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It's Gobble Time, Bitches!

11/26/2019

Dang on a thang y'all, it's that time again! It's time for our long-awaited* Thanksgiving Beer Pairings wherein we tacitly suggest that - should you encounter a dinner table that does not have Bone Up on it - your only recourse is to act like a total sociopath. But! We got a whole buncha cool stuff comin' atcha before that (and our pairings are... extensive, so we should probably save them for the end), so buckle up and read on!

First on our list of fun and/or tasty times (other than the fact that Joyrider is on tap right now), we're followin' a new-to-us tradition for this year's Shitty Wednesday (i.e. the day before Turkey Day), and that tradition is bottles! We've already got some neat stuff in bottles, but we're right stoked about what's comin' up, so here's what's comin' out on Wednesday for our quadruple bottle release:

First up is Melvin the Mammoth! (AKAed as "Melvin the Mammoth (Stays Home)") Remember our lil' "barleywine" that we made last year? The one that was all fulla caramel and banana and goodness? Well it's been slumberin' away for a while and now it's back! In bottle form! (and on tap at some point)

Next up is... Melvin! More specifically, it's Melvin the Mammoth (Goes to Kentucky) - we aged a whole buncha Melvin in some rye whiskey barrels (specifically Dad's Hat barrels), and it's been blended up and bottled up (and kegged up, for later times) and the flavor is fulla vanilla and toffee and WHISKEY and marshmallows (somehow) and it's ever so good!

And our next bottle is... Melvin! Noticing a theme here, yet? This one's Melvin the Mammoth (Goes to Jamaica) and it - you guessed it - was aged in rum barrels for a good long while and it's got a nice fruity punch and a little bit of a molasses note and it almost tastes a little like baking spices (or perhaps fruitcake) and dang but it's tasty!

Last up for this week's bottle releases is... Los Aromos! Wait, no. It's Melvin! More to the point, it's Melvin the Mammoth (Goes to Belgium), and this one here's a little different from the others. See, we had a ginger-focused strong farmhouse aging in rye barrels already, so we took that and blended it up with Melvin and it's all kindsa spicy and fruity and it's all-around "Belgian" but with a little bit of barrel peekin' in through the curtains and whoo-ee is it a delight!

Movin' right along through the week, it behooves us to mention that we'll be Closed on Thursday for gravy-related reasons.

And since we're closed on Thursday, that means we gotta tap our cask on Friday and this time around the cask is taproom-favorite Spruce Moose! We didn't think this beer needed any funny business to be delicious on cask, so we're servin' it up as-is with no extra nonsense!

Also on Friday we're welcomng a new (to us and to the world at large) pop-up: Brazen Eats! They'll be here slingin' vegan dumplings from 4-7, so come on by and say howdy and eat some treats!

Then on Sunday we're startin' the day with Nama-Sleigh! And in case that phrase doesn't mean anything to you (it doesn't mean much to me, and I'm the one who just wrote it), it means we're doin' Ugly Sweater Yoga startin' at 10:30 in the AM on Sunday! It's an all-levels bring-your-own-mat class and afterwards you get a beer! Buy tickets here: Ugly Sweater Yoga

And afterwards, we just so happened to find the perfect follow-up to doing yoga in an ugly sweater (it's also the perfect follow-up to not doing yoga in an ugly sweater) and that's cheese! Yes indeedy, it's time for us to put out another creamery of the month (and accompanying cheese flights) and this month it's Vermont Creamery! You've probably seen their cheeses in some of the finer cheese sections out there - odds are you'll see their packaging and say "oh yeah, it's that cheese that comes in a wooden box for some reason - but anyway we sat down with these ooey-gooey delectable cheeses (and one cheddar from Jasper Hill because we need a cheddar, dammit) and we got some foolproof right-as-rain beer pairings for you! We'll be doing flights on Sunday and again on Wednesday and cheese by the wedge will be available through the rest of the month! Cheese time!

Last up before we get to our yearly beer pairing extravaganza, we feel the need to point out that we're just over a month away from our favorite** made-up holiday: Horatio Day! On January 4th, we'll be settin' up a buncha extra draft lines fulla barrel-aged beers (including some old favorites and some newcomers) and there's gonna be bacon and cake and special swag and probably more than a couple people forgetting the concept of "indoor voices" and it's gonna be a blast and you should come!

Anyway. Moving on. It's time for Thanksgiving Beer pairings! We've written up this list once or twice before (though we did drop the ball in 2017. In our defense, that was a particularly hectic year for us), and we look forward to it every time and now you get to be a Thanksgiving All Star by following our proven*** pairings!

Extra Naked
pairs well with... wishing you hadn't eaten so much the previous day
and if you don't have any Extra Naked, we suggest... shame eating

Key Lime
pairs well with... just one more piece of pie
and if you don't have any Key Lime, we suggest... having two more pieces of pie

Wasted Life
pairs well with... a nap on the couch
and if you don't have any Wasted Life, we suggest... taking a nap anyway, albeit a less satisfying one

Shut Up Kelly!
pairs well with... ooOOOooh! Somebody brought fudge?!
and if you don't have any Shut Up Kelly, we suggest... trying to convince your elderly aunt to do shots of Allen's Coffee Brandy with you

Critters 1
pairs well with... making a mashed potato fort on your plate
And if you don't have any Critters 1, we suggest... building a trebuchet out of green beans and using it to fling cranberries across the table. Storm the castle!

Critters 3
pairs well with... eggs
And if you don't have any Critters 3, we suggest... EGGS

Melvin the Mammoth (Goes to Belgium)
pairs well with... yoga, believe it or not
And if you don't have any Melvin Goes to Belgium, we suggest... throwing plates around the kitchen like some kind of poltergeist

Melvin the Mammoth (Goes to Kentucky)
pairs well with... smoking weed in the garage after dinner
And if you don't have any Melvin Goes to Kentucky, we suggest... smoking weed in the garage before dinner

Melvin the Mammoth (Goes to Jamaica )
pairs well with... making turkey-themed arts and crafts
And if you don't have any Melvin Goes to Jamaica, we suggest... showing up to dinner in full-on Puritan garb (bonus points if you try to stay in character)

Melvin the Mammoth (Stays Home )
pairs well with... feeding the dog under the table
And if you don't have any Melvin Stays Home, we suggest... abandoning the family meal to go hang out with the dog

Joybringer
pairs well with... making up songs about the foods you're about to eat while you fill your plate
And if you don't have any Joybringer, we suggest... putting on a puppet show wherein you have the turkey carcass stage a Gallagher-style performance and messily smash the giblets with a potato

Joyrider
pairs well with... compressing, shaping, and re-baking the stuffing to use as hard taco shells
And if you don't have any Joyrider, we suggest... pointing out each dish individually and making the argument that it "technically qualifies as a taco." Really fight to make your point. Make a chart if you have to.

Doomrider
pairs well with... trying to stack up three pies into one Megapie (also acceptable: Pie Sandwich) like you're friggin' Dagwood Bumstead or something
And if you don't have any Doomrider, we suggest... looking your younger sibling dead in the eye, snatching their (full) plate out of their hands, and eating the entire damn thing without breaking eye contact

El Pulpo
pairs well with... constructing increasingly-elaborate forts with your youngest relatives
And if you don't have any El Pulpo, we suggest... acting so erratically at the dinner table that you get banished to the kids' playroom to go watch Dumbo like six times in a row because that's somehow the only movie they have. Again.

Barrel-aged El Pulpo
pairs well with... happily shouting
And if you don't have any Barrel-aged El Pulpo, we suggest... angrily shouting

Spruce Moose
pairs well with... yams
And if you don't have any Spruce Moose, we suggest... saying "yams" out loud a lot. It's fun to say.

Wellington
pairs well with... pretending you know what a "Gronk" is when you're talking to your uncles (and also how it relates to goats?)
And if you don't have any Wellington, we suggest... turning the tables by excitedly rambling about metal bands while only referring to the artists by their nicknames

Mandarinazacca
pairs well with... quietly struggling through the extremely awkward "what I'm thankful for" portion of a Friendsgiving full of people you only sort of know
And if you don't have any Mandarinazacca, we suggest... interrupting each person's declaration of thanks with whale facts

Los Aromos
pairs well with... gravy-based foods (we're lookin' at you, New Orleans)
And if you don't have any Los Aromos, we suggest... drinking straight gravy until you go into a Gravy Coma

BoNanza
pairs well with... eating an entire pie and then going back for more
And if you don't have any BoNanza, we suggest... pretending that you started smoking so you have lots of excuses to go outside and eat SECRET PIE

Half the Time
pairs well with... turkey sandwiches with Honeycup mustard and peanut butter. No, seriously.
And if you don't have any Half the Time, we suggest... taking a good hard look at the circumstances in your life that brought you to this moment.

* By us. Seriously, this is easily one of our Top 3 favorite blog posts to write (though the overall winner has got to be January's "Year in Numbers" posts)
** Maybe second favorite if you count our anniversary as a made up holiday, but we don't. That one's a real holiday.
*** We've done more field testing on these than you'd think, but some of the pairings might not be totally bulletproof.

In Which FLANNELS

11/20/2019

Well hello there! We have had ourselves a dang ol' week gettin' things fixed up and prepped up and prettied up and we're just about wrapped up with all that which is good because we're right-on ready to get down to bidness! So without further ado and nonsense and prattlin' on, here's all the hip haps for the week!

First on up is our trusty Thursday cask and we're once again gettin' down with Wasted Life! This time around we "kicked things up a notch" with our other favorite* hop: Galena! That there's gonna add a bit of a citrus/pineapple kick to our lil' ol' IPA and dang but we predict it gon' be tasty!

Also on Thursday we're doin' up a new-to-us trivia night and this time around it's centered around The Office! We'll have silly prizes and some beer pairings and it's gonna be an all-around good time! It's also probably worth noting that we're sticking with our usual first-come-first-served policy on seating, so you might wanna consider getting here early if you wanna be sure to get a seat (we're not necessarily expecting a full house, but this particular show seems to have a pretty devoted following, so it ain't hurt to be prepared).

Movin' right on along, on Friday we're releasin' a whole buncha new stuff, starting with Joyrider bottles! And maybe Joyrider on tap! And in case you're "new to the scene" around here and you ain't "hip" to the Joyride, it all starts when we take Joybringer, our beloved tripel, and rest it in rye barrels for a good long time, and then... that's pretty much it, actually. Then we drink it. And now you can too!

Also on Friday, it's flannel day! We got this year's crop of warm winter duds (in three styles! They're so soft!) in house and we're gettin' hella cozy (while supplies last, of course), so come on by!

And since we're donnin' our winter duds, we're also releasing long-sleeved El Pulpo shirts on Friday! Check 'em out! They look so good!

Keepin' on keepin' on throughout the weekend, we got us a double dose of delicious treats on Saturday with Wild Fox Pierogi in the house from 2-6 and Boston HotChix from 6-10 (or until they run out of chicken, which has happened with them once or twice)!

Oh! And! Lastly! We're continuing on with a "new tradition" that we (sort of accidentally) started last year, and that tradition is bottle releases on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving!** And since we've already been doing bottle releases all dang month (and will continue to do so in the coming weeks/months), we felt the need to make it "extra special" for all y'all so this time around it's Melvin! Remember Melvin? Our "barleywine" that's got hella caramel and banana notes? Well we went and aged that sucker in a buncha different barrels (specifically a rum barrel and a rye barrel) and we also blended it up with some barreled ginger farmhouse and now we've got four different versions of Melvin and they're all available in bottles on Wednesday the 27th! So if you need some extra "thankfulness juice" or if you wanna compare and contrast what different barrels do to beer or if you just wanna drink some dang ol' Melvin, swing on through and getcha some!

* Truth be told, we have, like, seven favorite hops.
** This day is known to us as "Shitty Wednesday," both for traffic reasons and for the likelihood that you'll end up having to talk to somebody you went to high school with.

In Which Coloring Brings Us Joy(Bringer), and Vice Versa

11/12/2019

Howdy do, kiddos and squiddos! It's once again time to spread joy and drink tasty beers and maybe get some treats if you're a treat sorta person (and let's be real here, you should be) and anyway we got a buncha cool stuff so check it out!

First on up is a beer that got tapped during a certain made-up holiday that we recently celebrated, only we didn't make too much of a scene about it because we didn't want to "steal the thunder" from our "main event" and anyway that beer is Spruce Moose! This here's a "historically inspired" beer that we made for a historical house (which we touched upon last week), so we figured we'd take a Modern Classic and add a touch of Questionnable Historical Accuracy, and now we've got an old(ish) school American Pale Ale brewed with spruce tips! It's nice 'n' easy drinkin' and a bit hoppy and it doesn't quite taste like you're drinking a forest in late autumn, but it also doesn't quite not taste like that. Anyway, it's on tap right now and you should come taste for yourself!

And while we're on about Spruce Moose, this month we're doin' Simpsons trivia on Wednesday! There's probably a theme this month, but our theme is "getting Chris to stop giving us shit about needing to make a Simpsons-themed beer (especially since this is the second guldang time we've done just that)."

Movin' onwards and arguably upwards, we gotta mention cheese! Cheese flights are in the past (and also the future), but if you missed out (or if you just have good taste in cheese), you can get wedges of this month's Creamery of the Month (Jasper Hill, from somewhere in Vermont)!

Next up on that ol' docket is this week's trusty Thursday cask! This time around we're tappin' up a beer we ain't had on cask in a dang ol' while (possibly several whiles, if we're being honest here): Wasted Life! And since this lil' beer's making it's triumphant re-debut or whatever, we figured we'd "do it in style" with one of our favoritest, fruitiest hops: Rakau!

Movin' right along, we've got a double whammy of a release this Friday and it all starts with Joy! Thassright, it's that time you (we) have all been waiting for: Joybringer time! We're bringin' the joy back on tap, and we're fully stocked up on bottles of this boozy lil' delight, so come on and get joyful with us!

And you know what else brings us joy? Coloring! We like it so much that we made a coloring book (featuring all of our coloring contest pages since 2017, plus a few special goodies for good measure) and they're comin' out on Friday and we are just hell of stoked!

Then on Saturday we've got another double whammy (which either makes the weekend a quadruple whammy or a double whammy of double whammies, depending on your beliefs), and it's startin' with Pints for Pups! Our new pals at Harvey's Hope are comin' by with some swag and some info and we'll be donating $1 from every pint poured so come on out and get charitable with us!

And after all that charitable drinking, you'll need to treat yourself and we got just the thing because Boston HotChix is back in the house from 6-10!

In Which... PULPO TIME!

11/6/2019

Greetings, traveler. I trust you've been well. And more importantly, I trust you're ready to come hang out at yet another made-up holiday* because this week is the first ever Pulpo Day! But I'll get to all that in just a bit, because we also got a whole lotta cool stuff comin' atcha before that, so read on and read up!

First on that ol' docket is something that's not exactly "news" in the sense that you've seen/tasted/experienced this beer before (albeit all too briefly) but we're gonna tell y'all anyway: Los Aromos is on tap! Right now! For real this time! Thassright, you can get that sneaky-smooth bone-dry passionfruit goodness on tap until it runs out! And. AND. Since it was a collaboration with T'Ahpas 529, it's also gonna be on tap over there for a good long while, which means you've got yet another excuse to get on over there!

Also on tap right now is BoNanza! This here's a beer brewed for a wedding, specifically the wedding of Bob and Nani (who both like pizZa, hence the name BoNanza) and they gave us a bit of a brain buster when it came down to brainstormin': long story short, they wanted to put the I back in IPA and feature some ingredients that would be a nod to Nani's Indian heritage so we put on our ol' thinkin' caps and after ruling out things that we didn't think would fit an IPA (turmeric) and a few wildcards (fenugreek), we went with ginger! So this here's a lightly-sweet, citrussy-hoppy IPA with a (somewhat hefty) dab of ginger thrown in and dang if it ain't delightful!

Moving slightly past right now, on Wednesday (and then again on Sunday) we're doin' more cheese flights! This time around our creamery of the month is one of our favorites - Jasper Hill from Greensboro Bend, VT - and we've got a pretty righteous flight to pair with their delicious cheeses and you should come try it!

Speaking of things that are delicious, this week's trusty Thursday cask is an old favorite of ours: Extra Naked! And since this here's a beer what's been on cask a time or two, we figured we'd "mix it up" a lil' bit and see how ol' XN stands up to the more assertive hop profile provided by Cascade and Centennial! Spoiler alert: it will be heck of tasty.

Also on Thursday is this month's edition of Audio Triviality! This time around it's focused on 90's punk/hardcore, which means that our time-tested method of answering every question with "Hoobastank" will continue to be as effective as ever.** Anyway, it's gonna be fun so you should come on out!

Anyway. Saturday. Pulpo Day. Just what the hell is a Pulpo Day, you ask? Why, it's none other than a day celebrating our favorite Winter Seasonal, a chocolate orange imperial stout named El Pulpo! And since we got just too much info to cram into one dang ol' paragraph, we're gonna do this up in handy-dandy Q 'n' A format!

When is Pulpo Day?
This Saturday - 11/9 - all dang day!

Are you releasing any other beers?
Kind of! We're gonna have regular ol' El Pulpo on tap (and in cans), plus we're gonna have barrel-aged El Pulpo on tap (for a limited time) and in bottles (for a longer time) and we're diggin' out a couple kegs of Vintage Pulpo: 2018, 2017, and the barrel-aged 2018 version! That's FIVE Pulpos on tap, which means you're gonna have to make some difficult decisions if you're the flight type!

Will there be food?
Of course! In addition to all our regular goodies, we got The Bacon Truck comin' through from 2-8 (and hopefully bringin' some delicious bacon truffles)!

Will there be cool new swag?
Yes! We've got Pulpo stickers and some cool new glassware for our barrel-aged beers (which isn't Pulpo-specific, but it is on the way as we speak, and we should get them in time to fill them with Pulpo), and there's been talk of gettin' some Pulpo shirts, but those ain't gonna be here for Saturday so if that's a thing you want then you're gonna have to wait a little longer.

Will you have chocolate oranges again?
Probably! We ordered them, anyway, so they'd better be here in time.

Why brew a chocolate orange stout every year?
Jared's dad likes it so much that we aren't allowed to stop making it.

Why make an entire day out of it?
Because it's fun! And also because El Pulpo variants were starting to take over the entire menu on Horatio Day (the holiday we made up in celebration of our logo and/or barrel-aged beer) and we gotta leave some room on that draft list for all of our other fun projects (we have a lot of fun projects this year).

What does an imperial stout have to do with octopi?
Nothing! But it sure does look cool on that label, dunnit?

Do you have any other cool bottle releases coming up?
I'm glad you asked, helpful strawman - we do indeed! We've got Joybringer on the 15th (next week! And it should also be on tap by then!), and then Joyrider - the barrel-aged version of Joybringer - comes out on the 22nd and we're releasing our flannels on that same day and then on the 27th (the day before Thanksgiving, also known - to us - as Shitty Wednesday) we're comin' out with four variations of Melvin the Mammoth (our "barleywine"): straight-up and rum-barrel-aged and rye-barrel-aged and blended with a whiskey-barrel-aged ginger farmhouse! Also all these fun barreled beers will be on tap at some point (including but not limited to Horatio Day), but we've only got 12 draft lines and it would be silly of us to fill nine of them with strong and/or barrel-aged beer. Oh, and also there's gonna be more bottle releases after that (hopefully more-or-less weekly for a good while), but we'll get to that in due time.

Oh! And! If you happen to find yourself somewhere other than Pulpo Day on Saturday (for whatever silly reason), we're gonna be doin' a thing at/for a historical house! See, friend-of-the-brewery (and former bartender, and former cardboard cutout model) Bubs lives in The Historical Hartshorne House in Wakefield and he wanted to throw another cool history/beer/house-themed event so we brewed up a special beer*** and we're gonna be there all evening to awkwardly ramble about our beer/brewery in front of a bunch of (old) strangers! Fun times!

Last up is a thing I already mentioned but I'm excited about it so I'm gonna say it again: Cheese! Flights! On! Sunday!

* Yes, technically all holidays are made up. But this is one (of several) that WE made up and also one that (sadly) goes generally unacknowledged in the world at large.
** Not very.
*** Last year we brewed Hartshorne for this very same event. Remember that beer? I miss that beer.

It's Gobble Time, Bitches!

In Which FLANNELS

In Which Coloring Brings Us Joy(Bringer), and Vice Versa

In Which... PULPO TIME!

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