If you were amongst the people out getting a head start on your Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving you might have noticed a line of customers at your local beer store. I am not a Black Friday shopper, while I imagine that watching people get in a fist fight over a $90 TV at WalMart would drive […]
Category: Beer Review
Pretty Things Babayaga
My frequent readers have probably noticed that most of my beer reviews follow a similar format, the second part has tasting notes and a score while the first is more varied, with information about the beer, the brewery, the style, a personal story, or any other information that I find interesting or relevant. When I am […]
Rising Tide Waypoint
I still don’t drink coffee. Many of my colleagues are shocked that I didn’t pick up the habit in graduate school, the 70-80 hour weeks in the lab drove many towards any additional boost they could find. I joked afterwards that I had one more big test, which started almost 7 months ago with the […]
Narragansett Allie’s Donuts Double Chocolate Porter
I am pretty sure that Narragansett Brewing Company is working on a collaboration beer with every business based in the state of Rhode Island. It is a really cool way to connect with some of the local businesses, especially considering how iconic the Narragansett name is in the state. First they released Del’s Shandy in collaboration […]
Enlightenment Beyond The Infinite
I was excited in September when Idle Hands Brewery announced that they signed a lease on a new facility in Malden which will open in Spring on 2016. Idle Hands is an underrated staple of the brewing scene in metro Boston and I have enjoyed a number of their offerings over the years. One question […]
Jack’s Abby trIPL
In the early days of “craft beer” (I know, I said I was going to avoid that term, but there is no good way to differentiate the ground-breaking breweries of the 80’s and 90’s with the macro beers that dominated the market at the time) many of the iconic beers and brewers got started with brewpubs, restaurants […]
603 Brewing 18 Mile Rye Pale Ale
I have recently spent some time discussing how I select the beers that get reviewed on Hoppy Boston. It is usually a combination of recommendations, buzz and some random choices. There is one situation that will almost always result in a purchase; when I walk into a bottle shop and see beers from a New England brewery that […]
Peak Organic Super Fresh
Let’s talk for a minute about beer styles. Styles are really a way to convey to the consumer general information about the flavor profile of the beer they are about to purchase. If I go to a pretty novice beer drinker and ask them the difference between a stout and an IPA they will probably […]
Atlantic Leaf-Peeping Ale
Although Boston is my home now, I am originally from a very touristy area in coastal Maine. Our main tourist season was always the summer and I understood that, beautiful weather, fresh air, the hills and the ocean drew people out of the city and into our local bed and breakfasts. We also had a smaller secondary […]
Lord Hobo Steal This Can
I am pretty sure the most vociferous response I’ve ever had to a Hoppy Boston beer review was to Boom Sauce, the Double IPA from Lord Hobo Brewing Company in Woburn, MA. Normally when I write a positive review I get a couple people who agree or occasionally someone writes and tells me why they didn’t care […]
Hoppy Boston 