HUDSON, NEW YORK
Entering thru a side entrance and up the stairs to a spacious beergarden across the multi-floored blue grey barn house, Hudson’s UNION STREET BREWING COMPANY, a converted 1930’s warehouse, features a black sillstone-topped bar with dual draught stations, high ceilinged wood beams, exposed rafters and piping, porcelain-styled concrete floors, a few community tables and wall-paneled benches.
Opened for biz July, 2023, Union Street spreads to the lower level, where a couched billiards room opposes a light lounge space. Brewer Keir Hamilton (formerly of Sixpoint/ Alewife) and owners Emma & Paul O’Donnell enjoy crafting ‘hop-forward’ ales alongside pleasantly understated beers (many distinctly Euro styled). Light pub cuisine went well with the approachable suds.
At noontime on a Sunday in November ’24, the black patio-furnished beergarden fills up with local families while my wife and I consume ten tidy treats at the plastic-stooled bar.
Floral lemon spicing received brusque IPA-fruited bittering (grapefruit rind, orange peel, pineapple) for sharper-than-expected German pilsner, Ten Days Of Perfect Tunes, countering its grassy hop astringency with biscuity pale malts.
Stylish banana-clove sweetness embraced the oaken vanilla-dried green grape esters of Weizenfelder, a slightly soured hefeweizen.
Zestful dry-hopped Citra-Mosaic combo powered hazy IPA, Planning An Escape, letting sunshiny lemon brighten salty gooseberry-guava tartness, yellow grapefruit bittering and mandarin orange tang atop creamy oats.
Classic West Coast-styled IPA, Tread Lightly, retained dry citric pined identity as grapefruit-peeled orange rind bittering gained candied pineapple-tangerine tartness given waxy perfumed pine needling.
Utilizing Simcoe, Amarillo and Cashmere hops, dryer west Coast IPA, Cancelling Plans, sank dank pine resin into lemon-seeded grapefruit bittering over lightly honeyed malts.
Briny lemon pith bittering circled orange peel sweetness in a musky fungi setting for In The Intern, a lightly meringue-creamed saison.
Oaken white wine-barreled ‘mixed’ saison, The Sun Is Getting Heavy, dispensed buttery Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and honey mead wining for its earthen barnyard-dried pilsner malt rusticity.
Zesty orange peeled coriander spicing and grains of gingery paradise paced boozy (9.3% ABV) tripel, Superbier, spiked by rum-sugared banana, buttery Chardonnay, lemon curry and dried cherry.
Casual dark mild, A Winter’s Moon, a classic Brit session ale, let nutty burnt coffee seep into peat-smoked dark-roast hop char.
Dark-roast chicory coffee and dark cocoa enabled embittered black malts to infiltrate dry coffee stout, The Grind Never Stops, today’s final libation.