The Great American Ale Trail (Revised Edition)
Page 31
DOYLE’S CAFÉ
3484 Washington St. • Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 • (617) 524-2345 • doylescafeboston.com
Low tin ceilings, acres of dark wood, Kennedy campaign posters, and fresh Sam Adams brews—this was Jim Koch’s first account in 1984—make this stop essential for anyone touring the nearby Boston Beer Company. There’s a small draft list with Sam Adams and Wachusett seasonals, the obligatory Guinness, and bottles of Samuel Smiths and Chimay, among others.
BEST of the REST: MASSACHUSETTS
NIGHT SHIFT BREWING
87 Santilli Hwy. • Everett, MA 02149 • (617) 294-4233 • nightshiftbrewing.com
Founders Michael Oxton, Mike O’Mara and Rob Burns are regularly brewing everything from pink hibiscus IPA to habañero-agave rye ale. The Sour Weisse Collection, consisting of Berliner weisses amped up with kiwi-strawberry and lemongrass-cinnamon flavors, was released in 2012. The new brewery and taproom, opened in 2012, is one of Boston’s finest beer spots, with a huge bar, picnic tables, cornhole, and a steady rotation of food trucks.
TREE HOUSE BREWING COMPANY
160 E. Hill Rd. • Monson, MA 01057 • (413) 523-2367 • treehousebrew.com
Treehouse Brewing is a destination brewery on a cute little farm out in western Massachusetts that sees a great deal of traffic thanks to crowds in search of one beer: Julius, a bright, citrusy IPA ranked at 100-points on BeerAdvocate.com. With a koi pond, growler-filling station, warm, woody pub, and new brewing facility and canning line coming online, things are looking up in Monson.
DEEP ELLUM
477 Cambridge St. • Allston, MA 02134 • (617) 787-BEER (2337) • deepellum-boston.com
With its light-beige walls, beautiful polished bar, and dark wood accents, white tile floors, airy garden patio, and reasonably priced upscale comfort fare (meat loaf, mac ’n’ cheese), Deep Ellum would be a go-to spot even without its excellent, even world-class, tap and bottle list. But what a list. There are twenty-eight taps and about 100 bottled varieties at any one given time (with matching logo glassware); look for beers from such insiders-only producers as High and Mighty and Pretty Things, both of Massachusetts, and Belgium’s De Ranke.
LORD HOBO
92 Hampshire St. • Cambridge, MA 02141 • (617) 250-8454 • lordhobo.com
One of the most hyped craft beer bars to come along in the Northeast in some time (from Daniel Lanigan, former owner of the Moan & Dove in Amherst and the Dirty Truth in Northampton), Lord Hobo took over the space of B-Side, a fabled cocktail bar in Inman Square, in late 2009. With forty taps balanced between obscurities and crowd-pleasers, three hand-pump lines, regular appearances by well-known craft brewers, a small but connoisseur-ready bottle list, and a few bar-top casks, the beer bona fides are absolutely solid. The beer selection is complemented by an ambitious (and accordingly priced) menu of haute-comfort food (boquerones, pork belly, pan-seared scallops, grilled rib-eye) served in a dark, arty environment. Now Lanigan’s running a 47,000-square-foot production brewery, Lord Hobo Brewing Co. in Woburn (5 Draper St.; 781-281-0809), to brew, among others, Boom Sauce, a brashly hopped 7.4% ABV American-style IPA in cans.
THE PUBLICK HOUSE
1648 Beacon St. • Brookline, MA 02445 • (617) 277-2880 • eatgoodfooddrinkbetterbeer.com
With thirty-six taps and about 150 bottle selections, the Publick House has garnered rapturous reviews since 2002 from beer geeks and casual fans alike, drawn in by its vast menu, candlelit interior, and broadly Belgian-influenced pub-grub menu. The beer list is divided into Belgian, Belgian-style, Here (domestic craft) and There (imported craft), and yields some very unusual treats, such as a recent sour, dark Flemish red beer called Cuvée Des Jacobins Rouge (5.5% ABV) from Brouwerij Bockor.
REDBONES
55 Chester St. • Somerville, MA 02144 • (617) 628-2200 • redbones.com
A dependable, down-to-earth barbecue place open since 1987 and serving up big heaping piles of Memphis-, Texas-, Arkansas-, and St. Louis–style ribs, Redbones has always had a strong beer list. And with beer bars all over the country raising the bar to unheard-of heights in terms of hard-to-find beers, this affably rough-hewn two-story place has kept pace, adding a total of twenty-eight taps, a smart little bottle list, and cask-conditioned ales. Recent drafts have included such California cult beers as Lost Abbey and Ballast Point, two makers of big-hearted beers that go well with the spicy, juicy barbecue feast coming off the grill.
ARMSBY ABBEY
144 Main St. • Worcester, MA 01608 • (508) 795-1012 • armsbyabbey.com
Chef-owner Alec Lopez opened this elegant gastropub in 2008, developing a rock-solid local following for his epicurean bites and esoteric, sought-after brews. Then the place went “global” in 2012, when the Shelton Bros. importers’ first annual “Festival” was staged in town. For several days straight, Lopez’s bar was jammed with international brewing stars (and their beers), cementing the bar’s reputation. If you make it here, don’t miss The Dive Bar, another low-key Lopez masterpiece in Worcester.
CAMBRIDGE BREWING CO.
1 Kendall Sq., Bldg. 100 • Cambridge, MA 02139 • (617) 494-1994 • cambridgebrewingcompany.com
The oldest brewpub in the Boston area (est. 1989) has been spreading its wings in recent years, broadening from the ambers, porters, and stouts that won it early praise into tasty farmhouse styles and herb-and-spiced brews that are harder to brew than to love. Look for longtime brewmaster Will Myers’s hits like Sgt. Pepper, brewed with four kinds of pepper, and Le Saisonierre, a traditional saison.
TRILLIUM BREWING CO.
369 Congress St. • Boston, MA 02210 • (617) 453-8745 • trilliumbrewing.com
Opened in March 2013 with the support of “family, volunteers, two babies, and three employees,” Trillium has found a massively appreciative audience in Boston, allowing the upstart to expand into a 16,000-square-foot production brewery and tasting room in nearby Canton in 2015 (about 20 miles south). The beers in both locations range from pale ales, “dank, juicy” IPAs, and stouts, to a handful of wild ales, farmhouse-inspired saisons, and other barrel-aged adventures.
JACK’S ABBY
100 Clinton St. • Framingham, MA 01702 • (774) 777-5085 • jacksabby.com
Brothers Jack, Eric, and Sam Hendler lead Jack’s Abby (named for Jack’s wife Abby), which has been brewing wildly popular craft lagers since 2011. With this 67,000-square-foot expansion brewery and restaurant opened in 2015 driving the effort, Jack’s Abby canned brews are among the most ubiquitous in the Northeast these days. Stop by for wood-fired pizza, local mussels, and other beer-friendly fare to wash down with well-made brews like the Hoponious Union India Pale Lager.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Hampton
SMUTTYNOSE BREWING CO.
105 Towle Farm Rd. • Hampton, NH 03842 • (603) 436-4026 • smuttynose.com • Established: 1994
SCENE & STORY
Named for Smuttynose Island, the third-largest of the nine islands that form the Isles of Shoals, a small, rugged archipelago offshore, this is one of the Northeast’s biggest beer success stories, launched in Portsmouth in 1994 and moved, in 2014, to Towle farm, founded around 1639 and formerly home to nine generations of Towles. Now there’s a restaurant and disc golf course amid the orchards, garden plots, and beehives.
Cofounder Peter Egelston, a Spanish Lit grad (who, with his sister, helped to open an earlier pair of pioneering breweries in New Hampshire, in Northampton and Portsmouth), is still in charge. Meanwhile the brewing team has grown and evolved to handle huge packaging projects, like the “Big Beers” and “SmuttLabs” series of large format and experimental beers. Brewery director David Yarrington, a home brewer and chemistry major at Colby College, worked for a number of good breweries before completing the UC Davis Master Brewers Program and joining Smuttynose in 2001 but left at the end of 2002 to pursue other projects.
PHILOSOPHY
All-in. With a farm-based brewery, farm-to-table restaurant, successful IPAs (�
�Bouncy House” and “Big-A”), and freewheeling experimental beer series, is there anything these guys won’t do well? Don’t count on it.
KEY BEER
The English-style Shoal’s Pale Ale put Smutty on the map, but it’s the new seasonals and experimental Big Beers that are really breaking path these days, like Durty, an engrossing, 8.4% ABV hoppy brown ale, or the 8.2% ABV Smoky Scotch Ale.
Hooksett
WHITE BIRCH BREWING
1368 Hooksett Rd., Unit 6 • Hooksett, NH 03106 • (603) 244-8593 • whitebirchbrewing.com • Established: 2009
SCENE & STORY
New Hampshire’s first nanobrewery, founded by dedicated home brewer turned-pro Bill Herlicka in a plain industrial space, started with half barrel (about fifteen gallon)–batches that became so popular he was almost immediately planning a 7bbl brewhouse to meet demand. That expansion now complete, Herlicka is still running a small operation dedicated to making excellent beer in unusual styles, many of which are barrel-aged British- and Belgian-style beers. There’s a small tasting room area for samples and growler sales, but no tours of the little brewery.
PHILOSOPHY
White Birch is no-frills but innovative, a classic successful craft brewer combination. It’s not that he lacks ideas, he has said, it’s that he suffers for a shortage of time and fermenter space—the two most expensive ingredients in brewing.
KEY BEER
Look for the Hooksett Belgian IPA, an intense, spicy, hop-suffused bomb of a beer at 9.5% ABV.
BEST of the REST: NEW HAMPSHIRE
WOODSTOCK STATION INN & BREWERY
135 Main St. • North Woodstock, NH 03262 • (800) 321-3985 • woodstockinnnh.com
The Woodstock Station Inn opened its little copper, wood, and brick-clad seven-barrel brewery in 1996 and soon began booking guests deeply interested in the process of brewing itself. Offered in April and May for $125 (not including room cost), Brewery Weekend guests enjoy a reception Friday night and beer dinner Saturday, breakfast each morning and lunch on Saturday, and the chance to try out some aspects of the process during hands-on sessions in the brewhouse.
7TH SETTLEMENT
47 Washington St. • Dover, NH 03820 • (603) 373-1001 • 7thsettlement.com
A close-knit brew co-op (with One Love Brewing) and farm-to-table restaurant anchor this busy destination in Dover, opened in an historic wool and linen factory in 2013 (and named for Dover, the 7th non-native community settled in the New World). The locavore, nose-to-tail food is super ambitious, with housemade noodles, bread, sausage, bacon, ketchup, and beer-brined chicken, among other offerings, all paired with house beers from a dozen taps, of course.
VERMONT
WITH SOME FORTY BREWERIES AND COUNTING, VERMONT IS ONE OF THE MOST BREWERY-DOTTED states in the U.S. per capita. There are great beer bars and taprooms all over the state and the helpful Vermont Brewers website (vermontbrewers.com) will fill you in on the many options. As of this writing, though, some of the most famous breweries and beers don’t have taprooms or tours, like the Alchemist (of Heady Topper fame) and Lawson’s Finest Liquids, makers of the beloved Sip of Sunshine IPA. So do some research and ask around in taprooms where your Vermont ale trail should head next.
HILL FARMSTEAD
403 Hill Rd. • Greensboro Bend, VT 05842
(802) 533-7450 • hillfarmstead.com • Established: 2010
SCENE & STORY
Eighth-generation Vermonter Shaun Hill recommends you do some Google mapping or consult your onboard GPS before trying to locate his remote brewery down a dirt road in the countryside where he’s leading a revolution of the Vermont brewing scene. It is exceedingly tricky to find his award-winning beers anywhere else. Whatever else you hear about Hill Farmstead, understand that a successful visit takes careful prior planning—it’s remote and can be very crowded on weekends.
Hill’s journey from home to Europe and home again has become northeastern beer geek gospel. First he worked entry-level jobs in a pair of breweries in Vermont after college and then gained increasing responsibilities in three firms in Europe. Among them was Danish craft brewery Nørrebro Bryghus, led at the time by Anders Kissmeyer, a brewer who had taken a revolutionary road of his own by pioneering experimental styles in Carlsberg-saturated Denmark. The partnership was a fruitful one: three beers the still unknown Hill brewed with Kissmeyer earned two golds and a silver at the 2010 World Beer Cup in Chicago, news which filled thousands of attendees with admiration and a question: Wait, who is this guy?
Around this time, Hill returned from Europe, and used borrowed equipment and loans from fans and friends to get his own brewery up and running on land not far from the spot where his great-great-grand-father had opened a tavern (on Hill Road).
Shaun Hill is a reluctant prophet, a Jonah of the northeastern kingdom. Even in 2011 the line for growlers could be two hours long, every single weekend. This was not what he signed up for. No one wants to keep customers waiting. And pulling customers’ cars out of the mud with his tractor was no fun, either. Patrons selling their purchases on the growing gray and black markets became a growing practice Hill despised. Then in late April of 2013, Vanity Fair ran an interview with Hill. Now what had been a semi-underground beer geek conversation was the stuff of glossy checkstand magazines. As any small business owner knows, too much attention can be a very difficult thing. But Hill and Co. managed the chaos well.
Today Hill has built a shiny new brewery next to the original barn and tasting room, and the crowds continue, as do the accolades. In 2015, RateBeer announced Hill Farmstead as its top brewery in Vermont, in the United States, and in the world.
Not that they shouldn’t. The beers have been simply outstanding, from Belgian wit beer (Florence) to Black IPA aged in pinot noir barrels and dry-hopped with Simcoe (Jim), a release of a mere twenty-five cases. Ephraim, a 10.3% ABV Imperial IPA, contains five hop varieties and off-the-chart IBUs, but has dazzled the relatively few beer lovers who have been able to taste it. And on the sour spectrum, Hill is just as assured. Prolegomena, a Flanders red collaboration with the Boston-area brewer Will Meyers, of Cambridge Brewing Company, is a great beer, a tart rebuke to the status quo.
PHILOSOPHY
Brewer as Superman? Hill has released beers he says were inspired by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, and working within the arch-individualistic underpinnings those associations suggest, he aims to please. “All of my decisions, related to the present and future of Hill Farmstead Brewery, are calculated, rational, and existential,” Hill says. Make sure your decision to drive up there from Boston or New York is similarly calculated, preferably on a weekday.
KEY BEER
The Ancestor series is an ongoing celebration of Hill’s forebears in the area including Edward (an APA that is his best seller). The Collaboration series was launched with a beer Hill called Fear and Trembling (there’s the Kierkegaard), a smoked Baltic Porter aged in French oak cabernet barrels. Kissmeyer himself traveled from Denmark to assist his former pupil, hand smoking the malt over maple wood chips outside the barn, resulting in a powerfully smoky 9.3% ABV brew with chocolate- and espresso-like flavors and a vinous finish.
BEST of the REST: VERMONT
FIDDLEHEAD BREWING COMPANY
6305 Shelburne Rd. • Shelburne, VT 05482 • (802) 399-2994 • fiddleheadbrewing.com
Opened in 2012 in Shelburne right off Route 7 near Lake Champlain, Fiddlehead has a simple tasting room in a tall, red barnlike building next door to Folino’s pizza, which is BYOB and uses a wood-fired oven. With Second Fiddle, an 8.2% ABV canned DIPA, the brewery—led by Matt “Matty O” Cohen—joins the state tradition of great IPAs led by Heady Topper, the canned sensation brewed by the Alchemist Brewery, and Liquid Sunshine, brewed by Lawson’s Finest Liquids. Go on a Monday and fill a growler for two dollars off.
THE FARMHOUSE TAP & GRILL
160 Bank St. • Burlington, VT 05401 • (802) 859-0888 • farmhousetg.com
In a
beautiful turn of events perhaps indicating some important cultural wind direction, the building that houses this new (2010) gastropub used to be home to a McDonald’s—for thirty years. Today, the space is dedicated to a classic farm-to-table eatery with a beer list every bit as curated as its menu of grass-fed beef, free-range poultry, and heritage pork dishes accented by local cheese, charcuterie, and produce. Regional and local producers, including Hill Farmstead, Otter Creek, Trapp, Rock Art, and Wolaver’s, are all well represented, as are many of the top American and Belgian small batch and farmhouse-style producers.
THREE PENNY TAPROOM
108 Main St. • Montpelier, VT 05602 • (802) 223-8277 • threepennytaproom.com
A craft beer bar on Montpelier’s Main Street, Three Penny Taproom has twenty-four taps and forty-five bottles available, including craft-brewed Belgian, American, and particularly Northeast beers such as Heady Topper, Hill Farmstead, Southern Tier, and Trapp Family, paired with local cheeses.
The MID-ATLANTIC
THOUGH THIS REGION WAS ONCE RICH WITH LOCAL AND REGIONAL BREWERIES, NEARLY ALL died off during Prohibition. The comeback, starting in the 1980s and following the lead of West Coast path-breakers, didn’t happen overnight. Thanks to their relative nearness to cosmopolitan Europe, cities like New York and D.C. had become hotbeds for pricey imports from England, Germany, and Holland starting in the 1970s. As innovative importers introduced Belgian ales and Eastern European pilsners to choosey, sophisticated northeasterners, their tastes for beer began to wander. At the same time, ambitious British-style brewpubs and microbreweries began to thrive in the suburbs and even in rural towns. These weren’t kids in a model U.N. or hippies going back to the land, these were brewers challenging the status quo and marching their fresh creations steadily into the best bars, restaurants, and quarters of town, opening a lot of minds in the process. There is now a tiny artisanal brewery on one Manhattan rooftop (Eataly’s La Birreria), and D.C. power players crowd into brewpubs like the Brewer’s Art every night of the week. No matter where you start or end up on a tour of the region, it’s a beer lover’s feast.