only in ny #6: good beer nyc.

  

snack: roni-sue's beercorn
drinks: founders double trouble ipa / bear republic racer 5 ipa / 21st amendment fireside chat / captain lawrence espresso stout

today i'm going to take you on a JOURNEY INTO THE PAST, a journey to a simpler time, a time before nyc was turned all willy-nilly upside-down by SNOWPOCALYPSE 2010. this time was back in mid-december, the day after i complained on this here blog about my difficulty in finding a reliable companion for a trip to good beer nyc, a relatively-new beer store in the east village. third time's a charm or some crap, so that very same night, as i wrote of the second companion fail, i put out a desperate call on the facebook for a new companion & ms adrienne, the lovely lass who also accompanied me to bierkraft last february for the inaugural edition of this here neglected "only in ny" column, answered the call. the very next day we found ourselves at good beer nyc.

why was i so intent on visiting good beer nyc for blogging purposes? as far as stores with a good selection of craft beers in manhattan below 14th st, there's basically the whole foods beer room, which is good but, well...whole foods & new beer distributors, which friggin closes at 6pm every day except for sunday, when they aren't open at all. sure brooklyn's got their fair share of good places, but manhattan is seriously lackin'. it's sad, really. then along came good beer nyc, which first opened back in mid-november. it's open every single day of the week & on six of those days, it's open til 10pm. in my opinion, it's one of the best options in the city for craft beer, so i figured i should do my part to spread the word.

it's QUITE crazypants. there are a few shelves of beer near the front of the store & then one whole side of the place is lined with coolers full of different beers from around the u.s. & the world. according to david, the friendly dude who owns the place, they currently carry 450 beers but plan to eventually expand this selection to 900 beers. they've also got a dozen beers on tap, so you can bring home a growler of something tasty or grab a pint ($6) or a flight (4 for $8) & sit at one of the few tables in the back. there's not much in the form of atmosphere at those tables (it has about the same charm as a church basement), but it's sufficient.

since they have those few tables, they've also got an adequate snack menu that's headed up by a meat plate, a cheese plate & a combo plate. there's kielbasa & vegan sausage. there's a treat called a "hot rod," a pretzel rod dipped in some sort of chili-chocolate concoction. for our snack, we opted for a bag of roni-sue's beercorn, a high-class version of crunch n munch made by nyc's roni-sue's chocolates. it's a "beer & pretzel caramel corn with candied mustard seeds" & at good beer nyc, it's available for $6 as both part of their snack menu & in bags available to purchase & bring home with you.

ain't nuthin wrong with crunch & munch, especially when it's all fancy & stuff like the roni-sue's beercorn is. it's made with locally grown popcorn, martin's pretzels, cultured butter, pure cane sugar, agave, beer syrup, malt syrup, sea salt & candied mustard seeds. the pretzels? awesome. the caramel corn? awesome. the candied mustard seeds? also awesome but we did have a tense, thirty-second moment involving them, as ms adrienne bit into a handful of the beercorn & swore that she'd knocked out one of her fillings. luckily, it was just candied mustard seed flavor exploding in her mouth. we had a hearty chortle about that one.

what goes better with beercorn than beer, right? we decided to sample from the dozen taps with a four-beer flight made up of cute lil 4 oz glasses of founders double trouble ipa, bear republic racer 5 ipa, 21st amendment fireside chat & captain lawrence espresso stout...two light beers & two dark beers. the founders double trouble ipa is a double ipa, but it's not overly hoppy. in fact, it has a slight fruitiness to it. the bear republic racer 5 ipa was very similar to the founders but a little more hoppy. the 21st amendment fireside chat is an old wintry favorite of the blog & if my memory serves me correctly, it was ms adrienne's favorite of the four. my favorite was the captain lawrence espresso stout, which has hints of coffee, roasted malt & chocolate. it's just plain yummy.

so yeah...the beer selection at good beer nyc rules, as did the one snack that we tried. as a place to hang out though, it's pretty meh. still, on that particular evening it worked out just fine. we hung out there for another pint before going to the body shop for xmas shopping & then heading to V bar & cafe, where we met up with a few other folks who proceeded to eat the leftover beercorn i'd brought home with me for later. at first, i cried a little bit inside when they did so, but then decided to just chill about it when i realized that it just meant that i had to go back to good beer nyc for more...& since then, i have.

good beer nyc, 422 e 9th st, manhattan, 212-677-4836