There are pros and cons to being a contract brewer. The lack of a physical brewery means fewer start-up costs and eliminates some of the headaches that come with maintaining a space. There are also many negatives, you need to run things on someone else’s schedule, and you don’t have your own space for tasting […]
Author: ryanbrawn
Brewmaster Jack Jan
Pilsner is a proud European beer style that has struggled to find a foothold amongst the American beer snob community, mostly because it was the style of choice for behemoths like Bud, Miller and Coors. For many years smaller American brewers left the pilsner style to the macros while they focused on developing bold IPAs and stouts. As a […]
Ipswich Hop Harvest
At the end of last week I issued a challenge to my readers, stop taking beer so seriously, take a break from the message boards and rating sites, and just have some fun trying some good beers this weekend (full column HERE). There were four potential challenges listed, I accomplished two of them myself. One […]
Beer is Supposed to be Fun, Enjoy it!
“I’m worried about the beer supply. After this case and the other case we only have one case left!”- Barney Gumbel Something struck me yesterday as I was browsing through my Hoppy Boston Twitter feed. Some people take beer way too seriously. I am not talking about brewers and other brewery employees, beer is their career and […]
Von Trapp Helles Lager
With so many local and national options available to beer lovers it is important for each brewery to set themselves apart from the competition. There are a few ways to do this, but the most common is by making the best beer of a particular style or by focusing on a subset of beers that […]
Lagunitas Little Sumpin’ Extra
The other day I wrote about the investment deal between Firestone Walker and Duvel, and mentioned that outside of a few vocal opponents most beer lovers have accepted these deals as part of the modern industry. A notable exception to this trend occurred this month when Lagunitas announced that they were selling a partial stake […]
Firestone Walker Wookey Jack
The biggest news in the beer world over the last few months has been the partnership agreements between some of the world’s large brewing conglomerates and a couple of the highest volume independent brewers in the US. These agreements are always met with mixed emotions by vocal beer lovers. While the idea of expanded production and distribution are great, […]
The Shed Profanity Ale
There is a lot of talk recently about mergers and acquisitions involving major players in the beer market. Some of the most popular independent brewers in the US have sold parts of their companies to large international conglomerates. While there are obvious pros and cons to these types of deals (which I will get into […]
Backlash Oath
Fall is my favorite season of the year, the start to feel a crispness in the air, cook and eat some hearty food, watch football on TV every weekend, maybe even catch some playoff baseball when the Red Sox decide to field a competitive team. This weekend felt like the real start of fall, I had a slab […]
Tree House Julius
I follow a number of other beer writers, both local and national, on twitter. Discussing everything that’s happening in the world of beer with these writers is usually a blast, even when I respectfully disagree with their points of view. There is one national beer writer who is based in Massachusetts and while I respect the work he does and many […]
Hoppy Boston 