Rhinebeck, my adopted hometown and weekend destination of choice, is located about 90 miles due north of Manhattan. It’s idyllic in the summer, but it’s not exactly a beer-lover’s paradise. Supermarkets and gas stations carry your standard six-packs, but for something special, you gotta burn about 12.1 miles of petroleum on a journey to Discount Beverage Center in Hyde Park. As someone who regularly browses the “single and fancy” section of Whole Foods Beer Store for the novel odd bottle, this means finding a car, or spending a few days of relatively-uninspired beer quaffing. Enter Grand Cru Beer and Cheese Market. I stumbled upon this shop while stocking up on treats at the phenomenal Calico Bakery for a trip to my grandmother’s house, which is located somewhere in central Pennsylvania. In a very dry country where they don’t sell six-packs. You heard me. To buy beer, you must purchase by the case at a distributor, or suss out a bar which will sell six-packs of Bud, or maybe Yuengling, if you’re lucky.

I’d been pondering how and how much to stock up for the trip, so when I wandered past the barely two-week-old Grand Cru, I initially thought I was experiencing a case of very life-like wish fulfillment. Single-and fancy-looking bottles lined the walls, including one from Pretty Things, Saint Botolph’s Town Brown Ale ($7.50; read my review of their Fluffy White Rabbits Hoppy Triple). Saint Botolph’s was a dangerously drinkable, malty, roasty dark beer. It suffered from being too cold since I stuffed it in a freezer in effort to quickly chill it and promptly forgot while cooking memorial day tacos. Don’t freeze it unless you’re craving a brown ale popsicle. I also picked up an intriguing-looking porter from a Norwegian brewery called Nogne O ($8.75, 1PT .9 oz). This was a superb example of a pitch-black, chocolately porter with a foamy-milkshake head. Really a winter style, but one I could drink it all year long. Stone, Smuttynose, Delerium Tremens, and Anchor Steam were some of the other bottles I recognized in the shop, and if I hadn’t been in such a hurry to get on the road to PA, I would have gladly lingered over beer and cheese in their cafe area, or taken home a growler. If you’re in the area, and you like beer, your course of action should be clear.

Grand Cru Beer and Cheese Market
Sun-Thurs 10am-7 pmalthough they might be open later if people are hanging out in the the cafe
Fri-Sat 10am-9 or 9:30