I kinda liked Frontier Field. It was...quirky. It was also walking distance from the Dino BBQ. I also like Utica Club, and there's no harm in that...though there may be in most Gennessee products... At least they're not Schlitz. *gggrrrk* There are a lot of good lower tier beers. Too many to list, in fact. Also, Ommegang makes some good stuff. Not partial to Hennepin, but Three Philosopher's has been known to my liver on several occassions. I haven't been to PaeTec yet...but I promise I will, at some point this year.
There are pros and cons but my family and I will relocate to Rochester(Fairport Village) next summer and I am extremely glad that it is a soccer town! It may have its pros and cons but the best of all, I am soccer freak and loves good beers! Right now, I am living in Mobile, Alabama which is a BLACK HOLE of all places when it come to soccer because the American football is a GOD here. My friends and I went to a sports bar to watch USA play against Guatemala, we were the only ones watching and a couple guys attempted to have the waiter change the channel on large TV screen to something else because they found soccer so "unamerican" but my friend quickly yelled, "Don't you dare! I am watching this one!" So the waiter have no choice to leave it alone. I know that when I go to pubs in Rochester to watch any soccer match, it should be foull of people watching soccer and all the noises that I miss profoundly.
oddly enough, I wrote the Rochester one first, then went back and did the Chicago one. Other than the guy who had a go at me for crossing the road in the wrong place, Chicago didn't really have much wrong with it. There was a murder on my street (where my hotel was) when I was there, which was a bit of a shock to watch on the morning news, until I realised that my street was about 15 miles long and the poor guy who took the bullet while filling up his car with fuel was somewhere up the other end of it. There's an awful lot I could say about other places in the USA that I went to, but I didn't go to games at those places. Walking round the City Hall in San Francisco for example, with nobody but drunks and vagrants walking the streets, is kind of like stepping onto the set of a zombie film. These posts do have to have at least a pretence of being football based, so it does rule a lot of places out.
If you actually want to drink good beer the next time you visit the States, it isn't that hard to do. There are plenty of places with good regional micobrews on tap. Do a bit of research first. Michael Jackson (not that one...the British beer writer) has an excellent website, for instance: If you Google search for terms like "brew pub" and "micro brews" or "microbreweries" for cities/states you are planning on visiting, you should find up to date sites with good recommendations on places to visit where you can drink something besides mass market big corporate pisswater or stale imports.
Well.... that's a damn long post. And seeing as how I've just finished 3 pints of my own I couldn't be bothered to read past the second paragraph. You have now driven me to attempt sex with my wife. I hope you're satisfied.
True that. My roommate wanted to try some of the local beers so he bought some. Some of the worst that I have ever drank.
But there are some really good beers up in that part of the country -- Saranac for one (made by the same folks who make Genny Cream IIRC)
Saranac is descent, but it is made by different people. Saranac is brewed by FX Matt in Utica. Genesee is brewed in Rochester by High Falls (?). They must have recently changed their name. Ommegang is good if you're into their style.
I love love love this series. Awesome job. I have always felt it was a shame that two perfect MLS fan bases, Rochester and Charleston will never have MLS teams. MLS's loss really.... I've been to plenty of SSV Reutlingen (German 3rd and 2nd Division, depending on the year) and the play on the field and atmosphere was equivalent if not better!
The suits in MLS seem to be idiots. Buffalo has the NFL and NHL and Syracuse has NCAA bball and football, but from May (or whenever the Sabres' season ends) through August, there's no major league sport in upstate New York. Rochester is within driving distance of both Buffalo and Syracuse, people drive 1-2 hours to football and racing events on the weekends, and most MLS games are on the weekends. The Packers are located by the lake far from any urban center and are one of the most popular NFL teams. Neither Alabama or Arkansas have any big cities to speak of, and CBS pays big money to broadcast their college football games. Especially now that Toronto has a team, Rochester should get one as well.