Getting the flavor of ... New York state’s brew tours

New York state’s brew tours

Thanks to a batch of enterprising brewers, New York is “again relevant to beer drinkers,” said George Quraishi in National Geographic Traveler. In the late 1800s, “scores of small farms in upstate New York supplied more than 80 percent of the nation’s hops,” until they were “swallowed up” by Midwestern giants like Budweiser. Yet the area is now home to nearly 50 microbreweries, and the state’s tourism board has mapped out four pour tours, making it easier for tourists to taste local brews while taking in the fall foliage. Cooperstown Brewing serves up baseball-themed beers in honor of the city’s Baseball Hall of Fame. Brewery Ommegang is named after a festival in Brussels, celebrated here with quadruple ales and farmhouse saison in autumn and summer. “Raise a pint of Special Old Bitter and toast” Franklin Roosevelt at Hyde Park Brewing, which sits across from the president’s maple-lined estate. “You might want to thank him for ending Prohibition,” as well.

Contact: Iloveny.com/brewerytrails

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Where Utah’s buffalo roam

I couldn’t help but feel like Buffalo Bill Cody, said Hugo Martin in the Los Angeles Times. There I was in Utah, saddled up on a horse and steering hairy, hulking beasts across flat fields as part of Antelope Island’s annual Bison Roundup, which takes place from Oct. 31 to Nov. 1. With nearly 250 bison ahead of me —“a woolly, snorting blanket of black shoulders and rising dust”—I could have been a pioneer traversing the Wild West. All it took was a $25 fee—and, of course, enough endurance to handle “freezing temperatures, choking dust clouds and sore keisters.” Each morning of the three-day adventure, I woke up to the breath of these ­massive creatures, dissipating like “steam in the chilly morning air.” The “sheer size” of these surly animals, which can stand as tall as 6 feet, was something to behold. As we wrangled in more, our herd growing to nearly 600 bison, I stared in awe at “this iconic symbol of the American West.”

Contact: Stateparks.utah.gov/roundup