RIVERHEAD, NEW YORK
Inside a former firehouse two blocks from Riverhead’s Main Street, NORTH FORK BREWING COMPANY opened for business June 2018. Tucked into a tree-lined residential neighborhood, the white overhead-doored red brick station provides a diverse array of brews utilizing different hops and malts for each stylistically ambitious elixir.
Being a proud local farm brewery, North Fork utilizes many local hops (Nugget and Chinook) and grains to formulate their recipes. In five years, they’ve crafted at least fifty different one-off and recurring brews.
A lovely yellow and white bird/ eyed pyramid insignia near several plastic chairs and tables guards the green cement floored interior and a benched porch area outback adds extra seating. The plain white walls contrast well with the black ceiling. The black wood-topped, white-paneled, U-shaped bar with twelve tap handles distributes the nine available beers (including four divergent India Pale Ales) on my pleasant Friday afternoon journey, September ’23.
Brisk German-styled moderation, Hold Me Closer Tiny Lager, brought musky millet-grained pilsner malting to sharply soured lemondrop misting and dark floral nuances.
Smoothly crisp Ancho Chili Pils remitted a mild ancho pepper burn to lemony grain musk.
Lacquered peach sweetness guided honeyed wheat-fortified Lewin Amber Ale, picking up latent apricot, nectarine and pear illusions.
Spritzy spiced squash ale, Butternut The Hutt, allowed hand-roasted butternut squash to influence the mild crystal malt sugared pumpkin pie spicing.
Zesty dry-hopped NEIPA, Run The Juice, let salty yellow grapefruit juicing infiltrate pine needled minting and peppery herbage, gaining light mandarin orange licks.
Conditioned on OG Kush terpines, sticky cannabis-derived Da Can-Abyss NEIPA Version 2 retained a pineapple vodka kick and orange-peeled grapefruit tang to counter its light resinous pine bittering.
Spectral NEIPA, Juicy In The Sky With Paradigm, rushed Pina Colada-like coconut toasting and pineapple zesting thru peachy grapefruit tanginess, white-graped gooseberry souring and perfumed hop musk in a crystalline setting.
Mild lemony orange bittering contrasted peachy pineapple and tangerine tanginess for Shaolin Shadowboxer, an approachable Imperial IPA with humble herbal hops and dry pale malts digging into its tropical fruiting.
Maple syrup-infused Dark Side Of The Maple Porter secured a dry Irish stout template to sidle its molasses-like frontage, leaving dark roast coffee, black chocolate and hop-charred nuttiness in its wake.