It feels like Black IPA is making a bit of a comeback. For a little while 8-10 years ago it seemed like Black IPA was the next big thing in beer and every brewery was giving these hopped-up dark beers a try. Then the haze-bombs started to drop and obliterated everything in their path. A […]
Author: ryanbrawn
Austin Street Patina
If you asked me 6 months ago to pick a Maine brewery that I wanted to see open distribution in Massachusetts, Austin St Brewing would have been in my top two. So I was really excited when they started a limited distribution in Mass, and I clearly wasn’t the only one, their beer has sold […]
Medusa Polar Vortex
There are many great things about social media, especially in times of isolation. I have built the majority of my following for Hoppy Boston through my social accounts, and met a ton of awesome people who have become virtual and in a few cases real-life friends. There is also a ton of crap on social […]
Random Beer Thoughts: March 2020
I have a kind of limited thoughts/links article this month and most of it is on the same topic. This has been the craziest few weeks of my life from a world events perspective, I am honestly not sure what to compare it to. The pandemic has affected us all in some ways, I am […]
Mayflower In The Darkness Bind Them
I am a huge nerd, and not just when it comes to beer. I am also a science nerd (the PhD in medicinal chemistry will do that), plus I love video games, everything Star Wars, and epic fantasy novels. One of the reasons I started writing Hoppy Boston was to get my non-science writing chops […]
Bent Water G.O.A.T.
Under normal circumstances, the news of arguably the greatest athlete in Boston sports history leaving in free agency would be the biggest topic of conversation in New England for weeks. Clearly, we aren’t living in normal times, and news of a pandemic makes anything to do with sports seem pretty insignificant. That being said, I’ve […]
Amory’s Tomb Kettle Hole
This is a really tough time across the craft beer industry. With bars and on-premise taproom consumption cut off, breweries have lost two major sources of sales in an industry already marked by small margins and fierce competition. You can tell brewers and owners are nervous, even places that are widely considered to be the […]
Lone Pine Dream Team
Yesterday I posted about why it feels weird writing about beer with everything that is going on in the world, and why I am going to try and keep doing it anyway. I hope it provides a sliver of normalcy, something that is hard to come by right now. I am really missing sports right […]
It feels weird to write about beer right now
I have been pretty steady with my Hoppy Boston posts over the last couple years, I usually drop a new post twice a week, typically on Monday and Thursday nights. Last week I did my typical Monday post, and had a headstart on a beer review for Thursday, but I never finished it. The COVID-19 […]
Lost Shoe Merlin’s Mischief and Size 10
Last week I wrote about my first visit to Lost Shoe Brewing and Roasting Company in Marlborough (spoiler alert, it is pretty awesome), and I thought I would follow up with formal reviews of a couple of their beers. I bought everything they had available to-go in cans, the big advantage of selling all of […]
