Horseheads Brewing Company

Full disclosure: this is my hometown brewery. However, it only opened three years ago, long after I’d decamped to New York City. Still, it’s literally two minutes’ drive from my mother’s house, so whenever I drive up to Horseheads, New York, I stop in at the tap room and pick up some beer to survive the visit to share with friends back home.

In addition to whatever seasonally-brewed beers might be available, I typically also pick up the year-round stuff. The two beers in this post represent polar opposites on the standard brewery’s spectrum of offerings. Sullivan’s Stout is brewed to be an American stout, rich and roasty, a bit of hop bitterness, and brewed by pretty much every small brewery at some point in their first couple of years. At the other end, we have Hot-Jala-Heim, Horseheads’ interpretation of an often-hideous brewing experiment, steeping hot peppers in the fermenting beer and attempting to get the balance between good beer and a hot, spicy bite right, so as not to cause rioting and mass defection among your brewery’s faithful drinkers.

Sullivan’s Stout is named after the Revolutionary War general, John Sullivan, who fought the only battle in the area and unwittingly gave Horseheads its name. As the tale reads on the mural just off Hanover Square in the town’s center, “In 1779 near this spot Gen. Sullivan disposed of his pack horses, worn out by faithful service in the campaign against the Iroquois in New York. The first white settlers entering this valley in 1789 found the bleached skulls and named this place ‘Horseheads’.” You, too, can visit the town and take pictures of this mural to show loved ones.

The Sullivan’s Stout pours an opaque, very, very dark brown — held to the light, it’s not actually black, though it may as well be — and kicks up a thick, dark-tan head. I pick up a faint roasted coffee aroma with the usual slightly-burnt character of heavily-roasted barley, fairly typical for the style. The taste is more rough roasted barley, and bitter chocolate flavors take a backseat to fresh espresso. The finish comes up dark chocolate, more than coffee. Overall, the body of the beer could be fuller, as all that roasted grain kind of makes it taste a bit astringent. But it’s a clean beer, devoid of any off-flavors or weird fruitiness I sometimes get from stouts. At 5.3%, this stout is perfectly sessionable, and my 22-ounce bottle never felt like it was too much beer. Like every bomber bottle I’ve purchased at the brewery, Sullivan’s Stout set me back less than $4, and a 64-ounce growler costs more like $8 (plus deposit, if you don’t have a growler to fill).

Then there is the Hot-Jala-Heim (“Beer with Bite”!). Sure, I get that the name is comprised of jalapeño and anaheim, the two peppers “marinated” in the fermenting beer so as to lend their considerable heat to the flavor profile. It’s an… unwieldy name. Anyway, soldiering on, I pour the beer. Hot-Jala-Heim looks lightly hazy, golden orange, and is topped by a thin, fizzy white head. The aroma of, well, jalapeño oil assaults my nose. as expected, but it’s not overwhelming, so kudos for keeping that in check. The hot chile pepper burn is certainly present in the flavor, but it’s mild initially on each sip, carried by what amounts to an inoffensive golden ale base beer — a little fruity, not hoppy in the slightest, sweetly malty, medium-bodied. The beer is meant to showcase how to properly use hot peppers to create a unique, if not poundable, beer. It checks in at 6.5%, so it’s on the strong side, not that you can tell amidst the peppery assault. As I continue to drink, however, the peppers start to lend more of a hot sweetness than a sharp punch of capsaicin, and truly, this is a pepper beer that I find myself quite enjoying. I just don’t get tired of the pepper burn, even through each long, lingering mildly-burning finish.

So there are two more reasons to visit beautiful, scenic Horseheads. If you visit the Horseheads Brewing webpage (and you’re being warned now to hit the wayback machine for 1995) you can check out the wide variety of beers brewed regularly. I’m a fanboy, it’s true, but even friends who have been coerced into drinking these beers with me come away rather impressed that such a small brewery is making such solid beers. In fact, at this year’s TAP New York festival, Horseheads Brewing came away with the award for Best Craft Brewery in New York State, so word is out! Since their beers don’t normally get close to the city, you’ll just have to drop by the next time you’re headed upstate.