But I went to the same festival last year, and to the Philadelphia Craft Beer Festival earlier this year, and this year’s Manayunk Brewfest was going to be more of the same local breweries. Which are all well and good. But New York offered me a fresh batch of small brewers to sample, and besides, even down at the foot of that hill, I could still hear my kitchen taunting me from up on high. I had to leave the state altogether. So with my beer appetite and my digital cam’ra in tow, we set off.

The drive up to Hunter Mountain in the Catskills was worth the trip in and of itself. I am a guy who loves a road trip, loves moving through the countryside just for the sake of it, loves seeing the oncoming Pennsylvania spring fade into a lingering New York winter as the altitude and latitude increase, loves the transition from the broad, fast, anonymous speed of I-87 to the intimate, intriguing mountain windings of routes 32A and 23A.

After a car-commercial of a drive through the Catskills, you pass through the town of Tannersville, a quaint if somewhat deliberate little village with a false-fronted main street of bistros, ski shops and the like, painted anachronistic yellows and blues, with the trails of the Hunter Mountain ski area looming directly above. The streets were busy with a procession of cars, but we were mostly passing through. Just a mile or so on, you make a left off the road, across a small bridge, and then it's up into the parking lot of the ski lodge. Stepping out of the car, it's twenty degrees colder than in Philadelphia, and the sound of the city is nowhere to be heard. Ahh….

Upon entry, we received a neat little beer passport in which we could keep track of our tasting exploits. Also included was a checklist of all the beers being offered. Very useful. There was even a contest—anyone who tasted from all the present brewers could put their passport into a drawing. The winner was allowed to carry out as much beer swag as he/she/it could carry. Kristen and I put in a valiant effort, but with only one day, and a four hour drive back that evening, tasting everything was not realistic.

I see the whole point of attending such a festival to be the expansion of my beer horizons; to try new things, new brewers. I think my mission was accomplished — of the thirty-two brewers in attendance, I had only heard of ten. Twenty-two new breweries and a nice Sunday drive to boot! And not in my kitchen! My wife and I passed a lovely day strolling, sipping moderately, grazing on the free food that was out (a sampling, in ascending order of what you should have tried: pizza, hot dogs, brats, meatballs, cheesecake—of which I will speak more in a moment—, pate de campagne — which almost made my head melt it was so good...maybe the tastiest thing I consumed all day), and discussing — and trying to definitively prove or disprove — Eric Asimov’s occasional comments that a not-ignorable percentage of beer festival attendees are socially awkward middle-aged men with goofily-sloganed tee shirts doing their best to contain actively amorphous bodies, who have unkempt facial hair and bad haircuts (disclaimer here…Mr. Asimov is probably my favorite beverage writer, unless of course Mr. Hieronymous is reading this).

They were there. They exist. I’m not one of them, of course. But there were also families there, enjoying the time together, everyone from a baby that there’s just no way wasn't prematurely born and still was only slightly larger than a football, to a kid that, for a nap, was relegated to his mother's arms because the stroller the father was pushing was filled with beer swag, to two parents hanging out, drinking, and generally getting along pretty well with two early-twenties daughters. There were, of course, a few people stumbling around with a seriously severe case of the Beer Guzzler's Squint, but all in all, this was a pretty moderate party.

In fact, that was one thing that was so enjoyable about the day. There was actually floor space to walk around in. I never once had to draw in my elbows to squeeze between two people. No one bumped into in, spilling beer, then looking at me long and hard not because they were angry, nor because they blamed me, but because their neurons were struggling triumphantly to overcome an aggressive tasting pace and an unanticipated physical obstacle (me) to solve the problem of why, exactly, they are on the verge of tipping over. I hardly even had to wait in line for any taps - even the popular ones like Ommegang or Brooklyn. It was a perfectly dense crowd. Happening, but chill. Perfect.

One of the benefits of having a sparser crowd is that you get to chat with people. Famous people, even. Garrett Oliver of (obligatory explanation) Brooklyn Brewery was there to speak about food and beer pairings, serving up a cheesecake (artfully presented on half a graham cracker rather than with a crust) with his Black Chocolate Stout. The pairing was quite nice, especially with Mr. Oliver skewering everything from mass market beer to Twinkies and Wonderbread for not really being food. What I love about Mr. Oliver is that he has a very holistic view of food and drink; he is not arguing for beer over wine, but for both beer and wine — he acknowledges them on an equal and critical footing. Since we need to put food and drink into our bodies to live, we could equate food and drink with life, and Mr. Oliver’s view — a view that is certainly not his original thought by any stretch — is that a more enjoyable, deeper experience with food leads to a more enjoyable and deeper experience in life. I’m glad I had some cheesecake and Black Chocolate Stout to toast that thought with. Later on, Mr. Oliver took the time to sign a copy of his book for me and Kristen, and we chatted for a few minutes about how we each learned to cook with beer (both triumphs and mistakes were mentioned; please don’t ever try to make a quick reduction sauce with something like a stout; please don't ever try to make a hop-infused mayonnaise (well, ok, maybe if you add a bit of sugar to it, it might turn out. I'll have to try it again.)

Oh, wait…this was a beer festival and I haven’t talked about the beers. In a way, I was a bit disappointed with what I found. I guess I hoping to discover some little brewery I had never heard of that really blew my socks off, but I have to say I didn’t. I certainly didn’t have any bad beer — just a lot of beer that was very by-the-book. Maybe that was just a function of the beers I chose to taste: both the looming four-hour drive home and Lew Bryson share the blame for steering me toward the lower alcohol numbers while my wife took the passenger seat as a metaphor for a thorough examination of barley wines (new style for her) and IIPAs. All of the brewers I was most impressed by were the larger ones: Southhampton, Brooklyn, Blue Point, High Point.

The other day I was speculating that high-alcohol, high-IBU beers are the malt equivalent of "Parker wines," the ones that dazzle in tastings but can be a bit much when consumed at any length. Well, if that is the case, then TAP NY’s awards followed the trend toward a bigger/better correlation. The top two Hudson Valley beers were Lake Placid’s barleywine and Captain Lawrence’s IIPA. The best New York State beer was Southern Tier’s IIPA. Hops and alcohol! Unfortunately, none of these beers made it onto my tasting schedule, and even if they had, maybe I still would be loath to pass judgment.

Epilogue: Somewhere over the rainbow, there's a renovated kitchen.

On the way home we saw — no joke, no exaggeration — the most stunning rainbow I’ve ever seen in my life. Two arcs, horizon to horizon. And in New Jersey! Truly a sign that God loves us and wants us to be happy.