A warm welcome to our most recent places on BeerMenus Chicago: Floyd's Pub, Moonshine, and Cafe Fresco.

A warm welcome to our newest places on BeerMenus SF: Manny's Tap Room, Napoli, The Rellik Tavern, Meridian, Fly Bar and Restaurant Divisadero, The Lanesplitter, and The Albatross Pub. Check them out and find some great beer.

Starting this week, Founders Brewing Company is available in NYC. Now we no longer have to make a trip over the border to track down these great beers. Find which places in NYC already have these beers here.

Check out these new places on BeerMenus SF! Cheese Plus, Mike's Liquors, New Star-Ell, Thirstybear Brewing Company, Fish, Cesar, Somar, and Cesar Latino. Many thanks to the San Francisco beer community for joining BeerMenus so quickly.

Prospect Heights' Brooklyn Beer & Soda just expanded their growler system to include 16 lines of local craft beers for growler fill. You can see their updated selection of growlers here. Some unusual local beers they have on tap now that I would definitely recommend checking out are the Sixpoint Gorilla Warfare Coffee Porter and the Defiant Porter.

This past weekend the Birdsall House officially opened in Peekskill, New York. With a focus on local beer and food, Birdsall House is a great addition to Westchester County's beer scene. On opening day, they were pouring beer from neighbors Captain Lawrence Brewing Company and serving food from their neighbors at Hemlock Hill Farms. From the BH blog: "In our quest to keep our food as local as possible, we visited Hemlock Hill Farms today to check out some local beef and discovered that all the cattle at Hemlock Hill is fed with the spent grain from Capatain Lawrence! Laura de Maria, who's family has farmed at this location since 1939, informed us that 'as Scott grows, we grow.' Meaning, the more beer CL produces affects the number of cattle that can be fed at Hemlock Hill. Cool, huh? Luckily, Scott is brewing at capacity and expanding." Now that, is awesome. While there I ordered the burger (photo below) with beef sourced from Hemlock Hills and this burger was reason enough to make the journey north and reason enough to give up being a vegetarian. In addition to their focus on local food and beer, the Birdsall House shows that they pay close attention to their draft system as documented in the blog. Below are a few photos from Saturday, a rainy day with a special visit from some bag pipers to celebrate St. Pat's.

Oh yeah, and of course check out the beer menu

Photos courtesy of Brendan McNamara

We are happy to see these new places on BeerMenus SF: The Page, NOPA, Bender's Bar & Grill, Lucky 13, Jupiter, Triple Rock Brewery & Alehouse, and Pyramid Alehouse. These places were generously added by beer drinkers who have helped the rest of us find some great beers. We encourage you to check out these places and let the managers know that they can take ownership of their page and update their menu themselves.

On April 1st, beers from Stone Brewing Company will officially be available in Chicago. You will find several launch parties around town in the events section and Greg Koch, founder and CEO of Stone will be making several guest appearances. I encourage you to make it out to these events and grab a pint of Arrogant Bastard with Greg as it has been known to be quite an awesome time (below Greg, my brother and I).

Last week I was able to take a tour of the Yards Brewery to see their brewing operation as well as their recently opened on-premise bar/lounge area. Looking to get the full experience, I ordered the two different flights they offer - the Revolutionary flight and the Core Ales flight. Each flight offers a spread of 4 small samples so you can try all of their beers without getting too rowdy. In addition to tasting all beers available at the brewery, they typically have a selection of breads made by Wild Flour Bakery. Yards and Wild Flour Bakery have collaborated to make a variety of breads using spent grains from various beers at Yards. I was able to do a flight of the Thomas Jefferson Tavern Ale, General Washinton's Porter, Poor Richard's Spruce Ale, and the Extra Special Ale paired with 4 breads made from the spent grains from each of those four beers. It was pretty unique enjoying the various grains in beer and bread form at the same time. Check out this picture of the pairing:



Spent grain



Seating



Photos courtesy of Brendan McNamara.

Rick Bayless, of Xoco, Frontera Grill, and Topolobampo, is collaborating with Greg Hall to create a beer meant to be paired with Mexican cuisine. "The goal is to make something that pairs with guacamole, ceviche and other starters." According to Hall, "It will have a lot of citrus -- an unusual citrus -- and be very bright with a forward spice character, but not heat spice." This beer is expected to be available this Summer, so stay tuned for this beer to appear in the New Beers section here on BeerMenus Chicago. Read more.

We’re excited to announce the launch of BeerMenus San Francisco!

A special thanks to the places that supported us before the launch:

Solstice Restaurant & Lounge
Magnolia Gastropub and Brewery
The Alembic Bar
Front Porch
Elixir
Red Restaurant and Bar
Rosamunde Sausage Grill
CreoLa
Fly Bar & Restaurant
Porky’s Pizza Palace
Fat Angel

Are we missing a great place? Let us know in the forums or add a beer menu

Please welcome our newest wave of places in Chicago: Courtright's Restaurant, Tommy Nevins Pub, Twisted Spoke, Duke's Bar And Grill, The Bank Restaurant & Bar, Smoke Daddy. As always, please thank them for providing better information on what beer they have.