Today I am going to attempt to coin a new beer term, Blue Chip beer styles. Blue Chip Beer styles are the few styles of beer that are most sought out by beer geeks, and making an amazing version of a Blue Chip beer can put a newer or less renowned brewery on the map, locally or even nationally. It […]
Category: Beer Review
Rockingham Javelina
I appreciate everyone who takes the time to read Hoppy Boston, from the people who have been reading for years and visit multiple times a week to the first time readers who stumbled across the blog after a Google search. I do have a special appreciation for the long time followers though, most are old […]
Notch Zwickel Beer
Some of my favorite winter beers tend to be heavy and boozy, like imperial stouts and quads. The high ABVs of these beers limit the volume I consume, usually any of those beers are one-and-done on the night. For this reason it’s nice to have a few sessionable options around for balance, and nobody does […]
Beer’d Hobbit Juice and Dogs & Boats
We are well into December and I promise that I will get into some dark and malty beer reviews soon, but I still have a bit of a back-log to clean out from the fall. My friends Tim and Amanda spent a good chunk of their free time this fall seeking out new-to-them breweries (these are […]
Tree House Tornado
If you look at any list of the most popular or sought-out breweries in Massachusetts I bet you’ll find Tree House Brewing Company near the top, but my trips out to the brewery in Monson or now Charlton have been pretty rare. It has nothing to do with their beer, I have never had a bad beer […]
Lamplighter Werewolves of Cambridge and Birds of a Feather
Lamplighter Brewing Company had it’s first birthday this month, and they have been celebrating with a series of special events and beer releases. It is crazy how quickly Lamplighter transitioned from an exciting new brewery in town into one of my go-to local breweries. Most places have a bit of a learning curve in their first year, […]
Idles Hands 34 and Six Seam
A couple weeks ago I received a big gift (from myself), official Hoppy Boston glassware. As soon as I decided to give the site a facelift and get a real logo I knew that I needed some logo-glassware and I found a online site that helped me make this dream a reality. I had avoided posting about the […]
Mystic Voltage and Echo
It is no longer news when a brewery starts canning their beers, in fact I’m struggling to think of any Massachusetts breweries with a significant distribution footprint that don’t can. One of the last hold-outs was Mystic Brewing in Chelsea. For years Mystic brewed a lineup dominated by flavorful saisons and other Belgian styles, mostly distributed […]
Spencer Monk’s Reserve Quadruple
When Spencer Brewery was introduced as the first the first American Trappist brewery I had dreams of a constant supply of traditional Abbey style ales from a local source. They started with a single beer, their Trappist Ale which is a very tasty Belgian pale, and I was intrigued when they announced they were adding a number of […]
Abandoned Building Lola’s Saison
The total number of breweries in Massachusetts has exploded over the last few years, there are now around 100 that have a physical brewery that you can visit for samples/pours/growler fills, plus a number more that contract brew. It’s honestly hard to keep track of all of them, although one great resource is the Mass […]
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