The Bar Towel

If you're staying in or near Liverpool, you don't have to go far for good beer and food.

On 1st St, downtown Liverpool, there is the Limp Lizard - awesome craft beer selection and southern Barbecue menu.
Across the street is The Retreat; very popular, but without the great beer selection.
Behind the Limp Lizard, closer to the lake, is The Whitewater Pub - nice cozy pub

Make a point of going into Nicholl's Grocery store, also on 1st St.
They have a great selection of craft beer, at good prices.

wow, found this pic on nichols facebook page



sixpoint diesel 4 packs 3.99?!?!!?

Yeah mike we are down there this weekend. Sat-mon

Should let everyone know I was really disappointed with Nichol's Grocery. One small rack of craft beer, most was pretty dated. Picked up a six of Two Hearted. Would not recommend the trek out there unless you were staying next to it. Much better at Byrne Dairy which is the same area.

Ate at Empire, big recommend, food and beer were excellent.

Gordon Biersch at Destiny as well was good. Nice that you can shop while waiting for a table.

cfrancis wrote: Much better at Byrne Dairy which is the same area.

Ate at Empire, big recommend, food and beer were excellent.

Glad to hear Empire worked out well. I ended up going to Brilbeck's based on the recommendation of our server, and while I was relatively happy with my haul, the beers listed at Byrne seem a lot more interesting. I'll keep them in mind on future trips to the area.

party source on erie and the wegmans in Dewitt are the 2 best places for bottles in Syracuse imo

spinrsx wrote:party source on erie and the wegmans in Dewitt are the 2 best places for bottles in Syracuse imo

Check out Byrne Dairy…. and you can always hit Bear World in Watertown on the way in.

stopped in at bear world last week, so many out of date bottles. Founders Centennial dated June 2012! Plus the place is overpriced.

spinrsx wrote:stopped in at bear world last week, so many out of date bottles. Founders Centennial dated June 2012! Plus the place is overpriced.

I had the same problem when I went to Bear World in October. I think I picked up a bottle of the same batch of Founders. It was super frustrating. I sent a facebook message to Bear World and the manager said he was looking into it and pulling old bottles. He also said he was following up with his distributor (who he said was the source of the problem as he received his founders shipment with those beers this past summer). It is disappointing that this is still a problem. I also followed up with the breweries that I ended up with old beer from. Pretty much all of them were concerned about this (founders, Sierra Nevada and Victory). If you have time you should email them. The founders email is info@foundersbrewing.com. Hopefully if they get more complaints the brewers will take care of it.

I think from now on if I go to watertown I will either buy some more commercially available stuff (like the Sierra Nevada beers at Target) or bring a growler and get that filled at Bear World (since hopefully a keg would be less out of date than bottles).

that store just has too much beer for it's own good. And at the prices they sell it for, it doesn't turn over fast enough. They had 'close out prices' of sixpoint resin/self-righteous that expired in March. Why didn't they blow the stuff out in March/April instead of waiting until November?

Can they even do this? Shouldn't/doesn't old beer get sent back to the distributor?

spinrsx wrote:that store just has too much beer for it's own good. And at the prices they sell it for, it doesn't turn over fast enough. They had 'close out prices' of sixpoint resin/self-righteous that expired in March. Why didn't they blow the stuff out in March/April instead of waiting until November?

Can they even do this? Shouldn't/doesn't old beer get sent back to the distributor?

When I talked to the guy from Bear World about this he said that his distributor mostly focuses on beer from the big brewers and doesn't really have much interest in craft beer. When I was there I bought a bottle of Tumbler which is the Sierra Nevada fall seasonal. When I got home I realized it was from the 2012 release. I agree though that for a town the size of Watertown they are trying way to hard to have too much selection. When I was there it took me forever to find 12 mix and match beers that I wanted. There were tons I found that I wanted to get but expired in the summer. It was super frustrating, and my wife was getting annoyed since I was taking so long. Plus even after being what I thought was super careful 6 of my 12 beers were expired. Although to be fair 4 of those were Sierra Nevada beers with a date code that was not easy to figure out.

Not sure if they can do it or not. I think part of the problem is the distributor doesn't care. I mean when I was there in October, they were closing out a bunch of the summer seasonal beers. Which is nice, but why are you discounting those beers when there are beers from 2012 on the shelf.

The breweries do seem to care. I emailed Sierra Nevada after posting on their facebook page about this problem. They told me they are committed to only selling fresh beer, and will only ship to distributors that have refrigerated trucks and storage areas. You really should email (or post to facebook) any of the breweries where you saw this kind of thing. I mean if I was a brewer I wouldn't my product out there that was only really good a year ago, especially since so many US breweries focus on super hoppy IPA's. Hopefully if the brewers get enough complaints they can apply actual pressure to the people selling and make some changes.

The other crutch is if the retailer is failing to move the product then they probably won't see any more of the product. Why sell a product to someone with an expiry date if you know there is a good chance that they will not be able to sell it by the expiry.

I wouldn't be surprised if the owner is trying to hold on to the older stuff for fear of getting bumped off the distribution list.

Maybe he should scale back his selection and let it grow with the demand as more and more craft drinkers come to the dark side.

I was looking for the 2013 Sierra Nevada Beer Camp mixed pack 12-pack last week at Bear world.. they still had the 2012 version.. and still at $19.99.

I did the same thing at the mixed 6 wall.. kept finding beers I wanted to try, and then kept seeing that they were expired. Slow turnover had some benefits though - they still had some SN Bigfoot left. (at a bad price)

What are you doing driving 2 hours to buy Centennial when you can get it fresh here?

When in Wasserstad, buy fresh stuff (Enjoy By, etc) and big stuff (Speedway, etc), and leave the bad expired stuff to Watertoonians.

spinrsx wrote:I was looking for the 2013 Sierra Nevada Beer Camp mixed pack 12-pack last week at Bear world.. they still had the 2012 version.. and still at $19.99.

I did the same thing at the mixed 6 wall.. kept finding beers I wanted to try, and then kept seeing that they were expired. Slow turnover had some benefits though - they still had some SN Bigfoot left. (at a bad price)

spinrsx, you should total email sierra nevada about that. Of all the breweries I contacted about the bad beer at Bear World they seemed to be the most concerned. The even sent me PDF file with a calendar so I could know which seaosnal beers should be on the shelf when. There email is beer@sierranevada.com.