A Hudson Valley Almanac day-trip guide
Five counties ring the top of the Hudson Valley — Saratoga, Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady, and Columbia — carrying 34 producers between them: spa-town brewpubs, Troy's 1993 riverfront pioneer, Albany's Warehouse District, and Columbia County's field-to-glass estates. This corridor traces a real historical thread too — much of it sits on the old Hudson-Berkshire Beverage Trail.
In the spa town itself, Druthers Brewing built the original brewpub location behind a hand-crafted iron gate off Broadway, Artisanal Brew Works runs a 10,000-square-foot destination founded by two former high school teachers, and Walt & Whitman Brewing pours out of the old Saratogian newspaper building. Just outside town, Dancing Grain Farm Brewery in Moreau is the county's only true farm brewery — 100% women-owned, growing more than 90% of its own ingredients — and Active Ingredient Brewing Company in Malta is run by two pharmacists applying lab-grade precision to the brewhouse. Round out the county with Common Roots Brewing Company in South Glens Falls, Saratoga Courage Distillery in Round Lake, Yankee Distillers in Clifton Park, Galway Rock winery in Ballston Lake, and Bound by Fate Brewing in historic Schuylerville.
Nine Pin Cider was New York's first farm cidery, and Albany Distilling Company was the first licensed distillery in Albany since Prohibition — both anchor the historic Warehouse District. C.H. Evans Brewing Co. pours from the former Quackenbush Pumping Station on the riverfront, and Druthers Brewing — Albany runs the chain's expanded second location in a 1901 warehouse. Just outside the city, Indian Ladder Farms Tasting Room in Altamont makes true farm-to-glass cider and beer on a century farm at the foot of the Helderberg Escarpment.
Brown's Brewing Co. has brewed on the Troy riverfront since 1993, one of the oldest continuously operating craft breweries in the state. S&S Farm Brewery in Nassau reborn a sixth-generation dairy farm's milk house into a working NY State Farm Brewery.
Frog Alley Brewing Co. anchors the redeveloped Mill Artisan District downtown, and Great Flats Brewing brews exclusively with New York-grown ingredients, its Lafayette IPA named Best IPA in the Hudson Valley at 2019 TAP NY. Wolf Hollow Brewing Company in Glenville is often called pound-for-pound one of the state's best. Round out the county with Mad Jack Brewing Co., tied to the historic Van Dyck music venue in the Stockade District, and Helderberg Meadworks in Delanson, with sweeping three-county views from its Meadhall.
This is the corridor's deepest cluster. Hillrock Estate Distillery in Ancram floor-malts its own estate-grown grain — the first U.S. distillery since before Prohibition to do so — and produces the world's first Solera Aged Bourbon. Klocke Estate outside Hudson distills brandy and vermouth from its own vineyards and orchards in a Cognac-imported still. Nearby, Olde York Farm Distillery & Cooperage runs one of the few on-site barrel-making cooperages in the eastern U.S., and Old Klaverack Brewery grows its own hops on-site. In town, Hudson-Chatham Winery was Columbia County's first winery (2007), and Suarez Family Brewery is widely called one of the best pilsner-focused breweries in the country. Elsewhere: Chatham Brewing, twice named Best Craft Brewery in the Hudson Valley; Harvest Spirits Farm Distillery in Valatie, one of the earliest farm distilleries under the 2007 act; Hudson Valley Distillers in Clermont; Tousey Winery in Germantown; Little Apple Cidery, a NOFA-certified organic orchard in Hillsdale; and Sloop Brewing @ The Barn in Elizaville, the original home of the Juice Bomb IPA.
This corridor spans real distance — Saratoga to Hudson is over an hour. Treat it as three separate day trips: the Capital cities (Albany, Troy, Schenectady), Saratoga and its farm breweries, and Columbia County's estates. Bring a designated driver.
Browse by county on the Almanac: Saratoga, Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady, and Columbia. For the region-wide picture, see The Hudson Valley Craft-Beverage Trail, and for curated day loops, A Saturday in Saratoga and A Saturday in Columbia County.
A pump station turned brewery, a barrel cooperage, a farm that grows 90% of its own beer — the corridor where it started for the Capital Region too.