Note: The following post describes a crawl we did just prior to Hurricane Sandy.

A few good craft beer spots in and very close to Union Square.  On a recent Saturday, we visited three of them.

Heartland Brewery (35 Union Square West).  Say what you want about this now five-location-chain Manhattan spot.  Their beer is still top-notch.  We enjoyed the Red Rooster Ale on this occasion.  Typically, Heartland serves five year-round beers and another two or three seasonals.

Lillie’s (13 E. 17th Street).  The Victorian-themed spot offers nearly 20 tap beers and, on this visit, Lillie’s had a live band playing Irish music.

Wildwood BBQ (225 Park Avenue South).  More restaurant than bar, this BBQ spot offers 12 tap beers and another 30 or so bottled ones.  The bar appetizers were solid as well (try the Jumbalaya!).  Unfortunately, no photos here as our camera had run out of power.

We badly wanted to go to Little Town NYC (118 East 15th Street), but it was too crowded, so we had to end our crawl early.

During our pub crawl around Bushwick, we hit several spots.  Our favorite of the day was the Bodega Wine Bar, located at 24 St. Nicholas Avenue.  Bodega Wine Bar offers a solid selection of wine and beer, in addition to light fare, such as chacuterie, cheese and sandwiches nightly, as well as lunch/brunch starting at 11:30am.  The beer selection includes 12 taps and another two dozen bottled beers.  The selection rotates frequently.  The wine offerings numbered around two dozen (including two wines on tap!).  What we found extraordinary about the wine offerings was that anything available by the glass was also available by the bottle and vice versa.  We can’t remember any other wine bar where that occurred.

For those who don’t live in the immediate area or in nearby Williamsburg, the location is a bit out-of-the-way, but it is well worth the trip to this spot.  We plan to return soon.  Bodega Wine Bar will be the anchor spot for any Bushwick beer bar crawl or wine bar crawl.  Two photos below.

Over the past few years, we’ve read about a few new bar openings in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, mostly centered around the Jefferson St. L-stop.  On a recent weekend afternoon, it was time for a pub crawl in Bushwick.  Here are some brief comments and a few photos from that day.

Right after Pearl’s, we walked to the other end of the block and hit Bodega Wine Bar.  We thoroughly enjoyed this spot and want to return.  More details on Bodega in a forthcoming post.

Walking north along 9th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, we were happily surprised to learn of Alfie’s, a new craft-beer focused gastropub, located on the northeast corner of 53rd Street and 9th Avenue.  We had not learned of Alfie’s prior to walking past it (we were, of course, on our way to a different bar when we passed Alfie’s).  The spot offers 20 tap beers, whose rotation varies from three to six weeks and includes a focus on seasonal beers.  A good number of brews hailed from New York State or other Northeastern locales.  The place was fairly spacious: bar on left and tables for dining on right, along with some high-top tables near the entrance.  We did not sample the food menu, so we look forward to doing that on a return trip.  Alfie’s is definitely a nice addition to the HK craft-beer focused NYC bar crawl.