Cooperstown Brewing Company

I thought I rated this place 5 years ago when I passed thru Utica. There was a little tasting room and gift shop at the back of the building. Had a sampler tray of beers and bought a T-shirt for Strike out Stout. (I wanted the one that talked about having balls, but my son talked me out of it) The bathroom had shelves with someones beer can collection in it. This place had charm!

4th visit over past several years. Even though they are down to only 4 regular beers to taste, the yalso had Shipyard Summer Ale; but the server would not give any (3 ounces) to me!!!!! I paid my $3 for 4 tastings; no one else in tasting room. Wow; very poor experience from past

This place has changed hands a few times in recent years. The brewery itself looks like an abandoned warehouse. They are supposedly going to give the place a huge makeover but as of now it looks pretty rough.

The beers aren’t even made here, they’re made by Davidson Bros and are brewed with nasty Ringwood yeast. Expect everything you drink to taste like butter from the diacetyl.

The taproom is rather small with only 4 beers on tap. A flight is only $3. You can pay $5 to take a tour of the brewery that isn’t even in production (can you say rip off?!)

Merchandise galore.

Perhaps they can revive this place from the dead (again), but if they’re going to brew bland British style beers that taste like butter I don’t see them lasting very long in this market.

Just a place to sample. Decent bar set up with a $2 fee for 5 samples. Samples in plastic cups. On this day, the barkeep was less than pleasant and seemed unable to make eye contact, let alone address new people coming in. Prices are decent. Would stop in again for the beer.

On my recent trip to Cooperstown NY, we stayed in the Town of Milford which is where this small brewery is located. The day we went the place was packed because there was a little league tournament going on and it was rained out. The place was so packed that the head brewer and older gentleman could not keep up with all the people. So, we didn’t get the guided tour like we had hoped for. However, the beer tasting was nice. You get to try all the beers for $3.00. And a few of them are nice. The Benchwarmer porter is my favorite.

I went for a visit after day 2 of my business trip to Cooperstown. It was near the end of the day and I was wondering if the place would still be open. I met two people in the tasting room who turned out to be the owner and the head brewer, and we ended up talking for about an hour while tasting beers. There is a nice display of old beer trays on the wall, along with a wide variety of shirts and other merchandise they have available for sale. I tasted all seven of their beers during my visit. I have to say these were some of the friendliest folks I have come across and I enjoyed my visit to the brewery very much. This would have been an ordinary place were it not for them.

This is a SMALL operation! When I got there the brewer was cleaning a tank and when I left he was cutting the grass! $2 gets you samples of all their beers (6 when I was there) and the samples are about 4 ounces so it’s a pretty good deal. Another $1 gets you the tour too but I had just missed the tour. You can see the entire brewhouse through a window in the tasting room / gift shop anyway. I found it kind of odd that they charged for the tour/tasting when Ommegang (5 minutes away) was free. I guess they are so small they are looking for every $ possible. Still, for $3 you can’t go wrong. You can buy their beer in bottles and growlers plus a large selection of pretty cool shirts and glassware. You can also buy their beers at the local grocery store but stop here first to sample everything. I was going to buy a variety 12 pack but after stopping here I decided against it. Nothing special enough to lug home.

We were greeted by a very friendly cat when we walked into this quaint little brewery. The place is small, and in a word rustic (in a good way), but the gift shop/tasting room area is pretty crowded, and the brewer who was helping customers seemed pretty gosh darned busy when we got in. Once people cleared out though he was a very friendly guy who took time talking about each and every beer he served us, and there was not a stinker in the batch. You had to drink out of plastic water glasses... which was weird, but the conversation and the beer certainly made up for that, not to mention that you got 7 samples for $2. Where else can you drink beer and have your tasting interrupted by a phone call from the Yogi Berra estate?

On the BCTC weekend, Sudnay morning we went here on the way home. Sign says tour times but there was nobody there. We hung out in the giftshop for a while until an older gentleman appeared and poured us some 1/2 inch samples. Outdoors doesn’t look like much and the inside was pretty quiet. Didn’t take much of a tour but had some samples with no explanation of the beer and we were on our way. If you are nearby check it out but not sure if its worth a trip all on its own.

Well I can say that this was really a fun stop in our visit to Cooperstown. The brewery looks dumpy from the outside, just an old warehouse. The inside isn’t much better but they do have some very friendly staff and great prices. As others have noted, just $3 gets you a tour of the brewery and a sample of everything they brew. The beer isn’t great, but it is good and the guys there seem to be very interested in talking about beer. It’s neat to see a small operation like this trying to make it in a huge beer world. Worth the stop for the experience, maybe not the beer.