A Hudson Valley Almanac day-trip guide
Ulster is where New York's craft-beverage movement actually began — the county's 25 cideries, breweries, distilleries, wineries, and meaderies outnumber every other county in the region, and its 2003 distillery is the reason a Farm Distillery Act exists at all. This is a guide to the whole county, cluster by cluster.
This is the deepest concentration in the county. Tuthilltown Spirits in Gardiner is the county's — and the state's — founding distillery, next to the historic 1788 Tuthilltown Gristmill. Nearby, Whitecliff Vineyard & Winery has planted and experimented with grape varieties for 30-plus years and won Best of Show at the 2010 San Francisco International Wine Competition, and Yard Owl Craft Brewery specializes in Belgian-style saisons, wits, and tripels. In New Paltz proper, Robibero Family Vineyards pours wine with Shawangunk views, New Paltz Brewing Company runs a German bierhall-style taproom for the SUNY crowd, Kettleborough Cider House makes dry, traditional-style ciders from heirloom apples, and Brooklyn Cider House at Twin Star Orchards brings Basque-style sidrería cider-pours to a 100-acre orchard.
Along the Hudson, Benmarl Winery in Marlboro holds NY State Farm Winery License #1 and grows America's oldest continuously cultivated vineyard, while Stoutridge Vineyard & Distillery makes "untouched" wines with no pumps, filters, or additions on a limestone ridge that's been a winery, and briefly a Prohibition-era bootleg still, since the 1800s. In Highland, Bad Seed Hard Cider ferments at the sixth-generation Wilklow Orchards and was the first American producer to can a genuinely dry cider, and Hudson Ale Works pours ten-plus rotating beers a mile from the Walkway Over the Hudson. In West Park, Coppersea Distilling floor-malts its own grain and ferments in open-top wooden vessels using techniques most distilleries abandoned decades ago, and The Hudson House & Distillery pairs small-batch spirits with river views from a restored 19th-century estate.
Keegan Ales opened in Midtown Kingston in 2003 — the same year as Tuthilltown — and its Mother's Milk chocolate stout became a Hudson Valley signature. Kingston Standard Brewing Company anchors uptown with a community-focused taproom that was part of the wave of openings that revitalized the city's craft scene in the late 2010s.
Arrowood Farms in Accord grows its own hops and rye on a working farm and anchors the Hudson Valley's farm-to-beer movement, and Westwind Orchard next door is a certified-organic cidery and Italian farm kitchen known for its rosé-style Rosato cider. Hudson Valley Farmhouse Cider works the orchard at Stone Ridge, and Rough Cut Brewing Company in Kerhonkson serves the crowds heading to Minnewaska and the Rondout Reservoir.
Baldwin Vineyards in Pine Bush is known for a signature strawberry wine and weekend strawberry-chocolate-and-wine pairings, Magnanini Farm Winery, Restaurant & Distillery in Wallkill combines estate winemaking with a full Italian dinner, and Enlightenment Wines in Clintondale is the smallest legal winery in New York State, making unfiltered farmstead meads and botanical fruit wines.
Up toward the Catskills, Catskill Mountain Moonshine in Saugerties distills traditional unaged corn whiskey on a NY State Farm Distillery license, Abandoned Hard Cider in Woodstock forages rare apple varieties from abandoned Catskill orchards, and Woodstock Brewing in Phoenicia pours hop-forward ales in a converted industrial taproom on Route 28.
The Gardiner-New Paltz cluster is tight enough to cover on foot or bike between stops, but the rest of the county spreads out — plan a river-towns day separately from a Rondout Valley day rather than trying to string all 25 together. Many of the smaller farm producers (Coppersea, Enlightenment Wines) keep limited or by-appointment hours, so call ahead. Bring a designated driver.
The full, filterable list lives on the Almanac: Ulster County craft beverages. For the region-wide picture, see The Hudson Valley Craft-Beverage Trail, and for a curated day loop through this cluster, A Saturday in the Shawangunks.
The county where the whole movement started, and it still shows.