For anybody visiting Ommegang, make sure to take the short side trip to Cooperstown Brewing Company.  I stopped by there about a month ago for a tour and tasting.  It's a small operation with limited distribution but according to the owner, they are inclined to stay that way.  They have six main beers, a pale ale, IPA, golden ale, special ale, porter and a stout.  While the IPA and golden ale weren't my favorites, their money makers are the Strikeout Stout and Benchwarmer Porter.  The stout has a nice deep taste with a soft on the tongue mouthfeel due to their use of oats in the mash.  The porter was just out of this world, one of the best I've had.  I tasted it and thought, "This is what a porter should taste like."

While that's kind of out there location wise, you never know... We almost hit up Ommegang last summer, but just couldn't justify the distance for one brewery. Do they bottle?

Cooperstown or Ommegang?  Either way they both bottle.  Ommegang was an interesting brewery, nice corking line but not really that big.  What's wild about Ommegang is that have one huge open fermenter and their conditioning room is sizable warehouse kept @ 80 deg.  I would have loved to step into the open fermenter room but for  obvious reasons it's off limits. 

Wow, I didn't realize they open fermented... understandable you couldn't get in there! It's probably so clean. Shipyard in Maine open ferments too, I believe. I guess they would have to keep some of those rooms pretty warm, with the saisons and belgian styles they do that are normally fermented a little higher to get the yeast profile. Interesting!

That's insane! Because people are OBVIOUSLY going to mis-associate the bat company and the brewery as being together.

I agree. The stout and porter are damn tasty. The Pride of Milford is also a winner. I stopped by there last summer also and had a great tour. A couple of notes I picked up:

--The picture of the pitcher on the on the stout is actually Koufax. The picture was inverted to show him as a righty.
--The label for Pride of Milford is the owner when he was a kid.
--The label for striker is the owner's dog, Striker.
--All Cooperstown Brewing Co. tap handles have to be shorter then 9 inches. Louisville Slugger sued them over the name of their pale ale, "Old Slugger". The agreement was that Louisville Slugger Bat Co. could never brew beer, Coopertown Brewing could never make bats, and the tap handles for CBC had to be shorter then 9 inches.

Sue happy jerks...