Weekly notebook: A great flight in Irondequoit

A hop-free flight at Irondequoit, a new alternative from Lagunitas, and incredible lagers at Frequentem

Hi, welcome to another week of the Cleveland Prost!

As I learn more and more about this format (and formula) for delivering beer news, I’m gonna experiment a few more times with finding the right balance of news, analysis, and curation.

So this week, we’re gonna roll out a notebook, where I highlight a few items that stood out to me over the past weeks and then close the newsletter with a roundup of links and events. If you dig this format, please lemme know.

A satisfying flight at Irondequoit Beer

Since becoming Irondequoit’s first and only brewery in fall 2019, brewers Nate Kester and Bobby Baker have earned a reputation for variety, crafting approachable beers that appeal to a wide audience at Irondequoit Beer Company.

I’ve discovered that married life is about finding those few spare moments when you can sneak in an impromptu date. So after work and before we had to pick up our son from daycare, Cass and I snuck in a quick date at IBC. The brewery always features a diverse draft list. But I was ecstatic to see I could order a four-beer flight without IPAs or fruited sours. My flight featured a Belgian dark strong ale, a witbier (made to benefit Ukraine), a Dortmunder export lager (which still stands as one of my favorite local lagers), and Doppelbock. And just lemme say, Bobby and Nate’s Doppelbock, lovingly called Liberator, stands as one of the best domestic examples of the style I’ve had. Plus, the food menu features a lot of unique snacks.

Related (from the D&C): Irondequoit Beer Co. opens at I-Square, becomes the town’s first brewery

Sparkling hard teas from Lagunitas

We’re nearing 4/20, which means it’s customary to seek out the Lagunitas Waldos’ Special Ale, the deceivingly dank and drinkable triple IPA. But like it has done with its Hoppy Refresher, the non-alcoholic dry-hopped seltzer, Lagunitas is releasing another innovative beverage: a low alcohol spiked hard tea called Disorderly TeaHouse.

Upstate Lagunitas sales rep Deron Weet, one of the nicest folks in local beer, dropped off some samples last week. These little delights are incredibly tea-forward (as they should be), super refreshing, and finish very dry. They present a nice alternative to hard seltzers (which appear to be slowing down) and are currently available at various spots in the area. Deron said they’ll be making their way into Wegmans in the near future.

Two (!!) black lagers at Frequentem

Frequentem Brewing, right on Main Street in Canandaigua, has quickly become of the area’s best breweries. I’ve yet to be disappointed on a visit here. From vibrant fruited sours to expressive IPAs, Frequentem pretty much nails every style. Among the truly nerdy, Frequentem has gained attention for its work with traditional styles and lagers. And unexpectedly, its Black Lager is the most beloved. A week or two tback, Audie and I visited to scoop up some of the newest batch of Black Lager and its oak-aged counterpart. It was insanely cool to compare and contrast the stainless fermented version of the beer and the one that sat in an oak foeder for months. It shows the type of patience and attention to detail you’re unlikely to encounter at a lot of places. If you find yourself in Canandaigua, one of our favorite loops is stopping at Naked Dove to sample the best German, malty and dark beers in this area and then finishing our visit with a stop at Frequentem.

Related (from the D&C): Frequentem transforms former Byrne Dairy space into bright, airy downtown Canandaigua brewery

Weekly roundup

• Nine Spot Brewing, which I highlighted last year for the D&C, is making progress on its buildout on Monroe Avenue. The folks at Nine Spot have a uniquely New York outlook and will join a bustling downtown-adjacent neighborhood with access to Strangebird, Roc Brewing, and other destinations. Super, super excited for this space.

• 490 Farmers is one of those unheralded groups in Rochester working diligently and tirelessly to make the city more equitable and fair. It seeks to “build community, provide land access, and address food insecurity through urban agriculture,” according to its website. The organization has teamed with civic-minded Heroes Brewing and will release an Earth Day-inspired gose on Friday to benefit 490 Farmers.

• Jake Dummer, head brewer at Webster’s Knucklehead Craft Brewing, specializes in balance. It’s one of the reasons I love his Cobbler beer series. Knucklehead’s latest, a Blackberry Cobbler, drops Wednesday.

• Three Head Brewing’s latest release is both its biggest and smallest in quite some time. Known for its Kind family of IPAs, 3HB releases its Tiny Kind Session IPA this week. The beer is designed to compete in the ultra-competitive session beer category. I’ve yet to try to big batch, but if it’s as good as the pilot batch, we’re all in for a treat. We might have our new summer go-to 12-pack.

See y’all next week (or maybe again later this week if I find time to bang out another travelogue).