After focusing a lot of my winter writing (and drinking) on bold, boozy, and malty dark beers I switched gears this spring, as I usually do once the weather starts to warm. I drank a whole hodgepodge of styles over the last three months, hop-bombs, Belgians, lagers, I even wrote up the first English style […]
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Some Thoughts on Beer Ratings and Reviews
Over the years I’ve dabbled a bit in homebrewing. Right after college my roommate and I bought a starter kit and tried to make a few batches of beer, the results varied from decent to so bad that a group of guys in their early 20’s dumped it out. My buddy went to medical school, […]
Hoppy Boston T-shirt giveaway!
In honor of Hoppy Boston’s 5th anniversary I am giving away official Hoppy Boston t-shirts to 3 lucky winners. The shipment will also include some other Hoppy Boston gear, a coaster, stickers, and a new Hoppy Boston koozie. If you want a chance to win just follow these simple steps: Follow Hoppy Boston on Facebook, […]
Backlash Mother of Invention
With all of the breweries that have opened in the last few years, and all of the new ones opening or in various stages of planning, the local beer market is very competitive. Some argue that we are reaching saturation, I’m not sure if that is true, but a brewery needs to make stellar beer […]
Exhibit A We’re Going To Need You To Come In On Saturday Scotch Ale
I’ve thought a lot about what my brand would look like if I ever started my own brewery, there is zero chance I ever would take that leap but it’s fun to imagine. Idea number one would involve my day job as a chemist, maybe naming each beer after a different element. The second idea […]
Exhibit A Demo Tape Eleven Side B
For a long time I avoided most types of wheat beer. I’ve never been a fan of hefeweizens and only like a few Belgian style witbiers. My experience with American wheat beers was mostly with Sam Adams Summer Ale and similar wheats. I am not a Sam Adams basher, I love a number of their beers, but […]
Gritty McDuff’s Vacationland
I make 2-3 trips a year up to mid-coast Maine to visit family and friends in the area where I was born and raised, the first trip this year was over the holiday weekend. Even with the additional demands of traveling with a child, I am usually able to make some beer-centric stops on the way, […]
Deciduous Mosaic Sylph
The decision to focus my reviews on non-IPA styles this year leaves some significant grey areas. Many different beer styles have “hoppy” forms, and some of these have been given the “IPA’ designation (usually for marketing purposes). For example some beers are labeled as hoppy amber ales while others are called red IPAs, even though they are essentially the same style. I think the […]
Random Beer Thoughts: January 2017
My favorite addition to Hoppy Boston in 2016 was the monthly Random Beer Thoughts and Links articles that I started writing in September. It is a good forum to share ideas and opinions that come to me over the course of the month and deserve a mention without necessitating a full column. I also enjoy sharing the […]
Night Shift Bennington
I am a huge IPA fan, but I am getting a little burned out on all of the hop bombs. Most breweries are making multiple IPAs and adding huge doses of hops to everything, it feels like half of the bottles on the shelves at any good bottle shop are IPAs. I understand why this […]