Beer, Wine & Spirits in Kings Park

Bitter & Esters brew maestros shepherd beer aficionados 21 and older through the basics of crafting their own libations during the two-hour introductory brewing courses. These knowledgeable instructors sprinkle their lessons with useful tidbits as their students immerse themselves in the process, communally brewing a bubbly batch of hops-laden liquid like witches on Super Bowl Sunday. Classes cover need-to-know facts about extracts, malts, grains, and yeasts as well as common trouble-shooting methods for when batches go awry. The hands on lesson includes all the necessary ingredients and reference materials required to whip up a hearty brew, with starter kits available for purchases if students want to continue fashioning beer in their home or underground speakeasies. Classes conclude with students sampling the fruits of previous home brewed labors, opening their taste buds to all the different possibilities craft beer making affords.

Little Town NYC unabashedly hearts New York. Of its three restaurants, two are located in iconic Manhattan spots: one in Union Square, the other on Theater District’s Restaurant Row. Little Town’s fancy for the Empire State shines through on the menu, too, with homestyle dishes such as the Adirondack chicken pesto and an Angus beef burger topped with crispy Berkshire bacon. The Suburb Backyard BBQ platter is piled high with enough buffalo wings, Nathan's hot dogs, and other locally inspired fare to feed a family of four.

Little Town NYC also takes great pride in its beer list, which features more than 100 local brews, including IPAs and amber ales that hail from breweries in Long Island, Ithaca, and Saratoga Springs. At the Restaurant Row location, you can enjoy a pilsner from Coney Island while sitting in a booth constructed from the beach’s old wooden boardwalk.

Soft candlelight illuminates the pistachio-green walls and minimalist decor of The Grill Room, a Zagat-rated, Manhattan-style restaurant that draws on pancontinental influences to craft its menu of New American fusion fare. While guests mingle over plates of chili-rubbed pork tenderloin and hearty Black Angus new york strip steaks, bartenders fill martini glasses with violet, green, and marbled cocktails and shake classic gin martinis to crystal-clear perfection. In the kitchen, Executive Chef Miguel Berrios oversees the creation of delicacies such as tuna tartar, Prince Edward Island mussels, and hibachi ribs. While the weekend crowd awaits tastings of his latest masterpiece, jazz musicians set up on the stage and prepare to regale their audience with saxophone solos, walking basslines, and crooning recitations of the bar’s daily specials.

Pour the Core: A Hard Cider Festival celebrates the revival of hard ciders and perries brewed from apples and pears. For the festival, the tree covered-landscape just outside of Peconic Bay Winery in Cutchogue fill with more than 30 local and international ciders including Peconic Bay Winery’s True Believer, Angry Orchard, and Magners from Ireland. Seminars teach patrons about all the ways to use versatile cider, from stirring into cocktails to mixing up in cupcakes and pork shoulder. A How to Make Hard Cider seminar demonstrates how to brew hard cider from nonalcoholic cider at home, covering the entire process from picking the right apples to forcing carbonation back into the opened bottles.

A centralized kingdom of beer, Shoreline Beverage stocks hundreds of bottled brews from international and domestic brewers including the West Coast's 21st Amendment, the classic downtown McSorley's, and the Scottish Innis & Gunn. Sip on styles ranging from double IPA to chocolate bock to the ever-popular foamy. Additionally, an ever-changing assortment of sudsy libations pour daily from Shoreline Beverage's tap and into customers' empty growlers or eagerly cupped hands. Beer enthusiasts wax sentimental over sips of Chelsea Sunset Red ($14.99) or hoard freshly-poured pints of Blue Point Golden Ale ($9.99), while teetotalers find joy in the glistening, bubbly jewels of Shoreline's soda and soft-drink selection.