By JACQUI COLT

COLUMNIST

    Hello friends!  Well, I do not know about you, but all of this talk of local veggies has been making me awfully thirsty. Let us talk about something truly wonderful:  DRINKING LOCALLY! There are a few options here.  We could take some of the veggies discussed earlier in this little ole column, shove them in a juicer and add…I don’t know, berries? Wow!  Yowee!  Let’s do that! 

     …Or we could not do that.  Instead, let us talk about beer. 

     I love beer.  I like to call myself an aspiring beer connoisseur.  Which means that my love of beer is tasteful and sophisticated.  Mhm yes yes quite.  Anyways, I have been hearing about and driving past North Country breweries for four years now and have vowed that I can not graduate until I check them all out. 

    So, on this stoic mission of mine, a friend and I stopped at Blue Line Brewery in Saranac Lake on Friday on the way home from Whiteface.  Perhaps you have seen it—tucked away sort of in the back left of the big plaza that has Casa del Sol in it.  We did not know what to expect when we drove in, as breweries can be anything from a squished tasting room with a few taps and a bowl of pretzels to a full-blown restaurant with live music. 

     The place looked pretty small at first, but then as we drove around the side seemed to grow progressively longer until it became clear that it was actually quite large.  The garage doors in the front and odd length made sense as we walked in and read the brewery’s tagline: “It’s still suds!”  Carwash!  A brewery that used to be a carwash.  I liked it. 

     We were also delighted, in post-skiing starvation, to see “pizza and pints” advertised.  The menu was pretty much exactly what you would want to see at a brewery, and really high quality—flatbread pizza, fresh baked pretzels, etc.  I was also REALLY delighted to see that the owners were total Boston sports fanatics (GO PATS!), which gave the place some charm.  The actual brewery was right behind glass next to the bar so, though we did not do a tour, we could see what was going on fairly well.

     As for the beer, the selection threw me off a little bit.  They had some interesting choices that aren’t exactly my thing: a blonde, a cream ale, and a scotch ale that I did not love.  The winner for me was definitely the IPW Red Rye, a fresh and flavorful pint that I would have had two of if I was not so “college kid broke”.  I would have loved to try one of their IPAs or the Oatmeal Stout, but the timing did not happen to be right—which, if nothing else, shows their commitment to cranking out small batches of fresh beer.  I would encourage everyone to stop by on the way home from the ‘Dacks one of these days!  They have frequent specials that you can check out on their Facebook page, Blue Line Brewery. Besides, when the hell else are you gonna find a brewery that used to be a carwash?  DRINK LOCAL!