JOHNSON CITY, NEW YORK
“A former Sears building to a state-of-the-art restaurant,” FACTORY BY BEER TREE BREW is Beer Tree’s second New York location (with the first opened in Fort Crane during 2017 at a timber framed farmhouse). Inside the large Oakdale mall tucked into a picturesque hillside, the sizable 20-barrel operation is convenient to all local Binghampton highways.
Factory’s two-story Mod Industrial facility includes a downstairs beer hall, “open concept upstairs restaurant” (with prominent wood fired pizza oven), 3,500 square-foot umbrella-laden deck, floor-to-ceiling windows and dazzling nautical drawings.
A silver grain silo leads patrons to the cement-floored, pipe exposed main space where 24 draught lines service the 14-seat white slate-topped bar, twelve community tables, small round-tabled window seats and outdoor seating.
Making some of the most adventurous Empire State brews, Factory By Beer Tree also serves sandwiches, entrees, cocktails and local spirits.
My wife and I visited on a crowded Friday night, then again noontime for Sunday brunch, June ’24.
Spritzy lemon sugaring and subtle mandarin orange riffs lifted dry Casacade-hopped German pilsner, Crisp Trees, leaving spicy floral herbage upon rustic barnyard graining.
Offbeat cocktail-designed New Trees: Old Fashioned Foeder Aged Lager scurried warbly orange-peeled dark cherry adjuncts thru brandy-wined honeyed cider contrasting lightly vinous green grape esters and musky orange oiling.
Revamped Berliner Weisse, Fruta Con Tajin, retained tart light-bodied appeal as limey mango, crisp cucumber and mild habanero adjuncts picked up sour brettanomyces yeast persuasion reenforced by acidulated wheat malts.
Busy witbier, Endless Weekend, countered its stylish orange-peeled coriander spicing (and mild banana-daubed vanilla creaming) with limey lemon zesting atop buttered sourdough wheat.
Tartly sweet raspberry puree lacquered engagingly fruited American Pale Wheat Ale, Raspberry Jammin’, gaining slight tangerine, mango and guava tropicalia over honeyed barley-wheat base.
Sunshiny tropical milkshake IPA, Double Pineapple Creamsicle, injected zestfully sweet and lollipop-candied pineapple essence into lightly creamed vanilla marshmallow sugaring while latent lemon-sugared fruit salad scamper contrasts backend pine needling.
On the dark side, a decadent porter and lactose stout battled it out for supremacy over a German-styled dark wheat.
Strange Bakers chocolate souring coated wayward dunkelweizen, Dunkel Hugh, leaving spoiled apple, rotted orange and browned banana illusions upon musty cellared funk.
Niftily knocking off a nutty milk chocolatey Snickers Bar, You’re Not You When You’re Thirsty, a confectionery mocha porter, layered dark chocolate syrup atop maple-sugared roasted peanuts, caramelized walnuts and glazed hazelnuts.
Another confectionery delight, lactose Imperial Milk Stout, Campfire Tales, placed marshmallow-centered Graham Cracker sugaring next to bittersweet dark chocolate, creating a S’mores-candied frontage with subdued black grape and red cherry snips.