NANUET, NEW YORK
One of the largest pub chains in the land of plenty, BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse began in 1978 as a humble West Coast business doing a Southern California twist on Chicago-styled pizza.
Opened during 2016(?), Rockland County’s premier BJ’s location sits in Nanuet a mile up from the incomparable Growler & Gill. Inside a large open space with brick-walled high ceilings, prominent 20-seat bar, lower level dining booths, educational ‘Brewing Process’ mural and back kitchen, this cavernous sportsbar is nearly packed on a Tuesday evening during February 2018.
Alongside its national standard fare such as BJ’s Blonde, Piranha Pale Ale, Harvest Hefeweizen, Jeremiah Red and Hopstorm IPA are homemade root beer, cream soda and ciders.
My wife enjoyed Harvest Hefeweizen, a spritzy stylish moderation with lemony banana-clove-bubblegum conflux gaining herbal hop resin above vanilla-creamed sourdough flouring.
I downed light-tongued Tatonka Stout, an éclair-headed black chocolate-y dark ale with creamy coffee nuttiness and dried cocoa resilience given a lightly creamed nitro feel.
During December ’22 Sunday dinnertime perusal, enjoyed fruit-spiced Belgian winter celebrator, Grand Cru, a subtly complex nightcap with burgundy-wined dried fruiting, sweet banana bubblegum sugaring and orange marmalade tartness given mild botanical herbage as well as proper phenolic alcohol astringency.
BJ’s light pub menu includes pasta dishes and entrees as well as its well-known pizza.
During early October ’24 Indian Summer revisit, discovered two nitro dark ale variants and one rewarding IPA.
Briskly hop-forward India Pale Ale, Hopstorm, allowed floral-perfumed pine resin to seep into dry lemony grapefruit rind and orange pith bittering over sugary pale malts.
The nitro version of PM Porter retained silken creaminess as wood burnt dark-roast hop char grazed nutty coffee and black chocolate bittering.
Perhaps even better, Tatonka Stout – Nitro loaded sweet chocolate onto walnut-hazelnut coffee and bruised black cherry.
I returned one month hence to help BJ’s celebrate its silver anniversary with premier limited edition 2024 variant, 25th Annual Grand Cru. A Jamaican rum-spiced fruiting brightened the frontage while fungi botanical herbs fluttered thru banana puree, lemon meringue, Amarena wild cherry, orange liqueur and melon ball pleasantries.