Keeping Summer in a Bottle

Summer is coming to an end.. but not before regular season baseball ends, New Hampshire turns a fall mosaic and I compile a few summer brews for ya!  A great time for seasonal beers; albeit a bit lacking in variety, summer beers are nonetheless delicious!  The crisp taste, light citrus flavors, the warm breeze and gorgeous skies...  priceless.

..and what better way to kick of a cornucopia of lovely summer beers than with Summer Love itself!?

Mass Brewer's Fest 2011

Oh Hell Yes!  Mass Brewer's Fest 2011 - 2nd annual beer fest put on by the Mass Brewer's Guild at the World Trade Center in Boston!!!!!  I mean, really... just check out that beer list:  Mass Brewer's Fest 2011    Damn, right!?  80+ and there were a LOT more pouring there that weren't listed.  Probably close to 100 beers and a couple casks!  Could not have asked for a better night... started off around 70 degrees or so..didn't get below 60, few clouds in the sky...  and a shit-ton of beers flowing

Gonna TRY to remember which ones I had, and shared as well....  (I probably forgot 2 or 3 breweries we hit..  so damn hard to remember everything I had!)

I absolutely HAD to start the night at the Backlash table.  Seriously, Maggie and Helder of Backlash are amazing and the beer is out of this world!  How in the hell could a beer this great be a brewery's FIRST beer!?  They were true to their word too, this was even better when tapped!  Check out the prior post about Groundswell!! Draught gave this beer more complexity and brought out hints of spice and pepper..poured crisper than from the bottle as well.  Again, outstanding.. follow this brewery people, they're goin' places!

Bar Beers

Due to the lack of a great phone camera and a resistance to bring my real camera to the bar each time for fear of looking like a creep, I have some great beers to talk about, with shitty pictures to accompany them!

A Coupl'a Foreign Brews...

Don't go the foreign route too often, so the random ones I got layin' around.. yeah easiest to just group 'em all together into one little non-American post!  Don't usually stray past the borders of the good ole US of A,  1. its tougher to tell what the beer is like (like with Sam Cherry Wheat..Kona Pipeline Porter.. get it?  we're descriptive) 2. even if the label is descriptive..IT'S NOT IN ENGLISH dammit!  A recent post.. Backlash Groundswell for example, not descriptive, but I can read it!  It helps.  Can't tell what these weird foreign words are..translate please!

So..to start off with, let's just hop the pond and try some more Samuel Smith beers!

IPAs!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally trying to get a little consistency to these posts...  up now, a few IPAs!!  Hopefully we all know what an IPA is, but for those of you who don't, open up your ear holes and drool over this knowledge bomb.  Back in the day, those damn Brits were "colonizing" everywhere, aka being land-hogging douches.  And of course, they wanted all their shit with them wherever they went, especially beer and tea.  The beer part is cool, tea...not so much.  One of the beers that was sent to their colonies in India was a pale ale that was slightly stronger and more hopped than most of the time and was meant to be cellared after brewing.  Hence, the journey to India was actually a benefit to this beer.  Lesser hopped beers and those not quite a strong could spoil.  So the new style of beer that was made to send to India became hoppier and known as India Pale Ales.

Pats Preseason #2 and MORE Dogfish Head - aka the Glory of 120 Minute IPA

Thank you, Twitter!!!  Never thought I'd say that, but thanks to Twitter, I was able to find out that the Gaff managed to get a keg of Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA!!!  120 Minute on DRAUGHT!  BOOM

Pats Preseason 2011 and Dogfish Head? 8.11.11

So, Dogfish Head ain't your usual football game beer, but here's the thing: this amazing girl bought it for me!  Add that onto a Patriots preseason spanking of the Jags = one awesome night!

International Beer Day!

Last week was a great week to be a beer drinker!  Thursday, August 4th was IPA Day and Friday, August 5th was International Beer Day!  For IPA Day I enjoyed a lovely Stone IPA, to be reviewed a bit later on, and got to check out the Chihuly exhibit at the MFA Boston...  here's a little sample of his stuff:

It's all hand-blown glass, assembled piece by piece.  Unbelievable!  If you ever get the chance to see any of his work, highly highly recommended!.  As for International Beer Day, I got a BRAND NEW beer from Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont.  

GROUNDSWELL!

Spring Beers....

Yeah yeah yeah...SUPER late.  So throw me in a barrel and cover me in honey!

Life's been busy and I'm starting to crack into my stockpile of beers, get over it!  It's nice to have seasonal beers off-season anyway, so suck it.

Samuel Adam Longshot Category 23 Sampler Pack!

So each year for the past 15 or so Sam Adams holds a Longshot brewing competition in which amateur homebrewers from across the country brew and submit their own beers for judging.  A recently created category (23) was developed for brewers creating a beer by "thinking outside the box"...creating a unique beer.  The 2 finalists from 2010 in won the chance to have their beer brewed and released nationally in this 6 pack, along with the employee winner.  There is a Blackened Hops Ale, Friar Hops Ale and Honey B's Lavender Wheat