Suarez Family Brewery Takes Lagers to the Next Level
In a handsome old brick building on a pastoral country road, Suarez Family Brewery is making destination-worthy beer. While many brewers of the moment are crafting heavily hoppy, dank IPAs, Suarez is taking a very different approach. They offer a couple of hoppy pale ales geared toward IPA drinkers, but the focus here is on crisp, classic beers. If you want to sample of the finest, freshest lager, pilsner, or kolsch, take Route 9 about 12 miles south of Hudson's city center, and get your NY State beer here.
The Suarez tasting room is open Wednesdays from 3-7 pm and Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, from 1-7pm. We were passing through on a blue-skied Thursday afternoon when we snapped these photos.
The tasting room, with plenty of communal seating, was quiet, sun-drenched, and peaceful.
We returned to a very different scene on the hazy Sunday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend. Every seat was filled, groups of friends and baby-wearing dads stood in huddles throughout the room, and a beer line snaked through the space.
From the beers on tap, I chose the Bones Shirt (4.7%), a malty, clean, and dry black lager with a foamy head (pictured above). We also tried the Palatine Pils (5.2%) a straight-ahead, super drinkable, grassy, summery golden pilsner.
We took home four-packs of the Fine Line Kolsch, a refreshingly perfect balance of malt and hops, and Qualify Pils, another smooth, clean, complex-yet-easy-drinkin' pilsner. When I asked Pete, my husband, if he'd add anything to my descriptions of the Suarez beers here, he said, "They're hard to write about. They're so well-made that they're just the essence of beer."
The Suarez Family Brewery Tasting Room is located at 2278 U.S. 9, Hudson, NY, and they recommend using Google Maps to find your way there, as many other GPS devices will steer you to the wrong place. They're open Wednesdays from 3-7 pm and Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, from 1-7pm.
