PENN YAN, NEW YORK

Residing at a 200-year old yellow carriage house in the heart of Penn Yan since 2020, LAURENTIDE BEER CO. finds married couple Brett and Jackie Driscoll crafting some well rounded sassy suds for local Keuka Lake minions.

Laurentide’s pristine neo-Industrial setting features wood slot flooring, wood and formica topped tables, an above-bar kiosk and dramatic hanging pendant lights. A centralized U-shaped, twelve-seat bar offers a dozen draughts.

A rear kitchen served sandwiches, soup and appetizers. I consumed the parmesan-cheesed chicken wings while downing nine rangy brews one Friday night in November ’23.

A local fave, Penn Yan Light Lager let lightly caramelized amber graining recede to musty lemon rot.

Musky lemon fizz caressed dark floral spicing for dry-hopped Italian Pilsner, a simple light body.

Summery Laurentide Mango Wheat let ripe mango juicing counter dry mango skinned bittering as ancillary orange-peeled grapefruit tanginess and mild cantaloupe nips settle atop wispy white wheat.

Lemon-licked grassy hop astringency gained mild spiced herbage for Kolsch, a pilsner malted moderation.

Laurentide’s most popular beer, lively tropical fruited IPA-like Hazy Pale Ale, allowed waxy lemony yellow grapefruit and navel orange lacquering plus slight guava-gooseberry souring to coalesce beside piney cannabis oiling above pale malt sugaring.

Cleanly dry Wet Hop West Coast IPA prodded mild yellow grapefruit bittering with mild herbal spicing and dextrin crystal malts.

Dewy peat-mossed cocoa powdering faded to sweet toffee for coppery Altbier, depleting its toasted hop crisping.   

Dark chocolate syrup draped the oats-flaked barley roast  and bitterly nutty hop char of Oatmeal Stout, leaving Blackstrap molasses on its tail.

Caramelized brown buttering induced luscious Barleywine, regaling candy apple-glazed whiskeyed cherry loveliness and mild sherry-cognac wisps for its brown chocolate base.