Brewmaster Jack: Total Eclipse

I love beers that steer slightly off the track. They don't have to be full of crazy ingredients and wacky labels and all sorts of things to be unexpectedly delicious. Case in point, a young brewer stopped by the store selling some Brewmaster Jack beers and handed me some samples. Stray Dog Amber Lager, Ambrewsia Imperial IPA and a Chocolate Rye Porter simply titled Total Eclipse. First glance at the beer and you notice all the labels look quant and simple, like they're designed on a Mac from 1993. But the bottles also contain something I truly love, details about the beer! What a novelty!  Locally sourced malted barley and grains plus details about the hops. At first I was pumped to try Ambrewsia, their Imperial IPA, but the beer I was floored by was Total Eclipse.
Total Eclipse smells like delicious chocolate, and as soon as it touches the tongue you get a nice hot rye blast, but the smoothness of this beer is equally shocking. It's so well layered in flavors. Chocolate, spicy, smooth and then bitter at the end. I can imagine making this in your kitchen realizing, "I have to brew this commercially for everyone." It's the kind of beer that you just sit back and sip and let it warm you up watching a movie.
Massachusetts has been exploding with new brewers over the past few years, but the selection on the shelves in Boston isn't always robust with out western state mates. Luckily Paper City Brewing Company helps produce some excellent beers that make it this way, including their own beer, High and Mighty Brewing Company and Backlash Brewing. And now homebrewer Tyler Guilmette is taking it to the next level and brewing some seriously delicious beers that we get to enjoy.

Tyler Guilmette named his brewery after his Grandfather, who as he says, wasn't a brewmaster, but brewed his own beer just like Tyler does now. Sometime you get locally made beers that just aren't good. They seem more like a money grab from someone seeing a niche market growing and wanted to get a piece of that pie. Tyler's beers taste like a labor of love, I mean, who'd start out with a 6 pack of an amber lager if they're hoping to just make money. No one! The money's in Pale Ales. Instead Tyler is making beers that he thinks are thee best he can make, and I'm right there with him. His beers are excellent and I hope we get a new beer soon from him. 

Rhizing Bines

Sometimes somethings are not worth waiting for. Sometimes you just have to give into your utmost desires and do exactly what you want. And in all seriousness, it's been a while since I've been this excited about an IPA. Not that I don't love a good IPA, but this IPA has a new experimental hop varietal in it, known only as Hop 644. (Hop 644 sounds like something out of a government conspiracy film from Alex Jones) And since Dogfish Head's Rhizing Bines beat Sierra Nevada's new Red IPA 644 to the store, I had to open it up. I was also planning to wait for the new IPA glass but I just couldn't. It was my day off and I wanted this beer. So after attempting to distract myself with Stuff You Should Know Podcasts and playing video games I cracked. It was 2:30. This beer was just calling my name, sitting in my fridge screaming at me.
I took it out, cracked the bottle open and took a deep whiff of the top of the bottle. The smells were nice and fresh, hoppy citrusy goodness. Right off the bat this beer is very interesting to me. It has a very familiar smell to it, but it also smells somewhat new. I'm not a hops expert but it definitely was unique, like some citrus fruit hybrid of grapefruit and mango or something. And of course the malts are there but this beer is about the hops. Luckily the vessel carrying the hops is so perfectly balanced, with not a hint of the 8% alcohol, just fresh and floral hops washing over everything. I sipped on this beer listening to more podcasts and just enjoyed waved after wave of fresh hops. Drink it fresh, cause it's excellent.

The Tap: Swanny Boy

I'm snowed in do to Nemo, an amazing storm that dumped two feet of snow on Brighton and forced me dig out my truck for two hours just to get it loose from it's icy grip. My lovely lady even photographed it for proof. After shoveling for that long I clearly deserved a reward, and that reward was going to start with Swanny Boy from The Tap in Haverhill, MA. I wrote about it before right here about how they've changed their labels and decided to move from 6 packs to nothing but bombers. And I've been waiting for the right time to open up this beer. A nice dark Porter made with maple syrup but not gonna kick my ass going into the night since it only rings up at 5.2%.
Now, since The Tap in Haverhill is a great place to get a pint and some food and Swanny is slang for an absolute shithole to get a pint, clearly that's not where name comes from. Instead, the Tap named this beer after their friend Jason Sirois, and based on taste he must be an excellent guy.
I pour heavy, and the head that crawls up the glass is beautiful creamy compaired to the dark beer that awaits me. The smell is oddly Squash like, very earth and mild. The taste is so nice, chocolatey with maple syrup all over the tongue throughout. The hops are buried in the back of this beer but the bitterness is absolutely needed because of the upfront sweetness. Great sipper beer in the cold weather. The Tap has done a great job of reinventing themselves and putting out excellent beer that's incredibly affordable. Five bucks for a bomber is something I'd have no problem going back for over and over again.

Nor'easter's Coming

Cartoon stolen from MetroWest Daily News

The store is gonna be nuts today. Snow is expected to pile up the streets of beautiful Boston and everyone needs to stock up on the essentials. And beer. Just remember to be well prepared. Mixed 12 packs are an excellent start. They let you try some different things and they won't let monotony set in while you're stuck watching hours and hours of No Reservations and Harry Potter. There are three that I'd strongly recommend that truly have an unbelievable mix of beers that you may have never had before, hell, beers I've only had once in my life.
Magic Hat's new mix pack contains not one, but two fairly unique beers. First, a gose they called Saint Saltan, What's a Gose? A Gose is the German answer to the Belgian Witbier, an ale made with Coriander and instead of some sweetness like the typical witbier, Goses are spiced with salt, giving it a beautiful tartness that is an excellent change of pace from the usual hop bombs that are all the rage these days. Now Magic Hat used a San Francisco Lager Yeast strain instead of an ale yeast, so this beer is crisper and cleaner than the other Gose you may have unknowingly had recently, Sam Adams 26.2 marathon beer that showed up last Patriots Day at some excellent local bars.
The next unique beer in Magic Hats 12 pack is Pistil, a beer brewed with Dandelion petals. Not quite a Gruit, this beer packs a lovely grassyness that goes along with some light hop bitterness from Apollo hops. Pack it in with Magic Hat's #9 pale ale and their newest brew, Ticket to Rye, a Rye-P.A. and you'll have a good mix of beers to ride out the storm.

If Magic Hat's fruity background and sometimes wacky beers are too off putting for you, let's head south to Maryland and Flying Dog Brewery's newly designed mix pack. I've long loved Flying Dog for their Aspen, Colorado roots and one of my favorite writers of all time, Hunter S. Thompson's quotes being plastered over their 6-packs and them in turn brewing Gonzo Imperial Porter to help build a cannon to blast his ashes into the air after he took his life February 20, 2005. The real problem is that their Mixed 12-pack was always garbage, with no rotating seasonal or anything exciting in their but the same old thing. Tire Bite, a nice Kolsch but really nothing to write home about. Doggie Style Pale Ale, a great pale ale that has a much maltier backbone than some of it's counterparts, making it a much nicer cold weather pale than I expected, and Snake Bite IPA that continues the trend with big bitter hops and a very full flavor. But none of these beers are why I love the current edition of Flying Dogs mix pack. Flying Dog Pearl Necklace, an Oyster Stout! A stout brewed with oysters strait out of the Chesapeake Bay. Briny and chocolatey, an excellent mix of salty sea water and sweet malts. Pearl Hops round out both the beer and the name making it an amazing beer to be stuck in the house with. We all know that beer and oysters makes for a good night, so get them all in one place.

Okay, so you're not in the mood to get experimental. Fine, I'll talk about Hops. The last 12 pack you can sit in the house with and kill hours without getting bored is Sam Adams Hopology 12 pack. Two bottles each of six different Hoppy beers.
The Latitude 48 and Whitewater IPA are regularly available and are solid beers, nothing special but certainly good beers. Dark Depths might be the worst beer I've ever tasted, so give it to a neighbor or  the dog or whoever. After that, here are my three favorite in the batch.
Tasman Red, a red IPA made with Galaxy and Topaz hops grown in Tasmania. The hops are very floral and it drinks with a heavy malt backbone. The hops also have a serious bite on the tongue going down.
Third Voyage is a double IPA made entirely with Cascade hops, and if you love a west coast style IPA, this is the beer you'll love. Pine and Citrus. Citrus and Pine. Some sweetness in the malt but this beer is all about the hops, and they're so bitter and fresh at the same time.
Six different hops and a Belgian yeast strain make for Grumpy Monk, a Belgian style IPA that's rich with clove and banana in the nose and all over the palate. Hops aren't anywhere near as strong as the previous two beers but the bitterness is there, as it should be if you're cooking with six hop varietals.
So avoid Cabin Fever by mixing up your beer and keeping it fresh.

Bourbon County

It was back in 2004 at the original Goose Island brewpub that founder John Hall celebrated his 1,000th batch of beer by housing some Imperial Stout in Bourbon Barrels. I've heard a variety of sources saying the barrels were Elijah Craig's 18 yr barrels, others saying they were Pappy Van Winkle's 25 yr barrels. Either way, Bourbon County is said by many to be one of the most influential beers in the country, kick starting a barrel aging revolution across the United States. Eight years later, the latest batch was finally released, and while it won't be the last, it'll probably be my last batch. 
With the purchase of Goose Island by ab-inbev in 2011, Founder John Hall announced he'd be stepping down as CEO of the Goose, so one last sweet taste of Bourbon County seemed appropriate. Throw in the high price of bourbon county and the fact that I think inbev is a greedy conglomerate, the decision was made. Besides, Boston really has one of the most creative groups of brewers around right now with extensive barrel programs between Night Shift Brewing, Mystic Brewing, Jack's Abby and probably loads of others that I've missed, so I don't really need Bourbon County like I might've in 2004.   That doesn't however mean that I wouldn't sink my teeth into one last batch of Bourbon County before I retire it away from my collective thought.
Unaged, fresh bourbon county is still a beast of a beer. This years variation cranks in at 15%, and the heat from the whiskey and booze is present in the nose. It smells strongly of sweet malt and bourbon. The taste carries it over with serious sweetness and very little hops. The bourbon is still very hot with some nice burn on the tongue. A serious sipping beer. I have one left that I plan to age and it'll probably be the last one I buy since other bourbon and barrel aged beers are becoming regularly available.