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.
** 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.
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