Middle-Morphosis

If you are a regular beer drinker in Syracuse, NY, the exclusive photos below should shock you.

Don't recognize them? You once knew them as the Middle Ages tasting room.



If you've ever been to Middle Ages, you know they had one of the more unusual sampling rooms of any brewery in the Northeast. Rather than the usual pub style, it closer resembled an office with a bar built around the desks and chairs. Imagine the office where you work. Now imagine that someone built a large bar right around the periphery of it. Yes, that's what it had been like since what seemed like the beginning of time (or at least the last XII years or so).



The top photo is from the vantage point of the restroom (the guys who work there were kind enough to let me utilize the facilities), and the bottom photo is from the entrance way. (In case you don't remember, an archived picture of what the tasting room once looked like can be found here courtesy of Lew Bryson's invaluable blog. Lew's full article from Winter 2004 can be read here.)

Currently, the brewers have opened up the large red external "garage door" familiar to regulars and have been serving directly out of the warehouse. The only downside is that they are temporarily limiting tastings to two samples instead of the usual seven for space considerations. But the beer is still the same and you can still pick up a six pack, 22 oz or growler at the same ultra-reasonable prices.

So it appears that Middle Ages is ready to step up their tasting room. We never had any problem with the set up as it was, but we are looking forward to a new ambiance that will remind us more of IPAs and less of TPS reports. We are very excited for the new change and hope it doesn't alter the charm of the tasting experience. It will likely open up more room for standing and allowing others to sidle up to the bar, but that remains to be seen.