Blog Archives

In Which We Get All Amped Up About Dry Stout

3/29/2023

Hello again! We're back at it again, goin' "once more into the breach" or whatever, so let's cut the brass tacks and get on into all this stuff we're doin'!

And first up, as the extremely-expected follow-up to the good news from last week, we have another Expansion Update! Or rather it's more of a non-update because nothing has changed. We painted the walls on account of how our landlords' plumber seems to think they're more structurally sound that way (or whatever his reasoning is) and we did that in pretty much record time and then... nothing. So it's back to the waiting game!

This is definitely how paint works

Anyway that's not exactly the Fun Timez we want to have goin' on all up in this blog (even if it was exactly what we expected*), so let's get to the fun stuff and that fun stuff is cask! If you are *also* distraught that NERAX had to get pushed out until mid-April due to some "logistical hullabaloo" (which is apparently the unofficial theme for casks this month), never fear! We are tapping a delicious cask beer on Thursday that isn't officially getting released until Saturday, but that's cool because you'll be gettin' a little "snake peak" at Cerberus!

And normally I'd go into some details about the beer here, but I'm about to do that anyway (and also we're servin' it straight-up on cask, so there's no funny business on that front) so you'll just have to sit tight for a paragraph or two (no skipsies!) until we get to it!

Anyway getting back to Thursday for a hot minute/second, we're hosting a Bonsai Bar Workshop (tickets here) here in the taproom on Thursday and they're pretty much a hella fun time and also you get a tiny tree out of the experience, so come on out and play with plants! And then on Friday we've got a Vinyl 101 session (tickets here) with our friends from Light of Day Records, if you should be in the mood to hear Chris talk about records for a while (he knows a lot about records, so it's worth your time)!

Fun times!

Then, as promised (and also chronologically), movin' on to Saturday we've got the release of Cerberus! This little ol' dry stout was brewed to help celebrate the Fourth dang anniversary of Heads Up Screenprinting (our main go-to for screenprinted apparel/koozies)! We took a bit of a "left turn" from previous collabs with Heads Up (both of which were named Boneheads, so this is unofficially Boneheads III) which were both way down on the other end of the color spectrum and anyway this lil' ol' stout is pretty much completely delicious as hell and also it's probably definitely an excellent pairing for the food from Birria Gordita Tacos who will be here all afternoon on Saturday and anyway the point is that you should come hang out and drink tasty beer and eat tasty snacks with us!

See? More beer details.

And then movin' on to next week, we've got a buncha cool stuff planned for next week too! We've got a pour painting class next Wednesday and then Iron Maiden Trivia next Thursday and then next Saturday we're doin' something that we're callin' Hiker's Delight Marketplace which means we're bringing in a buncha vendors and other rad businesses that are all focused on outdoorsy type activities (including but not limited to a coffee vendor, should you need a caffeine fix while you're here) and anyway it's gonna be a ton of fun!

We had one day in the 60s, it's basically summer now. Right? ...Right?

Lastly, let's give a round of applause for our March coloring winners! Props to Ryan for taking the gold this month, and check out the runners up below. April's coloring page drop in the taproom today!

* At the risk of repeating myself too many times, this is why we tend to keep any and all landlord-adjacent projects close to the vest. Imagine if we'd kept a running/weekly update on this starting when the project was supposed to start (July 2021)? That would have been unpleasant for all of us.

In Which There Are Rockin' Good Times

3/22/2023

Well hey there! We're comin' atcha with another week fulla beer and good times and snacks and all that fun stuff, so let's cut the chitchat and get to the good stuff!

And to start things off, we've got something that can at best be loosely defined as "good stuff" and that's another Expansion Update. This time around there's been some real, actual, tangible progress and it's something that wasn't done 60% of the way and then abandoned, so this is actually a bit of a first when dealing with buildout in this building. Anyway, the Big Exciting News is that our (soon to be) bathrooms have tile now! Woo! Definitely never thought I'd get this worked up about grout, but here we are. Anyway the main step that's left on those ol' bathrooms is putting in the fixtures, but the building's plumber won't do it until the walls are painted* so we're gettin' on that as quick as we can and hopefully soon enough we'll have (60% of) some damn fixtures in there!

And since we're talking about unexpected good news, it's pertinent to mention that the taproom has a new pinball machine! More to the point, it's the Iron Maiden machine and it's hella fun which is good because we've been asking our pinball guy(s) to bring us this machine since we found out it existed (probably about five years ago) and it finally happened! We wore them down! Or something!

And speaking of good things, let's talk about beer! And first up on that list ("the beer list") is cask! We're putting tried-and-true Shut Up Kelly on cask and due to some "clerical errors"** this cask is once again fortified with some maple-liqueur-soaked oak chips but that ain't a bad thing because we know it's gonna be tasty as heck and it's gettin' tapped Thursday and you should try some!

And if you need even more tasty beer, we've got even more tasty beer! We've got a new beer comin' out and it's part of yet another cool collab! This time around it's another collab with our friends from Vox & Hops (who you might remember as the force behind the 2021 collab that resulted in The Great Equalizer, which was our first collab with Fuming Mouth, who is the band we collabed with for Master of Extremity, which came out two weeks ago. Got all that?) and they're doin' a worldwide collab of "mosh pit themed" beers and ours is a misfit IPA (which seemed fitting for the theme) and we're callin' it Collateral Moshing and it's available in cans on Friday and also it's the beer release for this month's Band Hangouts (more on that in a bit) and you should drink some!

And movin' on into fun events for the week(end), we've got some fun events for you! The first one is tonight (Wednesday) and it's Rock Band Night! We've got some friends who are Very Enthusiastic about the game Rock Band and so they're settin' up the projector*** and also all the accoutrements**** for the game and it's free to play, so come on by!

And then on Thursday we've got Left Couch Comedy comin' by for our monthly comedy night! We'll be transforming our side room into somehow-not-the-world's-smallest comedy club and hosting several local comedians over the course of the night and every one of these that we've had so far has been full of downright knee-slappers and we've got no reason to believe that's gonna stop and also we've got some tasty eats on offer from Adriano's Tacos, so come on by and get your giggle and/or munch on!

And since we were talking about Band Hangouts (it was a few paragraphs ago, but it's ok if you forgot already. There were a lot of words between there and here), this Friday is this month's Bang Hangouts! We've got Severed Boy and Knock Over City and BEDTIMEMAGIC all comin' by and hangin' out and slingin' merch and we're gonna be listening to their music (over the taproom speakers, not live) (also Casket Rats had to drop out at the last minute because of Reasons) and as an Added Treat we're gonna have Lobzter King in the house for the first time since the fall and their food is straight-up delicious (and also we're doing a collab beer with them in the future but shh don't tell anybody) and it's gonna be a whole buncha fun and you should come hang out!

And then movin' farther into the future (but not before we mention our weekly Sunday sushi class that's still goin' strong) we've got some cool stuff next week too! Next Thursday we've got Bonsai Bar back in the house to help you cultivate some tiny trees and then next Friday we've got a (ticketed) Vinyl 101 session hosted by our in-house record shop Light of Day Records and anyway the point is that there's hella fun stuff to do and you should come do fun stuff (even, or perhaps especially, if your idea of "fun stuff" overlaps strongly with "sitting around")!

* If you're saying "that makes no sense, it sounds like he's just making weird excuses so he can put it off," then we're right there with you. But also this particular person doesn't usually feel the need to have an excuse to not do things, so who knows
** We meant to send the maple cask to NERAX and tap one with cherry-liqueur-soaked oak chips, but the person filling the casks mixed them up and NERAX uses a different type of cask than we do (they use the real ones, we use a much jankier setup that's somehow also better?) and that means we couldn't swap them. So if you want to try the cask that we *meant* to tap in the taproom this week, go to NERAX! Hell, go to NERAX anyway! It's a lot of fun!
*** We really should use that projector more often.
**** I actually have no idea what goes into playing this game. I know there are instruments, but my knowledge starts and ends there despite having been around people actively playing it.

In Which Things Get Spicy

3/14/2023

Hey there, friends! We did some stuff and we're doin' some stuff and we brewed some stuff and we're drinkin' some stuff and anyway we're gonna talk about some of that stuff, so check it out!

And trustily filling the forefront of our minds/blogs is our trusty Thursday cask, once again filling the role of "easiest beer to order with just a hand gesture."* Anyway I guess it's probably more interesting if you know what we filled the cask with, and it's (shockingly) Extra Naked! And even more to the point, we took that cask and threw in a buncha Triumph (grown by our friends at Four Star Farms, of course) and now the beer tastes like it has Triumph in it and that's a good thing but you sure ain't gotta take my word for it because you're gonna come drink some with us! Maybe!

And speaking of beer, it would be precipitously advanterial of us to mention posthaste that we released Master of Extremity last Friday (which means it's available in cans right now) and that beer is tasty as hell and I only didn't mention it to you last week because, at the time of writing, nobody had told me that we were going to do that. Anyway it's a west coast pale ale that we brewed in collaboration with Fuming Mouth and we're sending a bunch of it down to Philly for the Decibel Metal and Beer fest, but also we hung on to some to share with y'all because we thought y'all would also like it (and/or *we* want to drink a bunch of it, which is a lot harder to do when it's in a different state) and the point is that it's here and you should drink some!

And while we're on about cool beers that we made with rad death metal bands for an awesome fest (and also for us/you to enjoy in the comfort of our taproom), this Friday we're releasing our collab with All Out War and it's a dry-hopped ginger farmhouse** (using, among other things MA-grown Chaos) and it's surprisingly light/easy-drinking considering its strength and anyway it's delicious (and can-only btw) and you should drink some of that beer too!

And gettin' on to the events portion of this here blog, we've got some cool events coming up! First up on Wednesday (which is to say, tonight) we've got a calligraphy class! Sip & Script is settin' up in the taproom and teaching people (which could include you!) how to draw words all fancy-like and tickets are here and a ticket includes all the materials you need (except for the words themselves, you might have to source some words to write) and anyway it's a good time and you should come out!

Then on Thursday we've got Matt back on the mic with Strange and Bizarre Facts Trivia! The last time he did one of these it was hella fun so we're looking forward to this one, and to "sweeten the deal" we're gonna have Seabiscuit poppin' up with pies all evening too!

And speaking of Tasty Times, on Friday we've got Tasty BBQ back in the taproom! Last time they came through it was like zero degrees outside, but this time around it's supposed to be warmer so let's give them a warm welcome! Also their food is great, that part is definitely worth mentioning. It's not just a clever name, etc.

But wait! We have more beers to release! This one is called Shade Queen and it's a dark saison we brewed as our Pink Boots/International Women's Month beer! And things get even more collaborationy when I tell you that this beer is also a collaboration with our friends at Distraction Brewing down in Roslindale! Long story short, they brewed a beer with the same name and (roughly) the same recipe and they're releasing their version at their brewery at some point soon and we're tapping ours as soon as it goes into kegs (which might be right now, or more likely/definitely Thursday) and anyway you know it's gonna be tasty because it was brewed with Girl Power™ (as opposed to our other beers, which are brewed with "a woman just doing her damn job like any other day" which doesn't make for as good of a photo-op) and anyway you should come try some!

And then getting back to events and/or fun/tasty times, Saturday brings us the return of the Hot Sauce Fest! We're gonna have a handful of cool local hot sauce companies (namely Lizard Mill, The Spicy Shark, and Hillside Harvest) in here slingin' samples and peddlin' their wares AND we've got Almarso World Flavor Kitchen (aka Street Dogs( in the house dishin' up NACHOS (and we are told that they are *very* excited to be a part of this event) and anyway the point is that it's gonna be a good time and you should come out!

And then getting farther into the future, we've got some cool stuff goin' on next week! Next Wednesday (the 22nd) we've got some friends in the house hosting a Rock Band Night! We didn't realize until recently that we were hosting a video game-themed night on the eve of one of the biggest video game conventions around, but we're locked in and it's gonna be fun and you will at the very least get some good people watching in, so come on out! And then next Thursday (the 23rd) we've got Left Couch Comedy in the house with another comedy night (and I think she said this one was going to be a "showcase show" but I don't actually know what that means or how it's different from the way we've been doing it?) and then next Friday (the 24th) is our monthly Band Hangouts (featuring Severed Boy, Knock Over City, Bedtimemagic, and Casket Rats) and we'll be releasing our collab beer with Vox & Hops (it's part of a worldwide "mosh pit-themed" beer collab) and also we're gonna be doing all the regular Cool Stuff that we do around here (drinking beer, talking about beer, snacking, maxin' and/or relaxin') so come hang out with us!

* Pointing at your empty glass doesn't COUNT especially because I probably already FORGOT what was IN there in the first place
** It just says "ale" on the can or something like that because the TTB*** doesn't think that farmhouse is a "real style," which is a weird thing to insist on? Especially since other breweries definitely use that term, but also it's not like we can argue with them on it.
*** The federal beer police, kind of. It stands for "Tax and Trade Bureau" which belies the fact that they primarily exist to collect taxes on alcohol, being snippy about labels is apparently a side benefit.

In Which We Tap an EXTREEEEM Cask

3/8/2023

Oh hi! How are you? We're great, thanks for asking! We had a lovely time celebrating Kafka Day with everybody who came out, and we hope y'all enjoyed it as well! We've got a bunch more fun stuff lined up for all y'all, but before we get to that we might as well get on with another...

...Expansion Update: at this point it seems kind of silly to keep including regular updates, because the current status is "there have been multiple people in the new unit making lots of noise for up to three and a half hours per day, but nothing is visibly different" and honestly that's been the case for several weeks at this point? Anyway, that's pretty much what we've come to expect, so we'll let you know if anything cool happens.

Drywall: a study

And since we're talking about cool things happening, we might as well move right along to the triumphant return of cask! And as an accidental super-special follow-up to that accidental super-flop last week, this Thursday we're tappin' up a cask of a beer that we ain't even released yet! The beer in question is Master of Extremity and it's one (out of two! Somehow!) beers that we brewed for the upcoming Decibel Magazine Beer and Metal Fest down in Philly (which will take place in mid April, if you were wondering) and it's also the second beer we've made as a collab with Fuming Mouth (who is a completely incredible local death metal band, if you didn't already know that) and anyway they/we thought it would be rad as hell to brew up a west-coast-inspired pale ale (spoiler alert: it is very tasty) and so we did pretty much exactly that (though we used a bunch of local hops, as we are wont to do) and anyway we casked up a cask of it and just for laughs we crammed a bunch of fruity-ass Mackinac in there and we are very excited about this cask, is the point here.

CAAAAASK

And speaking of Thursday we've got even more cool stuff lined up for you for Thursday! We've got a brand-spankin'-new Simpsons Trivia night lined up for y'all (the theme is "rivals") and we've got Adriano's Tacos in the house slingin' some tasty-ass tacos, so you should come hang out!

And speaking of trivia, we've got more trivia on Friday! We had to postpone last week's Audio Triviality, but now it's back... in punk form! More to the point, the theme for the evening is Punk (as you may have guessed) and hopefully this will be the night that Matt doesn't find a way to squeeze in a reason to play Nickelback, but you'll have to come by to find out, so come on by!

And then on Saturday we're startin' the day with more Emo Yoga with Crystal which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like (Matt playing Nickelback at full volume and yelling along to it but getting all the lyrics wrong for an hour straight) and then later in the day we've got another appearance from Ardiano's Tacos which will be delicious as always and also we should probably mention that our weekly Sunday sushi classes have been selling out a couple weeks in advance (we *did* tell you that they were hella great) so if you wanna get your sushi on then you might wanna plan ahead!

Fun times!

And speaking of planning ahead, we've got more cool stuff lined up for the future! We've got a Sip & Script Calligraphy Workshop next Wednesday and then Strange and Bizarre Facts Trivia next Thursday and then next Saturday we've got the return of Hot Sauce Fest! We've got a completely new roster of local hot sauce vendors comin' out to the taproom and slingin' samples and toasting* your tastebuds and it's gonna be some tasty times!

In additional news, the pop up for hot sauce fest will be preparing the perfect hot sauce food: NACHOS

* I probably could have come up with a better word for "burning" here, but my first thought was "singeing" and then I got all mad about the spelling of that word and then I gave up. So there you have it, a look "behind the scenes" at the creative process.

In Which Things Take a Kafkaesque Turn

3/1/2023

Hello again! We're gettin' all primped and prepped for our upcoming Kafka Day celebrations, but that don't mean we ain't got other cool stuff goin' on, so read on!

Side note: we had an absolute BALL hangin' out with our new pals in Actor|Observer during Band Hangouts last weekend! Come try our collab beer (Fool's Gold IPA) in the taproom now!

Moving right along, this week's Expansion Update is a brief one because there really is no update. They stopped doing demo last Wednesday (they weren't done, they just stopped) and that's... pretty much it, really. They didn't say why they stopped, nor did they tell us when they'd be back, so we get to wait and see. Fun times!

Pray tell, where have the demo elves gone? Off to smoke weed in the parking lot, no doubt

And speaking of less-than-exciting news, there may or may not be a cask this Thursday. There was a bit of a... technical issue with the cask we were going to tap this week (it leaked a smallish amount, and we don't have a way to assess the extent of the issue without tapping it) so we're gonna tap it and try it and if it's all good to go then we're gonna have a cask of Sticky Fingers (the beer) dry hopped with Sticky Fingers (the hop blend) and it's gonna be great because pale ale is mighty tasty on cask and if it doesn't work out then we'll do what we always do when things go wrong (cry in the cold room and then go on with our days/lives), so keep them eyes peeled on our social medias to see if we're gonna get to have some cask!

T! B! D!

And speaking of Thursday (and/or moderately disappointing news), Audio Triviality is postponed because Matt's off being weird in the woods or whatever it is he does when he's not here and instead it will be held on Friday March 10th but in the meantime (i.e. This Thursday) we'll be hosting a candle making workshop instead! You'll get to make a candle in a souvenir Bone Up glass and also a portion of the ticket sales is being donated to Northeast Animal Shelter, so come on out and get your candle on!

Get tickets here: French Press Candle Workshop

And movin' right along towards the weekend, we'll be closed to the public Friday evening for our quarterly-ish members only Mug Club Party which just so happens to coincide with the Big To Do this weekend which is...

Kafka Day! All day on Saturday and Sunday we're gonna be celebratin' barrel-aged beer and also releasing a whole bunch of barrel-aged and/or strong beers (six different beers! Five of which are barrel-aged!) and there's a Private Guided Tasting (tickets are still available!) on Saturday morning if you're so inclined (they're pretty fun, so long as you're okay with being handed a bunch of barrel-aged beer samples at noon) and we're gonna have food from Matilda's Pastelitos all afternoon on Saturday and then a waffle brunch on Sunday (featuring Liege waffles from Eastern Standard and a selection of sauces) and anyway it's gonna be a whole dang weekend that's completely jam-packed full of fun (and also a whole bunch of cool beers), so come hang out with us!

Once again, this holiday continues to have perfect timing because **** our ******* property management

And then gazing into the ol' crystal kettle to see what all we've got goin' on next week, we've got Simpsons Trivia next Thursday (the theme is "rivals") and the probably-much-awaited return of Audio Triviality next Friday (it's Punk Music night!) and anyway the good times keep on comin', so come on out and have some good times with us!

I actually love seeing how different these graphics look next to each other lol

In Which We Get All Amped Up About Dry Stout

In Which There Are Rockin' Good Times

In Which Things Get Spicy

In Which We Tap an EXTREEEEM Cask

In Which Things Take a Kafkaesque Turn

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