Location: 525 US Route 1 Freeport, Maine. A very easy stop off of I-295 if you are in the area. Their tasting room offers flights and full pours of 8 selections, plus bottles to go. It is a welcoming place to sit and hang out, especially if you need to take a break from shopping at the outlets […]
Author: ryanbrawn
Maine Beer Co. King Titus
Tomorrow I am planning on posting my first brewery overview article covering Maine Beer Company. As part of my research for this article, I have been tasting or re-tasting a few of their beers to get their work fresh in my head. I hope to make this a trend, posting a standard review right before the brewery overview. While […]
Mystic Descendant
Several factors cause the flavor of beer to change over time. In beers that haven’t been pasteurized (like most craft beers) residual yeast will continue to eat anything that is digestible, adding new flavors to the beer. The hop oils that lead to those beautiful aromas in hop-forward beers are volatile, so they dissipate over time. Most beer styles are best when the […]
Ommegang Valar Morghulis
When I reviewed Take the Black Stout, one of the early releases in Brewery Ommegang’s Game of Thrones beer series, I boldly predicted that the increase in popularity of craft beer would lead to many tie-ins and marketing promotions between breweries and movies or TV shows. It’s been over a year and my prediction hasn’t […]
H2H Beer Review: DIPA, Grey Sail Captain’s Daughter vs. Baxter Bootleg Fireworks
IPAs are big business for craft breweries. Beers falling under the IPA umbrella easily outpace other styles in volume of sales. American beer drinkers love the bold hoppy flavors and tongue numbing bitterness, pushing brewers to produce beers with ever climbing IBU and ABV numbers. There are very few breweries that don’t brew a flagship IPA, and many also make big and […]
Dogfish Head Burton Baton
I love a good porter or saison, but the IPA remains my favorite beer style. When I was first making the transition from the cheap macro lagers served at college keggers to the diverse styles offered by craft breweries there were a few beers that nurtured my love for the IPA. One was the omnipresent Harpoon IPA, which quickly became my […]
Slumbrew American Fresh Tap Room at Assembly Row
My wife and I have hit the phase in our lives where the idea of going out to an overpriced and overcrowded bar in order to ring in the New Year with a bunch of drunken strangers is far from appealing. The last few New Years have been spent sharing some quality beverages in the comfort of […]
Some Thoughts on Sam Adams
Earlier this week Andy Crouch wrote an extensive article on Boston Beer Company/Sam Adams, their founder Jim Koch, and the company’s place in the current craft beer scene. I highly recommend reading the article if you haven’t (find it HERE), it provides a number of different perspectives on the brewery, it’s history and the changing […]
H2H beer review: Saison, Trillium Farmhouse vs. Allagash Saison
As promised, here is my first head-to-head beer review. This was originally going to be my first Gourmandatory article, and I am posting it here more as a preview of the format. I realize that I have already reviewed both of these beers individually on Hoppy Boston, but I still thought this was worth posting. In […]
Some changes to Hoppy Boston in 2015
I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I’ve always thought it was a very arbitrary thing, if I need to make some changes in my life why should I wait until the new year? So take it as a coincidence that I am announcing some changes to the blog during the first week in January. I am […]
Hoppy Boston 