My trips to Maine almost always involve stops at local breweries, usually a mix of old favorites and newer places, and the most frequent stop over the years has to be Maine Beer Company in Freeport. There are numerous reasons for this, the beer is consistently excellent, it’s a convenient stop about halfway through our […]
Bissell Brothers is one of my favorite breweries in Maine, but I am rarely able to visit. The majority of my trips north are with the family, and the timing of when we leave and when/where we stop is based on the needs of the kids, so South Portland is rarely in the cards, and […]
Brunswick, Maine is one of my favorite places in the world, mostly due to my fond memories from my four years as a student at Bowdoin College. While I drank way too much cheap marco beer from kegs at Bowdoin, I also started to develop a taste for better beers, frequently sampling the few available […]
Many newer breweries are launching with a rotating stable of NEIPAs, taking advantage of the huge buzz (and resulting sales) that come with the substyle. I am a huge fan of hoppy beers in general and well-made NEIPAs specifically, so I don’t mind the proliferation of the substyle. That being said, it is frustrating to […]
Earlier this week I wrote about my first visit to Redemption Rock Brewery in Worcester. One thing I glossed over a bit was the beer, aside from saying that I enjoyed everything I tried and brought some crowlers home, I didn’t write much for specifics. This was because I intended to write this follow-up article […]
The last few times I’ve stocked up at the bottle shop I realized that I am way behind in spreading the love on my beer reviews, there are way too many local breweries that I’ve yet to feature on Hoppy Boston, or haven’t written about in way too long. A good example is Barewolf Brewing […]
New England breweries that established themselves before the haze-craze took full effect have interesting decisions to make; do they stick to the hoppy beers that established their brand or do they make the juice-bombs that many drinkers are craving? The decision is probably a little easier for breweries that brew English style or even West […]
On Monday I posted a write-up on my recent visit to Amory’s Tomb, the Maynard establishment that specializes in saisons and other Belgian styles. The day before my visit Amory’s Tomb released three beers in bottles, all part of their barrel program. The importance of the barrels is obvious at Amory’s Tomb, a stack of […]
As the New England-style IPA gains more popularity and market share a certain segment of craft beer geeks spend more and more time and energy trying to tear down the substyle. One common criticism is that the beers are all essentially the same, similar malt bills, yeast strains, and a subset of popular hop varieties. […]
This year has seen a number of new breweries open across the state, some with fully equipped taprooms and others as contract brands, making and packaging their beer at other breweries and relying on distribution. My life is completely crazy right now so my brewery visits have been limited, and many of the new taproom-only […]
