Blog Archives

In Which it is Pulpo Time!

5/27/2020

Oh hi! I hope you like beer, because we've got a lot of cool beer that we're about to talk about... right... now!

And first on up is this Friday* when we're gonna be doing our El Pulpo Vertical Tasting! See, we wanted to hang out and drink beer with people over the computer, and also we wanted an excuse (any excuse, if we're being honest) to drink a bunch of El Pulpo, so we combined those two ideas and you get to join us! We'll pump Jared fulla beer so he gets talkative for once and we'll just kinda set him loose on El Pulpo and barrel-aging and cellaring and probably a fairly disappointing story about why we named our winter beer after an octopus, so grab some bottles and come hang out!

Anyway, if you're lookin' to get your drink on with some new beers, then we've got "just the ticket" - thanks to some "poor planning" and also the fact that we "get excited" about pretty much "any shiny new thing," we've got three new beers comin' out in cans this weekend (probably at some point on Friday unless something goes wrong again). Anyway, in no particular order, here they are!

First up is the release of this year's Pride beer! Just in time for Pride Month! We weren't able to do a big fun brewday like we did last year, but we were able to brew a tasty beer using a whole buncha Grüngeist and also we will (of course) have some sweet merch to go with it and also we're gonna donate part of the proceeds to charity and did we mention that the beer is delicious as heck and you should drink some?

But the fun don't stop there! We're also bringin' back the ol' Puppers Past series and this time around we're commemoratin' the memory of a big ol' pyrenees named Domino who grew a... horn of sorts in the middle of his forehead at some point, so we brewed up a toasty, fruity single-hop amber named Uni-Dog! This here beer's got a heapin' helpin' (possibly a heapin' helpin' and a half) of MA-grown Rakau and we daresay it's mighty tasty and also you should drink some!

Completing this release trifecta, we've got a lil' ol' blast from the past: Ginger Spectacular! It's been too dang long since we've had this beer around (which definitely has nothing to do with people getting all Goldilocks about what is/isn't the "right amount" of ginger), so we made a whole bunch, and - you guessed it - you should drink some!

And lastly but far rom leastly, we're welcoming our friends Poboys 'n Pies back for another crawfish boil! This one's gonna be more of the "pick up and enjoy at home" variety, but crawfish is crawfish and you should grab some! Preorders start today and go through this Sunday, and the rest of the details reside here in this handy-dandy flyer:

*Spoiler alert: everything that we're talking about in this blog is happening on Friday.

0 Comments

Boy, Is It Ever Wednesday!

5/21/2020

5 Comments

Howdy do, friendaroos! We figured we'd do a bit of a "check in," given the recent (and completely unsurprising) confirmation that things ain't changin' much anytime soon and/or that These Trying Times™ are gonna continue on for quite a while.* We're in the middle of a situation that was literally unimaginable a couple months ago (remember that? When we thought the lockdown stuff would only last "a couple weeks?") and now we've somehow managed to trade in summer for a Groundhog-Day-esque version of the month of March** and we're slowly coming to terms with the fact that Things Are Just Different Now and even things that seemed far away at the start of all this nonsense - like, say, our birthday party at the end of the summer - will be at best drastically different than we'd been imagining.

And while all that is certainly a Mega Bummer, we're completely grateful as hell that we've got such a rad group of people out there hellbent on showing support and drinking tasty beer and just overall making it so we can keep doing what we do. We sure do miss drinking in our taproom, but we're stoked as heck to see all of y'all when you come in to grab beer to go (or when you wait outside and have us bring it to you, or when you wait at home and have us bring it to you or... you get the idea). By now it's a cliché to say that we're all in this together, but you all are certainly making sure we get through this, and it means the world to us.

But anyway! This*** is meant to be a happy occasion! And we may not have any new beers this week (canning is loosely biweekly, and bottling is... sporadic), but we do have some rad stuff to talk about!

First on that ol' list is Wasted Life! You might think we've said all we can say about this lil' beer, given that we've been talking about it for four plus years, but we got our tinkerin' pants on (as we are wont to do) and realized that our core beers need more local, so we set out to rectify that! See, most (at least half) of the hops we use overall are grown right here in good ol' Massachusetts, but our inner locavores are a bit more loosey-goosey when it comes to the grain bill - Key Lime has a buncha wheat and spelt from Valley Malt, but the other year-rounders are a bit lacking. Anyway, what that means in the here and now is that we've been started cuttin' some**** local grains into Wasted Life, startin' with some Maine-grown barley! And keeping with the spirit of bringin' it all back home, we're also about to start transitioning Extra Naked to use all locally grown hops (and technically Shut Up Kelly! and Key Lime are fully local on the hop front), which is pretty dang ol' exciting!

Also! Lastly! We have something that's actually tangible and soonish and fun! See, we've gotten a taste of those "virtual events" that all the kids***** are talkin' about these days and we figured we'd try our hands at some zoom-based zaniness! More to the point, we thought it would be fun to do a guided vertical tasting of the four El Pulpo variants (2018, 2019, barrel-aged 2018, and barrel-aged 2019) that we've currently got in bottles, and you're invited to join us! It's scheduled for next Friday (the 29th), and there's no cost of admission beyond the price of the bottles themselves (which we wholeheartedly encourage you to share, unless you're planning on having yourself a night) but there's a limited number of spots (because there's a limited number of bottles), so sign on up if this sounds like your cup o' tea!

* And, just to make sure we're understood as crystal, we're completely on board with the slow 'n' steady approach that's being taken. We're fans of caution around here, if you haven't gathered.
** I sure can't wait for March V: This Time It's Hot Outside
*** Wednesday? I guess? Sure, Wednesday is a happy occasion. And it's definitely Wednesday.
**** We tend to be pretty deliberate - in both senses of the word - when it comes to recipe changes, so we can't just pull a full-on switcheroo.
***** Adult-aged office workers who are slowly coming unraveled in unison.

5 Comments

In Which Everything is Peachy

5/12/2020

0 Comments

Howdy friends! We got a rootin' tootin' sure-shootin' buncha updates for alla y'all about beer and cans and, um, spaghetti? I guess? I don't even know what's happening anymore.

But anyway that's all groovy because Everything is Peachy! And by that I am, of course, referring to the newest beer in our "lying to ourselves" series which just so happens to be called Everything is Peachy! See, since we were so fond of our previous attempt to combine hops with fruits that taste kinda like those hops, we decided to get a buncha peachy-punchy Idaho 7 and a shitload of peach puree and whip up a lil' ol' double IPA and it's gonna be available at some point on Friday and you should come get some while we still got some!

Now, I know what you're thinking: "new beers are great and all, but what I'd really like to do is watch a live feed of strangers eating." And if that's the case, you're in luck because we're doing a "virtual beer dinner" this Friday!

Thassright, we teamed up with the "kitchen" side of Brato Brewhouse and Kitchen and we're doin' up a five-course meal with beer pairings! And what, praytell, did our master chef conjure up to pair with our loosely-Belgian-focused beer menu? Why, Italian food, of course! And this here dinner's hittin' all the favorite stops - bolognese, risotto, cannolis, caesar salad,* and pretzels!** Anyway we'll be there drinkin' beer and chattin' beer and generally just sassin' it up and there's still tickets available until tomorrow at 5pm (purchase them online here), so come get your (virtual) munch on with us!

* Caesar was Italian, right? He was probably Italian. That counts.
** They... they're garlic pretzels? Garlic is probably Italian.

0 Comments

In Which We Rescue Some Baby Skunks From the Wild and Release Some Beers Into the Wild (The Two Are Unrelated)

5/6/2020

0 Comments

Howdy-do, friendaroos! We've had ourselves an eventful* week, and some of it has even been related to beer, so saddle up and read up 'cuz we gots some yarns to spin!

First on up is the latest installment in a longstanding tradition that we hold near and dear here at Bone Up, and that's the Bestowing Of The Paddle! Long story short,** when one of our brewers has been On The Team for a year or two (the exact timing depends on how many catastrophes are actively unfolding at any given point in time), they get their own custom-made mash paddle to add to our Wall O' Brewing Paddles And Mops! Each paddle is carefully designed and then created by somebody who is pretty obviously not a professional woodworker and this week we bestowed a paddle upon our brewer Human Tom!

Tom's been with us for nigh-on two years now, and has performed adequately for much of that time. And we should also add that this moment of celebration is a tad bittersweet, as Human Tom will be departing the company this summer like some kind of stupid jerk quitter.

Anyway, moving on and moving forward, in news that has (thankfully) already come and gone, Mother Nature saw fit to introduce us to a couple new furry friends a little ways back! At some point last week, we had a couple cute-yet-startling encounters with a couple little furbabies who - it turns out - were living in one of the debris piles that were thoughtfully left out by the landscapers who share our parking lot*** with us.

And we figured out pretty quickly that these lil' kits were in dire straits when one of them tried to saunter up to our patio and order a beer like we're not in the middle of some state-mandated lockdown or something, so we did the only thing we could - rig up some makeshift traps and get 'em somewhere safe (luckily for us, they did not have well-developed scent glands yet)!

And yes, all's well that ends well (though I feel at this point that I should stress the fact that I'm not making this up) - they both arrived safe and sound at a skunk and porcupine sanctuary somewhere upstate, which is run by a very nice person whom we know only as Mary the Skunk Lady.

But enough about wildlife and amateur woodcrafting, what about beer? Well, this ain't a canning week (those are, loosely, every two weeks), but that means we've had more time for barrels and bottles and all that, which means we've got two new bottles that are (probably) coming out on Friday!

First up is the first full-fledged spinoff from our Critters series, and that's Chimera! This here beer's got a bit of a story behind it, but the Cliff's Notes version is that it's been two years in the making and also it's born of our collaboration with GrandTen Distilling (they're still aging the whiskey that we made at their digs) and also it's closely tied to the beer that started our whole funk program, which was (somewhat confusingly) Critters 2! Oh, and also there's a bit of fruit in there, because we thought it would taste good with a little fruit in there. But anyway, this is our first-ever big ol' funky beer release, and we're straight-up stoked that it's also the Friendship Beer that we made with our friends a ways back and also it's tasty as hell and you should drink some!

And the other beer that's coming out on (probably) Friday is a straight-up barrel-aged blend that's gonna have to remain a mystery until then, and that's not entirely (mostly, but not entirely) because we haven't figured out a name for it yet.

And! For the first time ever, all our flagship beers are in 16oz cans/4 packs! Admittedly, this was more news last week when we completed the lineup with our first Extra Naked canning run, but it's a pretty dang big improvement from crowler and growler fills and we're delighted to be able to offer you our finest in proper packaging. Don't they look nice?

Oh! And! It's May, which means another coloring contest has come to a close! The pool was a smidge more limited this month, so we uploaded everyone's entries so you could see their beautiful handiwork!

* Long time readers will know that our use of the word "eventful" is about as encouraging as hearing Prof. Farnsworth declare something to be "good news."
** The long version of the story involves a friend of Jared's wildly misunderstanding life as a brewer, but doing so in such a charming way that we had to make it a reality.
*** Technically they're relegated to the unpaved section next to our lot, but that doesn't stop them from dropping giant piles of dirt all over our parking spots whenever they feel like it. They're, like, super neighborly.

0 Comments

In Which it is Pulpo Time!

Boy, Is It Ever Wednesday!

In Which Everything is Peachy

In Which We Rescue Some Baby Skunks From the Wild and Release Some Beers Into the Wild (The Two Are Unrelated)

BUBco Blog

Archives

Categories