New England Report 12:2008-07-23 (New London -- Greenfield)

The next day started south in New Hampshire and the city of Manchester. Fun to see that so many cities are influenced with English cities and you get names as Manchester, Dover, Gloucester etc, even more interesting that we just before New London came from West Lebanon, wonder where that name comes from. The goal for Manchester, which is pretty large town, was "Millys Tavern" and to sample some of their beers.

Millys is located in a large brick building at the river front (merrimack river) in central Manchester.

The place does their own handcraftet beers on site and most often has up to 9 different styles on tap plus a couple of seasonals. They have a 15 barrel DME system install and uses water from Massabesic with northwestern hops.

We came early and did not have time for lunch, otherwise it seems they had a good choice in food.

Decided to have the sampler and came up with the following result;

113. Manch Vegas IPA
114. Mt. Uncanoonus Golden Cream Ale
115. Tashas Red Ale Tail Ale

116. Hells Bells Belgian Strong Dark Ale

117. General John Stark Dark Porter

118. Millyes Oatmeal Stout

119. Bo's Scotch Ale

Good quality beers, not worldclass. What I remember is that I really liked the Hells Bells ale which was really a kick in the ass strong ale that made you warm inside out.

The official information tells you;

"Hell's Bell's is a Belgian-inspired Strong Dark Ale. You won't have to sell your soul for a taste of this devilish concoction of the finest imported malts and hops, Belgian Candi Sugars and spices. Fruity phenolics and a hint of vanilla enhance the flavor of this 9% ABV ale. Do Hell's Bells toll for you?O.G.: 1.083 F.G.: 1.018 ABV%: 9"

This beer was a seasonal so do not expect to see this so much in the future. From the standard choices I would recommend the outmeal stout. A rich beer in color, smell and taste and very traditional to the style.

We had earlier arranged at meeting with one of the brewers over at Pennichuck Brewery in Milford NH. We got some help from Jugge over at Oliver Twist in Stockholm as he had met the owner a couple of times. So through Jugges help we were invited to this tiny brewery located in a old workshop garage outside Milford.


As we finally found this place it was at start really difficult to understand that it was hiding a fullscale brewery. A brewery that is not much older that a couple of years, but already is making a name in the industry with big beers like belgian trippels or barley wines. When you talk about big you can also notice that they like to use large bottles influenced by Belgium, meaning 1 liter bottles. Nice to look at, but really a hell to get home in your bag, :-).

(Exterior of the brewery, what happened to this poor car??)

The owner Phil Jewett was not at the brewery when we entered the place arround 14, but we instead were helped by the new headbrewer Damase Olsson (yes he has some connection with Sweden). They were in middle of brewing so we got a nice quick tour of the brewery during the same time as Damase were brewing and putting stuff in the brew. Fun to see. The brewery is not large but they already have 4 different standard brews plus a bunch of special brews that they package on 1 liter bottles.

(Brewery interior)

(Damase the headbrewer giving us a quick tour of the brewery)

Asking if they also did their own botteling the answer was of course yes and we got to see the very tiny and very manual equipment where all the botteling was done. Not large but very effective it seems.

We got to sample all of the standard beers including;

120. Halligan IPA (my favorite)

121. Fireman Pale Ale

122. Feuerwehrmann Black Lager (Schwarzbier)

123. Big O Oktoberfest (which was the new oktober beer that we sampled directly from the brew, great experience)

The visit was short but exciting and we thanked for the visit and bought some beers to get home to Sweden. Hope to see more from this brewery in the future and it will interesting to see how it will grow from the current limited quantities. Maybe we can expect some beers to turn up in Stockholm in a near future?

Continued to Westminster in MA and the "Wachusett Brewing Company". Had the standard beer tour and also sampled some of the beers. Wachusett seems quite large and uninspring, it says quite much when the breweries large seller (arround 80%) is a very boring Blueberry Wheat. It is difficult to do a good wheat and sometimes you do not understand why american breweries like to do it so much when the result is so bleak.

Maybe it is has to do with sales and warm summer days. Anyway it is very rare that you find a good beer when you have to sample a seasonal wheat in the US. Some times it happens but then you need to try to do it much more traditional belgian or german and it is much more interesting if you do a hefe wheat instead, good examples include; ÜberSun and Hop Sun from Southern Tier.

Sampled beers;

124. IPA

125. Black Shack Porter

126. Blueberry Wheat

After the brewery visit we ended up in Greenfield and headed for the "Peoples Pint" bar. Not much to say about this place. Quite good beers but I do not really understand the hype.

127. Pied pIPA

128. ESB (cask)

129. Provider Pale Ale

130. Helles Bock

131. Oatmeal Stout

132. Farmers Brown

Maybe it was the town itself or maybe the peanut wok (I can understand pasta with some peanut, but not cold peanut with some pasta, :-), better to get the burger at this place, probably a much better choice) that made it bad place. I did not like it much but it seems to very popular arround this area and the beers get quite good rating over at beeradvocate.

As Greenfield did not offer any more beer experiences (at least good experiences) it was just to get home to the motel and recharge for a new day.

Vermont Brewers Festival: The Beers

Complete list sampled at this years beer festival in Burlington included;

67. Long Trail Blackberry Wheat
68. Long Trail Traditional IPA
69. Pennichuck Engine 5 Red Ale
70. Rock Art IPA (II)
71. Rock Art Jasmine Pale Ale (RA)
72. Stone IPA
73. Stone Arrogant Bastard
74. Stone Coast 420 India Pale Ale
75. Switchback Unfiltered Ale
76. Wolavers IPA
77. Vermont Pub & Brewery Forbidden Fruit
78. Woodchuck Draft Cider Dark & Dry
79. Woodchuck Draft Cider Pear
80. Woodstock Inn Pemi Pale
81. Zero Gravity 07 Nights (Belgian Pail Ale)

Thats it.

And the winner? Well the best new brewery for me was probably "Rock Art" and then it comes to the IPA. Plus that I really learned to enjoy the ciders from Woodchuck, that is really a great cider that we should get to Sweden. A second great beer and also a new brewery for me was "Switchback" and the Unfiltered Ale

New England Report VII:2008-07-19

At 17.00 it was finally time for the "Vermont Brewers Festival" that we had all been waiting for. After having some problems getting a cab from the hotel (seems everyone in Burlington was heading for the Waterfront Park at the same time) we finally managed to get there almost on time.

The park was packed with people in very long queues and the sun was extremelly hot. So it was really a struggle for the wait before we actually go into the festival area. But it went quite smoothly and it was organized very well.

Each brewery we located in different white tents and also a lot of food were provided. Talking about beers almost every known Vermont brewery were there, plus a good selection of external breweries like Stone and North Coast.

Getting to the list of sampled beers included; (you got 10 beers included in the price if you had the more normal beers, all connected to the ABV so some of the stronger counted as 3)

"Long Trail Brewing Company"

*. Blackberry Wheat
*. Traditional IPA

"Pennichuck Brewing Co"

*. Engine 5 Red Ale

"Rock Art Brewery" (a new favorite that I have not heard about before)

*. IPA
*. Jasmine Pale Ale

"Stone Brewing Co"

*. Stone IPA
*. Arrogant Bastard Ale

"Stone Coast Brewing Co"

*. 420 India Pale Ale

"Switchback Brewing Co"

*. Switchback Unfiltered Ale

"Vermont Pub & Brewery"

*. Forbidden Fruit

"Woodchuck Draft Cider"

*. Woodchuck Draft Cider Dark & Dry
*. Woodchuck Draft Cider Pear

"Woodstock Inn Brewer"

*. Pemi Pale Ale

"Zero Gravity"

*. 07 Nights (Belgian pail ale)

"Wolavers"

*. IPA


Scene outside the festival area, quite nice huh?

New England Report IV:2008-07-17

Reporting from the Fairview Motel outside New London NH. Here the trip also can continue on the web.

We have had a couple of more amazing beer days with loads of New Hampshire and Vermont beers, including the Vermont Brewers Festival (more about that later on).

If we continue with the actual trip and after the Cape Ann brewery (I later actually got a cap from the brewer himself outside burlington, thanks) if looks like this;

We took the car and continued back in the country from the coast and took us all over to The Tap in Haverhill, MA, a bit north or Boston. The was a natural spot after several pints of the amazing Leatherlips IPA.

(Tap handlers at the Tap in Haverhill)

The Tap has several great beer and is really a nice little town outside the Boston area. They are located in a town that was ages ago very famous for the shoe industry. Therefore they use the old shoe samples as part of the tap handlers.

Sampled beers included;

25. Rejuvination
26. Haverale
27. APA
28. Leatherlips IPA (amazing IPA at only 5% ABV, but in hops tastes like a double IPA, we even got a six pack to go)
29. Fresh Roasted Coffee Stout

After Haverhill we took the car up to Smuttynose Brewing Company in Portsmouth NH. We got the great opportunity with some talk with the bartender to be able to get a short brewery tour. Very fun to just have a quick browse through this brewery. As Smuttynose and especially the IPA is one of our old US IPA bit was really fun to check out the brewery. We got to see all of the production and even some of the future oaked barell experiments they are playing around with at the hidden corner of the brewery.


Sampled beers include;

30. Pale Ale Shoals
31. IPA
32. Portsmouth Lager
33. Old Brown Dog

The list expanded and as you see some people takes the beer list very seriously;

After the samplers and the brewery tour we had to continue and with some free samplers given to us at Smutty we went down to Portsmouth Brewery (sister brewery for Smutty) and sampled the following beers;

34. Bottle Rocket IPA
35. Black Cat Stout
36. Imperial IPA

After finally coming to Portland, maine we got rid of the car and headed down to downtown Portland. Portland by night included;"Grittys"

37. Bitter (cask)
38. Pub Style Pale Ale (cask)

"Sebago Brewing Company"

39. Fryes IPA
40. Boathouse Brown Ale
41. Roadhouse Red Ale

"Great Lost Bear" (Best bar in Portland, just sorry that it was the last place for the night and so far away from everything else, took us 40 minutes to walk between Sebago and the lost beer)

42. Stone Coast 420 IPA
43. Gearys Porter
44. Gearys Ale (cask)

At least you could understand that if you only need one place in Portland, the Great Lost Bear is the place. A cool place with loads of beers and atmosphere. But as always this should have been the first place to visit instead of the last place after a very long beer trail.

New England Report II: 2008-07-16

Day II in and still in Boston. So this is the day that we need to show our beer friends the best of greater Boston beer scene.

The beers and places that we succeeded in getting to during the day includes (the weather was sunny and sunny etc)

"Beer Works", Canal Street

7. Fenway American Pale Ale
8. Back Bay IPA
9. Victory Red (cask)

"Bukowski Tavern" (during the wait of the Stone beer 12th anv.)

10. Lagunitas IPA
11. Sixpoint Bengali Tiger IPA
12. Cambridge Brewing Company Porter

"The Sunset Grill & Tap"

13. Bear Republic Racer 5
14. Boulder Beer Hazed & Infused
15. Moylans Double IPA
16. Allagash Curieux (cask)
17. Stone Oaked Arrogant Bastard
18. He'Brew Lennys RIPA

"The Deep Ellum"

19. Ipswich Mild Brown

New England Report I

Hi,

Yes we actually came to the US and started our New England Beer Trail 2008. The problems with my internet access has continued so a few days has passed with many beer experiences that you could talk about.

As always it is getting a bit late and I really hope that this one is a good choice to try something out on the net. Couple of the last attempts has ended with giving up and instead going to sleep.

So lets get some facts so far.

2008-07-15

Arrived in Boston and our hotel; "Midtown Hotel.

Straight to our favorite bar in Boston; "Bukowski Tavern" on Dalton Street.

1. Stone Arrogant Bastard
2. Cisco Whales Tale Palse Ale
3. Smyttonose IPA

"The Other Side Cafe"

4. DogFish 60 Minute IPA

"The Lower Depths Tap Room" (owned by the Bukowski team)

5. The Tap Leatherlips IPA (amazing IPA at 5% ABV)
6. Otter Creek Copper Ale

Yes I am still here!

If anyone is still reading this blog except myself I just need to inform that our New England Beer Trip 2008 will just start in a couple of hours.

Hopefully I will have access to some kind of network and hope to make at least some comments about the trip.

It will start tomorrow (actually in a couple or hours) with going over to Boston, MA and end on July 30th.

We will probably not finish everything as planned but here is at least the main plan and where you can check were we probably are on this little beer trail.

What about a beer festival in 08?

UPDATED 08013

We have no fixed plans for a beer festival in the US next year. This year we visited the extreme beer fest in Boston and the GABF over at Denver. But next year is still blank.

So I have tried to find a bunch of festivals that sound OK and fits suitable days (spring or the fall). So far I have also created a shortlist.

But what do you think out there?
Am I missing something?
Do you recommend a certain festival?
Or is something definitely no idea to attend?

What we are looking for is a good local festival with a large amount of US-craft beers (does not mean huge like GABF) in a calm and civilized arrangement. Last year the extreme beer festival was definitely something we enjoyed and the type of festival we are looking for. So something that is different from for example the extreme big festivals as for example GABF represents. It is also a plus if it is located in a area where you can have some additional days to explore; meaning with breweries, pubs and other beer related activities.

So what do you think? What should it be?

Top 4:

1. The Spring Craft Beer Festival, Uniondale, Ny; March 29 (*****) + a short stop over at the 1st Manhattan Cask Ale Festival@Chelsea Brew Co.

2. Beer Summit April 2008, Boston; April 18 & 19 (***)

3. Philly Craft BeerFestival, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; march 1 (*)

5. NY Brewfest, New York; September (**)

(*) Means what the current status looks like.


Outside the list:

5. American Beer Fest, Boston; June 15, 16 (*)

6. TAP newyork08 New Yorks Craft Brew Festival, Hunter, NY; April 26,27

7. 25th Annual San Francisco International Beer Festival, Fort Mason, San Francisco ; April 26

8. Great International Spring Beer Festival, Providence, RI; May 5

9. Brooklyn Pigfest; May 12
.