HIGHLAND, NEW YORK
A cavernous cement-floored tavern with industrial wood-metal furnishings, recycled pallet-wood backdrops and a concrete slate-topped serving station boasting 14-plus homemade draughts, HUDSON ALE WORKS opened in 2016. Local garage-brewing Highland natives, Josh Zimmerman, Neil Trapani and Adam Trapani, took a dilapidated 7,500 square-foot machine shop and turned the rustic corrugated steel-roofed spot into a snazzy l’il pub celebrating “Industrial life with a trendy low-key vibe.”
A right side tabled section with lacquered bark counter opposes the small bar area and the overhead-doored, white cement-walled far right area leads to a back lounge lodging two picnic tables, wicker seating and a huge TV. A picnic-tabled front deck offers further seating. Nano brew tanks are stored at the rear.
Alongside an array of approachable brews, Hudson Ale Works also serves fine wines, meads and cider.
I discovered thirteen Hudson brews on my sunny noontime Saturday journey, late September ’21.
Smoothly crisp gold-cleared Czech lager, Swillsner, drew herbed corn-maize rusticity to dry lemon rind bittering above biscuity pilsner malting.
Crisp Hawzen Bavarian Lager let sweet leafed dewy mossing address spiced tea-like herbage and dry red-orange fruiting.
Banana-chipped clove spicing and orange oiled tartness grazed the whiskeyed wheat malts pacifying How Sweet Wit Is, a slightly divergent dryer witbier.
Orange-dried fungi musk and mild earthen truffle pungency gained sweetly spiced pale malt alacrity for Highland Helles.
Cloudily faded golden-hued moderation, Citra Session IPA, brought lemon-pitted grapefruit bittering to dry herbal whims, picking up subtle mandarin orange, pineapple and mango tropicalia.
Over a richer pale malt setting, the dual-hopped version, Citra Mosaic IPA, retained a steadfast lemony grapefruit-orange tang and sly wood-toned niche.
Earthy herbal tea bittering sedately crept thru sessionable dry-hopped Gnpwdr Green Tea IPA, a pasty pale malted green-black tea derivative.
Lactose Hazy Boi, a dry Nelson Sauvin-hopped NEIPA infused with pineapple, left a zesty grapefruit bittering upon the salty pineapple tang fortified by oats-flaked wheat malting.
Soft papaya pureed tartness bowed to citrus-juiced hop acidity above wet grain musk for Sour Boi, a lactobacillus-soured hazy IPA offshoot.
Lemon-juiced lime salting catapulted tequila-barreled Century Plant Gose, a pleasingly puckered agave-daubed aluminum-yellowed cocktail.
Oaken cherry tartness and tannic green grape esters induced Pucker Up Flemish Sour, leaving pleasantly peculiar charcoal soot on its piquant gooseberry pucker.
Coriander-spiced orange zesting engaged gentle honeyed oats malting for Trappist Punk, a modest Belgian-styled tripel.
Confectionery chocolate-kissed raspberry tartness and sweetly sour bruised black cherry tang rode atop the lightly embittered hop char of Raspberry Vanilla Stout, a wispily vanilla-creamed cocoa-forward dessert with latent blackberry-jammed red grape esters.