While I have reviewed a number of beers by Otter Creek on Hoppy Boston I haven’t spent much time on Wolaver’s Organic Ales. The beers in the Wolaver’s line are all brewed and bottled at the Otter Creek Brewery in Middlebury, VT, but sold under a different label. Wolaver’s was the first certified organic brewery […]
Category: Beer Review
Lagunitas Day Time
It seems like Lagunitas Brewing Company is constantly embroiled in controversy. Many of these controversies are started by founder Tony Magee, who is never afraid to speak his mind, especially on twitter. In late 2013 he called out Sam Adams, claiming their new Rebel IPA was an attempt to attack Lagunitas’ marketshare and take over their […]
Narragansett Autocrat Coffee Milk Stout
I don’t often discuss the cost of beer on this blog, I try to focus on taste alone. I am lucky, I have a good job and an understanding wife who knows that trying new beer and writing about it is my hobby. Other hobbies could be much more expensive, so she rarely complains when I […]
Mystic Melissa
While many people spent Sunday, February 1st preparing for the Super Bowl, many craft beer enthusiasts were also celebrating International Gruit Day. Gruits are an interesting style, they are beers brewed without hops, using other herbs and spices for flavor and balance. For centuries beer was made with a wide variety of ingredients including local blends of spices used […]
Slumbrew Yankee Swap 2014
The final beer review in Hoppy Boston’s barrel-aged beer week is Yankee Swap 2014, Slumbrew’s imperial stout aged in rum barrels from Turkey Shore distilleries. The first iteration of Yankee Swap (2013) used the same type of barrels, but was a completely different beer, an American strong ale instead of an imperial stout. I was a little […]
Jack’s Abby Barrel Aged Framinghammer
Hoppy Boston’s barrel aged beer week continues with a review of the bourbon barrel aged version of Jack’s Abby’s popular Framinghammer Baltic Porter. First, a quick clarification on the Baltic Porter style as I’ve seen some confusion in the past. Traditional versions of British porters are ales with top-fermenting yeast and warmer fermentation temperatures. Heavy versions of the style were […]
Cambridge Brewing Company You Enjoy My Stout
Barrel aging, where a beer is transferred into a barrel that had been previously used to age wine or liquor, has become a major part of many craft brewers’ repertoires. While aging sour beer styles in barrels has been done for centuries, many U.S. brewers have started aging some of their bigger beers in liquor barrels. The most popular style in […]
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 […]
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