Flavors 518

A couple weeks ago I attended the Saratoga Wine and Food Festival with my friend Jessica who wrote about it on the Fussy Little Blog . Last week I attended the Capital Region Apple and Wine Festival with my husband, which was a very different event, and this weekend we did a little bit of wine tasting in the Hudson Valley. Here's what I have to say about all this. First of all, the Albany Chef's Food and Wine Festival in the winter is so great because you get to try so many different things ( here is my post from 2012 ). We first learned of All Good Bakers and The Hungry Fish there.  Because I was thinking of how much food you normally eat at the Albany food and wine event, I didn't eat breakfast before going to the Saratoga Wine and Food Festival. There were about 5 bites of food offered at the entire event and endless tables of wine. Now, maybe you shouldn't try so many things in this situation unless you want to get to a point where you announce to your friend...

Good to see Brown's opening a place with priorities that match my own: Brown’s co-owner Garry Brown has personally been leading the construction project since early last year. The pub and tapas bar will be for adults seeking a quiet, relaxed adult experience — no big screen TV sets blaring sports, no loud music, no flavored vodkas. What it will have is Brown’s own beers and ales on six taps and three beers from cask-conditioned gravity pumps, as well as some 30 scotches and 20 bourbons. And actually, the ban on loud music is more important to me than the anti-vodka bias.  There's nothing worse than sitting down with friends in a nice pub and then have them insist on playing music at ear-splitting volume even though there's no dancing.  At any rate, I'm sure we'll have a report soon...

With the closure of Mahar's , I've been looking for a place that had a similarly excellent beer selection and atmosphere.  I've been told mutliple times that the Bier Abbey was great, but hadn't made it.  On Sunday,  we happened to be visiting the Place Beyond the Pines to visit a friend who's a big fan, so we decided to finally check it out.  I can't really make this claim after only one visit, but I'm tempted to say it anyway -- this is the best beer bar in the capital region.   More importantly, the selection of beers is outstanding, comparable to Mahar's.  Also nice is that they offer 4 oz. pours, which allows you to try multiple offerings and still drive home.&nbsp. I had Southern Tier's sublime milk stout , poured at the perfect temperature, as well as Nøgne Ø's sweet and smoky Tiger Tripel , which I hadn't had before but was fantastic. Ms. Garlic tried the Elysian pumpkin, a good version although it's not my favorite gen...