Blog Archives

In Which We Are Passionate About Fruit

1/25/2023

Hello again! It's That Special Time once more, so let's get to the news about the brews!

And to start things off, we have some decidedly non-beer news, which is to say that we will be closing early (at 6PM) on Sunday for a staff meeting (does everybody else use "meeting" as a euphemism for "drinking"? We sure do).

And moving right along with the Moderate Bummer News, there will be no cask this week. But never you fear, it'll be back in full force next week!

And getting to all the fun stuff we've got in store for you this week, we've got beer! More to the point, we've started feeling a bit of a hankering for warmer climes, so we re-brewed Passion (Fruit) Project to give us a taste of sunnier days and it's on tap right now and you should have some!

And then for our weekly Fun Times™ we've got some fun times, starting tonight! Tonight (which is to say Wednesday, assuming the blog goes up on time) we'll be hosting Music Bingo and I don't know what that means, but you can be sure we'll be there in the crowd (losing horribly, as always) and you should join us!

And then on Thursday we're teamin' up with our pals at Left Couch Comedy and turning our side room into the World's Quaintest Comedy Club and more to the point there's gonna be a buncha great comedy happening (and also this is gonna be a recurring event, so if you come out this week then you get to say that you were In On The Ground Floor or whatever it is people say to try and feel cool) and it's gonna be a great time and you should join us!

And speaking of fun events, on Friday we've got another fun event! We're hosting this month's Band Hangouts and it just so happens that we've paired up the event with a beer release! We collaborated with our post-rock pals in Girih on a "live-looped tripel"* and it's called The Hourglass and it's available on tap and in bottles starting when the Hangouts start and also we've got Junius, Pray for Sound, and Lesotho comin' in and hangin' out and slingin' merch and also Food-Zilla is gonna be in the house servin' up tasty eats and it's gonna be a ton of fun!

And speaking of tasty eats, on Saturday we've got our friends from Adriano's Tacos comin' by all afternoon and we ain't got much by way of events that day but that's cool anyway because Saturdays should really be the kind of day where you just kind of cool it for the day without trying to "do" a whole bunch of "stuff" and anyway we've got just the place for you to do all the next-to-nothing your heart desires!

* "Live looping" in the context of music refers to recording snippets of music - while playing - and then playing those snippets back on a loop, which is how Girih manages to give the impression of "having like fourteen guitars at a time." In the context of beer, we brewed this tripel and then we introduced some of a different batch mid-fermentation. We may be straining the metaphor a bit, but just roll with it.

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In Which We Pretend the New Brewery Floor is the Big News for the Week (Spoiler: It's Something Else)

1/18/2023

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Howdy friends! Welcome back! It just so happens that this week we're stoked to make a Very Important Announcement: we recoated the floors in our production area! Now, it's difficult to understate the impact that this will have on you specifically (which is to say none whatsoever), but it's something that Jared gets very excited about so we figured we'd humor him or whatever.

Let him have this; the floor will never look this good again

And speaking of announcements, we're also excited to tell you that we'll be partnering with Light of Day Records and they'll be settin' up shop in our taproom! Yes indeedy, we're clearin' out a bit of space in the Main Taproom and in a few weeks' time we/they will be slingin' vinyl - think of it like a "permanent popup" if that helps (only you'll be able to add records to your tab if you're at the bar). Anyway, we'll have more details forthcoming (the official announcement is actually scheduled for tomorrow), so keep them eyes peeled!

We're, like, super stoked for this

And while we're on about things we're excited about, we might as well move on to cask! This Thursday we're tappin' up a pin of taproom-favorite Jazz from Hell and we figured we'd "jazz it up" with a heapin' helpin' of comet! Comet's a bit of a left turn flavorwise (comet is mostly old-school citrus & pine, while Zappa is a bit more tropical) and anyway we're stoked to see what it's gonna taste like but also we know it's gonna be tasty!

Say it with me: CAAAAAASSSSSKKKKKKKK

And speaking of Thursday, on Thursday we've got trivia! And pies! More to the point, we're hosting "The Office" themed trivia (complete with some silly themed prizes, of course) and also we've got our friends from Seabiscuit in the house dishin' up some of their delicious savory pies!

And for treats and eats the rest of the weekend we've got a pair of relatively-new-to-us popups comin' through the taproom (they've each been here once, and they're both so good) with Sekali comin' by on Friday with a buncha Malaysian food (seriously, get the congee beef bowl or whatever they call it) and we've got Nagomi Bento comin' by on Saturday (I don't remember the name of what I ordered, but it was also excellent) and then of course on Sunday we've got our weekly sushi classes!

DO THE THINGS

And movin' on to next week, we've got a bunch more fun stuff for you! Next Tuesday we've got Bonsai Bar comin' through (tickets here) and then next Wednesday we've got music bingo night and then next Thursday we're hosting the first installment of our monthly comedy night! We're teamin' up with Left Couch Comedy to bring in the best and/or brightest in the Boston comedy scene and they'll be tellin' some zingers in our side room, so grab some tickets and come check it out!

Beer: Made From Ingredients
Comedy: Composed of Jokes

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2022: Year in Numbers

1/10/2023

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Howdy do kids and squids! It's time again for one of our* favorite year-end wrap ups: The Year In Numbers! But before we get into all that nitty gritty, we gotta give you the hip haps on what we've got goin' on here in the taproom, so let's jump right into it!

But, actually, we have one more matter to discuss before we do that, and that's to thank everyone who came out for Horatio Day this past weekend! It was a hell of a time, full of cake and friendship and vinyl and oh so much barrel-aged beer, and we're completely jazzed as hell that so many of y'all were able to make it! It was a good enough Horatio Day, in fact, that we managed to kick every one of the special kegs that we tapped, which is rad as hell but also means we don't have leftovers to tap for the next week, but also it means we gotta step it up next year, so step we shall!

FIIIIIIIG PIIIIIIIIG

And moving back to the here and/or now, we've got cask! Yes indeedy, on Thursday we're tappin' up a pin of Shut Up Kelly and since ol' Kelly don't need no help bein' tasty on cask we're servin' her straight up, just as god intended! (and also we've got a different cask of Kelly that's got a bunch of stuff dumped in it that we're tapping in two weeks or so).

And speaking of Thursday, on Thursday we've also got Simpsons Trivia! This one's the last in the "one season per month" stretch that we've been doing (new themes coming for February!) and anyway this time the theme is Season Twelve and you should come hang out!

And then on Friday we've got more cool stuff for you! We recently collaborated with local author Michael Cloherty (who wrote the book Abel Bodied, which is about a historical bank robbery/murder in Malden) and that beer comes out on Friday so we're gettin' the author himself in here to do a book reading/signing so if you like books or local history or beers (or Malaysian food, since we've got Sekali in the house for the first time), you should probably come on by!

And then on Saturday we're tryin' something new to us and hosting a vision board workshop! Crystal (who is probably the same Crystal from our themed yoga classes, but don't quote me on that) will be starting the afternoon off with some guided meditation followed by creating some vision boards (and drinking beer, which is included in the ticket)! And then right as that's wrappin' up we've got Adriano's Tacos settin' up in the taproom, which is unrelated to vision boards (at least it's unrelated to all the non-taco content on said vision boards), but it will be tasty, so come on by!

And then on Sunday we resume our regularly-scheduled sushi classes with Chef Harold! Chef Harold is great and so is his sushi.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming, but with shiny new graphics!

Moving on to next week, next Tuesday we've got more Fiddle Times! Long story short, we're hosting an open-invite old-timey jam session in the side room and you're welcome to participate (last time somebody brought a harp. Like, an entire harp) or you can just come out and listen to some tunes and either way it's a fun time!

And then next Thursday we've got The Office Trivia Night! It'll be a night of laughs and brain-busters and reminiscing about everyone's favorite office-themed situational comedy and there's gonna be prizes and everything, so come on out! Our pals at Seabiscuit will be popping up their delicious savory pies starting at 6pm, so dinner's covered. Get here early true believers!

Mmmm.... pieeeee

* More to the point, it's Jared's favorite year-end wrapup because he thinks "numbers are fun." On a related note, he keeps assuring us (unprompted) that he "hasn't serial killed anyone, not even once."

And now that we're all done ramblin' on about all the cool stuff that's comin' up, it's time we look back on last year one more time with The Year in Numbers! For those of you that are new around here, we like to come up with a bunch of stats about all the stuff we did in the past year and then we try to Get Weird with it! Anyway, you'll get the gist pretty quickly (or you'll get bored and stop reading pretty quickly, which is why we put this at the end), so let's get to it!

Production: By the Numbers

Number of batches brewed (total): 92
Number of double batches: 29
Percentage of batches brewed that were new beers: 51%
Amount of beer packaged, in gallons: 12,985

Number of flights that would fill: 83,104
Percentage of total volume actually served in flights: 4.7%
Amount of time, on average (assuming a 24/7 production schedule) it takes for Boston Beer Company to produce the same of beer we make in a year: 1 hour, 52 minutes*

Number of different beers packaged: 77
Number of new beers released: 59
Number of collaboration beers: 20, not counting wedding beers
Number of wedding beers: 5

Highest number of beers released (or rereleased) in one month: 11 (in August. Or 9 in July if you don’t count barreled/wild blends as “releases”)
Number of funky/wild beers released: 7
Number of "milkshake IPAs" brewed: 0, which is in fact the correct amount
Average OG of beer produced (in degrees SG): 1.053
Average ABV of beer produced: 6.1%
Highest ABV beer produced: No Light Ever (8.8%)
Lowest ABV beer produced: Bird Bath (4.2%)
Amount of vodka, in gallons, it would take to make the same amount of alcohol we produced this year: 1,980

Beer brewed most often: Extra Naked
Number of Extra Naked batches brewed: 15
Number of people in production who had Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell in their top five most-listened-to songs of the year: 1 (out of 4). 3 if you count the fact that it was in Jared's list thrice.

Number of collaboration whiskeys released: 1, and it's damn fine

* They don’t actually make beer any faster than we do, this is just for scale

Ingredients: By the Numbers

Amount of hibiscus, in pounds, that was sacrificed to Henrietta this year: 60

Amount of hops used, in pounds: 640.6
Average hopping rate, in lbs/BBL: 1.67
Percentage of hops that were grown locally: 29%
Percentage of hops that were grown in Michigan, of all places: 28%
Number of hop varieties used: 38
Most used hop variety: Masscade (60#!)
Height, in feet, that you would need to grow all those hops on a single bine: 4,807.5
Amount of time, in weeks (assuming a 40-hour workweek), it would take you to pick all those hops by hand: 16

Amount of grain used, in pounds: 30,876.9
Number of individual grains that would be (approximate): 389,000,315
Percentage of grain that came from local suppliers: 21% (52% if you consider Delaware to be “local”)
Amount of oats used, as measured in bowls of oatmeal: 21,872
Amount of brown sugar used, also measured in bowls of oatmeal (but as a topping this time): 11,127

Amount of honey used, in pounds: 340
Number of bees it would take to produce that much honey: 189,040 (visiting approximately 378,080,000,000 flowers in the process)
Yeast harvested, in cells: 581,038,000,000,000 (plus another 34,503,000,000,000 or so from lab-grown yeast)

The Blog: By the Numbers

Number of words written in the blog: 59,669 (nice)
Number of pages that would fill in a paperback: 199

Least verbose month: December - 2479 words
Most verbose month: November - 6419 words (January doesn’t count)
Top 3 most commonly used words in the blog (in order, other than "beer"): time, gonna, fun

Least commonly used words on the blog (four-way tie): air, cookies, draft, lime
Number of times we used the word "beer" in the blog this year: 761
Number of months "beer" wasn't the most-used word: 0 (technically in November we used the word “got” more than “beer,” but that’s no fun)
Number of times we managed to use the word "spooktacular" in the blog this year: 23

Snacks: By the Numbers

Number of hot dogs served: 2,721
Number of cows it would take to produce that much beef: 0.77 (as in, we went through 77% of the beef you would get from a cow, in hot dog form)
Number of hot dog themed trophies we were awarded: 1 (Best Brewery Hot Dog, Costco Division)

Total number of pieces of candy consumed per beer on draft when figuring out the beer and candy pairing menu: 9
Number of calories - in candy alone - consumed by each member of production when figuring out the beer and candy pairing menu, as measured in pints of ice cream: 3 (plus about a half tablespoon)
Amount of sugar consumed by each member of production when figuring out the beer and candy pairing menu, as measured in Pixy Stix: 102.4

Taproom and Beer Garden: By the Numbers

Number of full pours served (12, 13, or 16oz): 29,033
Percentage of full pours that were Extra Naked: 14.9%
Number of flights served: 3,910
Percentage of those flights that were served over Halloween weekend: 4.8%

Number of single to-go cans sold to people who definitely weren’t about to go drink in the parking lot: 63
Number of beers poured during our birthday weekend: 1,851

Number of dog costumes at our dog costume party: 34
Percentage of those dogs that came with their own Instagram account: probably at least 50%

Filed Under: "Holy Shit, How Did That Happen?

Number of Horatio tattoos acquired this year: 1

Number of songs written about bone up: 1 (written and performed by The Guilloteenagers, of course)

Number of times our dog appeared in Decibel Magazine: 1

Number of packages from Matt friggin' Groening: 1

Number of Shrek-themed disco parties Liz's cousin threw in the beer garden: 1

Number of people who used custom-made Bone Up can labels to propose: 1

Beers Released in 2022

Parentheses indicates the rerelease of a seasonal/rotating/flagship beer.

January: Pizza Time!, Critters XVI, Critters XV

February: Comfy Pants, (Extra Naked), (Mild Child), TLA IPA

March: (Boneheads), (Shut Up Kelly), Le Triumph, Weird Moon, Passion (Fruit) Project, The Great Miscellaneous, Barrel-Aged No Light Ever

April: Hop Wizard, Never Nude, (Wasted Life), (Out of Bounds), (On-On), Scatterbräu, (Henrietta), (Joybringer), Man Overboard

May: Spacin' Out, Electric Juicer, Dr. Dankenstein 2, Strut, Fixation on Red Ale, Embrace the Chaos, Critters XVII

June: Blood Built, The Airness, Where Serpents Dwell, (Blue Manic), Dead Dry Eyes, Death Lullaby

July: Stick the Landing, Hop Chariot, Float Along, Where's Chris?, Don't Go, Six Hundo, Nameless Wave, (Seven X's), (Key Lime White)

August: Pumpkin Humor, Bird Bath, I am the Island, Sip Time, Ad Nauseam, Critters XVIII, Welcome to the Bad Future, Baby Monster, Rumble Royale, Mirage Daze, Dark Humor