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Vaccaro is a pragmatist, and while the beers are a bit uneven, he doesn’t seem too concerned. “I just brew beer I like to drink and hope other people like it,” he says. “Start with a traditional product and give it your own twist. Extra Gold, for example, is brewed after a Belgian triple, then we dry hop it like an American IPA.”

KEY BEER

The bright, brassy 5.5% ABV Fresh Chester American Pale Ale has a solid New York area presence, but committed beer pilgrims will want to try and get their hands on something rarer like Vaccaro’s annual Smoke from the Oak release, generally a porter which undergoes extended aging in port, bourbon, red wine, or even apple brandy barrels.

DETOUR

THE BEST BEER LUNCH

IN AMERICA

Blue Hill at Stone Barns (restaurant) • 630 Bedford Rd.

Pocantico Hills, NY 10591 • (914) 366-9600 • bluehillfarm.com • Established: 2004

SCENE & STORY

Built amid soaring, remodeled 1930s stone buildings on what was once part of a Rockefeller family estate, the Inn at Stone Barns is more than just a restaurant; it’s the apogee of farm-to-table gastronomy in the New York area and maybe the entire United Sates. Simply put, together with his staff chef Dan Barber has created what has been called the most important restaurant in America, and thanks to the hard work of beer sommelier Michael Greenberg, it’s also an absolutely incredible place to indulge in a beer lunch for a very special occasion (starting at $85 per person, before drinks or gratuity). To get there you simply go to Grand Central, jump on the train to Tarrytown up the glorious Hudson Line, grab a ten-minute cab ride, and then, for most living persons, step off the face of the known culinary landscape.

There’s no way to predict what you’ll eat in the elegantly appointed, fifty-five-seat former dairy barn other than by glancing as you walk in at the list of what’s seasonal, which is going to be a long one, even in early December. One merely indicates any contraindicated foods in your diet and the rest is up to Barber and his band of thirty or so extravagantly talented chefs, who interpret vegetables, especially, with a creativity bordering on the gonzo, to do the rest. On the day I visited with a cousin we gazed out the windows at verdant farmland and meandered through at least twelve courses paired carefully with a half dozen beers, mainly from the immediate area.

Some of the edible, and imbibed highlights:

• tender micro vegetables (including beets, radishes, and carrots) garnished with ficoides glaciale (an ornamental edible from the southern hemisphere), and flakes of smoked Tuscan kale

• cloudy-blonde, 8% ABV saison beer from Brouwerij Hof Ten Dormaal, in Tildonk, Belgium, with wheaty notes of apricot, lemon, and black pepper

• “vegetable sheets” of liquefied and dried wheat, parsnip, and beet edible stained glass hung from little mini wooden clothesline clips

• Kelso Pilsner, Brooklyn, NY (infused with lemon verbena and Blue Hill Farm’s honey)

• a tiny “burger” of pureed, citrusy beets on a sweet minibrioche with sesame seeds

• a round of tastes of Kelso’s cocoa-powdery Chocolate Lager, spicy Christmas Ale from nearby Defiant Brewing Co., in Pearl River, New York, and Keegan’s superbly light and smooth Mother’s Milk Stout

• delicate brook trout with a spicy fall vegetable and Maine crab sauce

• homemade ricotta from Dan Barber’s farm in the Berkshires

• a deliciously herbal 7.4% ABV Saison Deluxe from Southampton Brewery

• tender pasture-raised venison tenderloin with Brussels sprouts and pistachios

• bread pudding in a mini cast iron skillet with house-made vanilla ice cream

Greenberg is truly a champion of the local craft beer industry, and he’s already ushering along the cultivation of at least nine varieties of hops on the property for future collaboration batches of beer. “If we’re not supporting these local brewers, and putting our money behind it, they’re never going to get to that point of the Schneiders or Rodenbachs of the world,” he says with typical generosity.