I love Fall. The weather gets cooler without being too cold, football is on every Sunday, and I start eating hearty food and drinking darker beer. The one issue I run into: I don’t like pumpkin beer. This isn’t a soap-box moral opposition thing, I have no problem with the concept of pumpkin beer, I just don’t like that profile […]
Author: ryanbrawn
Idle Hands Riding Shotgun
Idle Hands brewery in Everett, MA isn’t the easiest place to find. Located in an industial park down a side street with minimal signage, you need to look around a little to find it (and trust your GPS, we thought we went to the wrong place at first). While they have great brewing space, there is no official tasting […]
Hoppy Boston Turns One Year Old
Today is officially the one year anniversary of the launch of Hoppy Boston. I had a number of reasons for starting the blog. 1) I was a little overwhelmed by the selection of beers and wanted a reason to sample as many different releases as I could. 2) I wanted to spend more time thinking about what […]
Night Shift Morph IPA
A couple of weeks ago, as part of one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had, my lovely wife took my cousin and me on a tour of a number of local breweries. Just over the Tobin Bridge you can find three of the most innovative breweries in Massachusetts, and I couldn’t think of a better […]
HoppyBoston Best Beers: Summer 2014
I can’t believe it is September, this summer absolutely flew by. My beer reviews this summer weren’t centered around a specific type of beer or theme. I just kind of grabbed anything that looked interesting and gave it a try. There ended up being some trends though. I drank lots of IPA (pretty common year-round), plenty of pilsner […]
Notch Hootenanny Berliner Weisse
I continue to challenge my palate and expand my repertoire with sour beer styles. Many beer drinkers, who I respect, love sour beers. They rave about the diversity of flavors and count many sours amongst their favorite beers of all time. The sour style that has resonated the most with me (so far) is the Berliner Weisse. The […]
Treehouse Brewing Co. Haze DIPA
Near the junction of the Mass Pike and I-84 is a small town called Monson, MA. If you are driving down East Hill Road in Monson (probably not by accident, it’s a bit out of the way) you’ll see a hand painted side pointing you towards “fresh beer sold here”. Inside the renovated barn on this rural road […]
Geary’s Ixnay
Gluten, the group of proteins in wheat, barley and rye that give bread its structure, has been in the news a lot lately. Many people are adopting a gluten-free diet either due to a diagnosis of celiac disease, an allergy or sensitivity to the protein, or personal choice. During the brewing process gluten is one of many proteins […]
Anchor Summer Beer
You could easily argue that modern American craft beer started with Anchor Brewing Company. The original brewery that became Anchor was founded in San Fransisco in 1871. It underwent multiple iterations including a fire, shut down for Prohibition, and numerous changes in ownership. The history is pretty interesting, you can see it all on their […]
Pretty Things/Naparbier There’s No Place Like There
While many breweries focus their collaborations efforts locally, Somerville, MA-based Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project will brew beers with like-minded allies from around the world. Their most recent partnership is with Naparbier, a brewery based near Pamplona, Spain. Pretty Things brews mostly European style beers, while Naparbier brews mostly popular American styles, which presents the type of interesting […]
Hoppy Boston 