Ballpark Beer Review: Citi Field
I left New York for California in the summer of 2010, and though New York City is the best city I’ve ever lived in (compared to Negril, Hamburg, Atlanta, Mountain City (population 2500ish), Vero Beach, Boston, Palo Alto, San Francisco, London, Jersey City, and Menlo Park in that order), I don’t rue the move too terribly. Weather is only part of the reason — Beer figures in greatly too.
11 of the top 50 craft breweries (by volume) were in California last year, and if you pushed it out to 100, you might see even more of a share for this great state. San Diego seems to pump out a new craft brew prospect with upside every year. It was named the best beer city in America by Esquire last year. And home brewing is rampant here, where the weather is ideal for ales, and more people have garages with space for all the trappings.
So maybe it’s no surprise that three of the four California ballparks I’ve visited — AT&T and PetCo parks in particular — blow Citi Field’s beer selection out of the water. It may not even be the fault of the planners, it may just be a fact of geography.
Here’s the list of all the beers available at Citi Field, provided by Amazin’ Avenue’s Rob Castellano after he toured the stadium’s (high quality) food offerings. Here’s that same list with all the brews by big beer companies removed:
Blue Point Lager
Blue Point Summer*
Blue Point Toasted Lager*
Blue Point White India Pale Ale*
Brooklyn Lager
Brooklyn Pennant Ale
Goose Island 312 Wheat Ale
Goose Island Honker’s Ale
Goose Island India Pale Ale*
Goose Island Sum Blond Ale
Kona Longboard Lager*
Leffe Blond
Leffe Brown
Leinenkugel Summer Shandy*
Leinenkugel Sunset Wheat
Magic Hat #9
Ommegang Abbey Ale
Redhook ESB Ale
Redhook Long Hammer India Pale Ale
Redhook Pilsner
Sierra Nevada
Six Point Sweet Action*
Victory Prima Pils
Widmer Drifter Pale Ale*
The list looks more impressive than it is in practice. Of the asterisked beers, at most half of them are available at any one time, in the three craft beer stands near sections 105, 127 and 413. And most of the other beers are available at one stand across from the Shake Shack past center field.
Of these beers, only Blue Point, Brooklyn, Ommegang and Six Point are New York beers. Blame the weather or the antiquated liquor laws, but that’s not a huge selection of local craft brews.
It’s not all New York’s fault. Look at the top beers brewed in the state (bottom list), and you’ll see that there’s Southampton Publick House, Captain Lawrence, Southern Tier, Ithaca Beer, and Shmaltz making high-quality brews in the state. And it’s a tri-state region! Craft beer is “finally” taking off in New Jersey — Citi Field could offer beers from Triumph, Flying Fish, Alba, Kane, High Point, River Horse, and Iron Hill brewing companies.
But it doesn’t.
New York City has Bierkraft, Rattle n’ Hum, d.b.a, Blind Tiger Ale House, Lucky Dog, Spuyten Duyvil, Jimmy’s No. 43, The Diamond, The Pony Bar, Valhalla and many many other beer bars that are world class. Citi Field has three stands and a Beers of the World hut featuring, almost exclusively, beers distributed by Anheuser Busch. Maybe it’s not terrible — most beer fans will find themselves a beer they like — but it doesn’t stack up with the best in the business.
Perhaps the field could take some lessons from the city.
Whoa whoa whoa… whoa…….. whoa……… whoa………
Finally taking over in NJ? Please. NJ’s been making craft beers for as long as San Diego’s been making craft Meth.
Problem is a lot of them are in the dirty Philly area of Jersey.
A nice fresh Prima Pils sounds like a delicious treat on a day game to me. If they had a nice west coast style IPA to back it up I certainly wouldn’t complain about that beer list.
couldn’t agree more. prima pils is shockingly good pilsener.
All of Victory’s beers are shockingly delicious.
Those Beers Of The World stands are like the sampler 12 packs your aunt who knows you like beer might give you. Heineken, Corona, Becks, Stella Artois, etc. Bleah.
Even so, the only different thing I can remember from YS III trip was some watery Czechvar. It used to be vendors would bring Pilsner Urquell around in the 2nd incarnation, and I began to think civilization was finally coming around a bit. But don’t you think the demand for what you seek is really not there? Have other parts of the country really caught up with the profile of craft brewing in California, Washington and Colorado? Too many fans don’t really know they would probably like the taste of craft brewed ales for a buck more, and just get lite beers. I really do think if each level had a craft brew vendor walking around, it would open things up a lot, as people would just try new things. With more breweries canning, it could happen more easily.
I also think if fans ask for particular beers the see in only one place, they can get improved selections in other areas of the park. In DC, they’ve snuck a few decent taps into the upper deck, where in the recent past, you had to go behind home plate or in the center field bar for the better stuff. But I think the local offerings are still slim and really just in one spot. It sounds like Citi has more than Nats Park (which isn’t saying much) and even recent trips to Camden Yards have also been disappointing, for a park that was out front in offering really good local stuff like Dominion, Blue Ridge, Wild Goose, Brimstone, Baltimore Brewing, many now defunct, but not replaced by similar quality. Since so many local craft breweries seem to be contract brewed elsewhere, it’s kind of deceptive anyway. If only Olde Heurich had stayed around long enough, there’d be a home for it now.
Actually, they’re all available. (and you’re missing some)
I love me some Pennant Ale. Sixpoint is also quality.
I’m just happy that you can get a Longhammer, or a Pennant Ale or SixPoint in Flushing.
The list is actually a lot more impressive than I would have thought, and blows the sixpack selection of the neighbourhood out of the water.
In my day you got Rheingold and were thankful for it.
Yeah, Prima Pils sounds good.
Blind Tiger is good, as is Pony Bar. I’ve hit those 2 recently. Gingerman in midtown, Mudville in tribeca, has some good choices, Copperfields on the UES. fact you can get anything like these at a ball game in Flushing is pretty good.
Maybe some day they’ll have a Zhukov Imperial Stout or an Old Rasputin (for a cold spring day. Or a Captain Lawrence Saison when it’s warmer, if you want a local.
They also have this small, local craft brew called Coors light.
Also, my favorite Citi Field alcoholic beverage is whatever I’m drinking on the 7 train to the game.
>>In my day you got Rheingold and were thankful for it.
+1
Love this article. Capt. Lawrence IPAD is the tits. YS and Citi need to go out and get more beers brewed in Cooperatown. Ol Slugger…mmmmmmm
Beer geeks: approaching wine geek territory (although the relationship is most likely asymptotic……..don’t give me the ammunition to think otherwise).
I started as a wine geek (actually I started as a cheap beer drinker, then Lancers, etc), but became a beer geek because really good beer is cheaper than really good wine generally speaking.
Drink. Michigan. Beer.
I’m from Michigan and I haven’t been terribly impressed with any specific microbrew. Recommendations?
If you get to claim “tri-state region!” because of NJ and CT being really close, then you don’t get to claim beers from upstate.like Ithaca Beer. Either respect arbitrary state boundaries or go with distance, not both.
Esquire doesn’t know what it’s talking about. San Diego has some great beer but nobody beats Portland, OR.
What in the hipster hell? Have I traveled back in time to the late 90s? Micro brews- the training wheels that prepare your palette for bourbon.
You might need to update the list depending on your criteria. Goose Island is owned by A-B and Leinenkugel is owned by Miller. Don’t know if you’re differentiating by “owned” microbreweries that still do their own brewing (to my knowledge Goose and Leine still do their own)
That blows my mind!
I think you have to differentiate. I know it’s easy to frown on these, but I think this is the best possible situation for Craft Beer. Gets good breweries like Goose Island mass distributed and available with little to no effort meaning they end up in more places. Plus instead of Big Beer looking to shun/hide/snub Goose Island they’re more looking to promote it. (Unlike Brooklyn, which was supposedly chased out of Citi Field)
The Craft Brew Alliance is a similar animal, although obviously not huge. (publicly traded though) That’s what distributes Kona/Widmer/Redhook, etc. If you look closely at the Kona bottle, it’s brewed in New Hampshire.