Earlier this week I reviewed a couple of New England style IPA’s from Hill Farmstead, widely considered one of the best breweries in the world. Hill Farmstead makes some amazing hoppy beers and are rightly credited with helping develop the trendy NEIPA substyle featuring fruity hops, a soft mouthfeel and low bitterness. The thing that […]
The advantages of selling beer directly to the consumer have been well documented, but most breweries quickly realize that there is a limit to the amount of beer they can move on premise without distribution. The Mass Brew Brothers recently wrote an article on the top 25 breweries in Massachusetts by volume, and the vast […]
I has been an interesting journey for Spencer Brewing, the first American Trappist Brewery. Spencer started with a single beer, their Belgian Pale Ale named Spencer Trappist Ale, and intended to run the brewery on the back of that one beer for a while. They clearly underestimated the obsession with variety and novelty that drives […]
It has been an eventful month for Night Shift Brewing. First they launched their new light lager Nite Lite in cans, with the goal of syphoning business away from the big macro brands. It will be very interesting to see what kind of sustained market that beer attracts. Next they announced that they are opening […]
I hear a lot of complaining about the prices of beer, and only some of it is justified. It does feel like some places intentionally inflate their prices, I am amazed how many 4 packs of local IPA break the $20 mark. In fairness, a lot of popular breweries could pump up their prices even […]
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 […]
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 […]
Life is crazy between work and family stuff, so I don’t make as many trips to breweries as I used to. There are a few exceptions, local places that I can sneak into while I’m running other errands or bring the family to for a meal, and the places I stop in Maine of trips North. […]
Sam Adams releases a number of variety packs over the course of the year, usually changing them with each season. This month they also released a special new pack, called the Brewing The American Dream Collaboration Pack. This 12-pack features two bottles of Boston Lager along with two bottles each of five new collaboration beers. Each collaboration is with […]
For a while I was convinced that the next “big thing” in craft beer would be hoppy saisons. American drinkers love their hops, and anything with a big dose of popular new varieties will probably sell well. This has led to a proliferation of sub-styles on the IPA, where wheat IPA, red IPA and black […]
