When I was younger and just starting my journey to craft beer geekdom I used to make fun of a few of my friends who drank blueberry beer. Growing up and going to college in Maine these beers were all over the place, they were typically light ales loaded up with artificial blueberry flavors and […]
I think every beer geek has a list of out-of-state breweries that they would love to see expand distribution into their home region. My list is relatively short since I focus my beer purchases almost entirely on New England beers, but there are still quite a few breweries in other parts of New England (and […]
I’ve written a lot about the importance of developing a strong brand in a competitive beer market. One way to do this is to focus your beers on a specific subset of styles. For example, every beer brewed under the Notch label is a “session beer”, with an ABV of 4.5% or less, although the […]
Another week in the pandemic and another beer review from a new-to-me brewery. This has clearly been a trend as more breweries used the shutdown to scale up canning and distribution options as a way to offset the lost revenue caused by a lack of on premise sales. I really hope this strategy helps, but […]
Last summer our family spent a nice Saturday in Worcester. We took the kids to the Ecotarium, grabbed lunch at a restaurant, and they hung out at Redemption Rock Brewery, my wife and I sampling some beers while the kids played with the Giant Jenga set, and then grabbing some crowlers to-go. Needless to say, […]
The calendar has turned to September (seriously, what the hell happened to summer) and I am ready to dive into some fall beers. I am not a fan of pumpkin beers, to each their own they just aren’t for me, but I love some richer and more malt forward beers in the fall including brown […]
As large swaths of the country join the push for social justice and equality, many different types of businesses are coming under the microscope. Craft beer is definitely an industry that has some work to do, while the industry has been full of success stories in the last decade it has also been rightly criticized […]
Things have gotten a little crazy at work and in life recently, even more than “normal” or even “the 2020 version of normal”, so I’ve had to cut back a little on Hoppy Boston posts. That will probably be a trend for the foreseeable future, but I will try to keep a somewhat regular flow […]
Many industries have taken a beating over the last 6 months from the COVID related shutdowns and restrictions, but one of the worst hit groups is the hospitality industry. Restaurants and bars typically operate on thin margins, so this long shut down is going to shutter many permanently, and many of their employees are currently […]
The murder of George Floyd by four Minneapolis police officers seems to be the match lit in the proverbial room full of explosives that is racial injustice in the United States. Since the footage of the altercation was released protests have been continual across many cities and states, and there is a renewed interest in […]
