrust with juniper-like hop bittering, musty earthen wood dankness and straw wheat acridity. Pushing forth a rangy flavor profile, perfumy orange-peeled grapefruit, peach and pineapple resilience gained pasty pale-malted mineral graining at the midst.
Zesty grapefruit-peeled orange rind bittering regaled 44/55, a bustling Imperial IPA with rustic wet grain musk, bready pale malts and light herbal snips.