Archive for July 29th, 2009

In our haste to escape Holyoke, we apparently headed east when we wanted to go west. Worse still – we were perhaps a half hour from Northampton via expressway, but we wanted to “experience” of traveling the country roads. Wrong direction and – admittedly beautiful – winding country roads added up to about three hours of wasted time. Time that should’ve been spent drinking and eating in Northampton.

Ah well…such are the pitfalls of spontaneous road tripping. (Of course, once we found a gas station with a map we sorted things out quickly. Yes – we should have gotten the map earlier…)

ANYWAY…finally pulled into Northampton, MA around 5pm. Found ourselves a Comfort Inn down the road in Hadley, cleaned up a bit and struck out for an evening on the town. First stop: Northampton Brewery. I am a fan of brewpubs. Always love the vibe and the crowd generally tends to be friendly. we always find ourselves striking up conversations with complete strangers. Thankfully – after the way our trip had started and getting lost – Northampton Brewery continued the tradition of friendly brewpubs.

While on the scenic route to Northampton from Holyoke via Ware (yes – those of you familiar will see our error), we had read about a burger place called Local Burger that did all local beef. So, we decided not to eat at Northampton Brewery and instead just go for a few beer flights. As luck would have it, there are exactly enough beers on the menu for two flights without duplication.

That’s my flight on the left; Mrs. Ohabeer’s on the right. I really hate taking photos in bars and restaurants – seriously don;t know how food bloggas do it – so these would bascially be the only flights we photographed all weekend. Turns out, I’d rather be drinking the beer than photographing it.

I also do not take massively detailed review notes. I’m there to be social, experience the pub and have (hopefully) some great craft beer. Hence the infrequent feature on OAB: Random Beers In Various Bars. I pretty much decided early on to use the Random Beers method for reviewing the many many road trip samplers.

NORTHAMPTON BREWERY FLIGHT
Four 6oz. glasses – personally that’s more than needed for a flight, but good when sharing.
Uncommon Ale
Northampton Pale Ale
Sand Shovel ESB
Imperial Stout
Nonotuck IPA
Weizenheimer
Weizen Berry
Wild Blue Funk

Uncommon Ale: Nice gold ale. Some what sweet. Wantsto be a honey amber but really does not make it. Doesn’t go big enough.

Northampton Pale Ale: Dark gold. Nice hop to malt balance. Solid bite on the back of the tongue. A crisp pale ale.

Sand Shovel ESB: It’s a nice reddish brown color with a malty hoppy scent. Not as bitter as I would like it to be. Just sort of there…until it warms a bit. Then it opens up nicely. Still not that bitter but gets a bit more caramely.

Imperial Stout: Mmmmm – big coffee raisin roasted malt goodness. Not incredibly thick but very delicious. This was the evening’s winner.

Nonotuck IPA: Definitely better than the Northampton Pale Ale. A bit of spiciness and a solid hop flavor. To this IPA’s credit, even hop-hating Mrs. Ohabeer was digging it.

Weizenheimer: This is an ok wheat. Fairly light with a bit of citrus in the aroma. Clearer than most wheats I like. Definitely an American wheat. Nice and clean.

Weizen Berry: The bartender confirms our suspicions: the berry here is extract. That makes this much like drinking a craft wheat downwind from an artificial flavor factory (to paraphrase Stephen Colbert). Not pleasant at all…

Wild Blue Funk: We got the final glass out of the keg and it showed. This had turned and turned badly. We ended up swapping it out for an Allagash (one of the guest beers not brewed in-house).

Allagash White: this is an OAB fave. A great yeasty wheaty white with a subtle spice.

After finishing the flights, we discovered they replaced the spent Wild Blue Funk with Maggie’s Wee Heavy Scottish Ale. As I usually cannot avoid a Scottish Ale, I decided to get a 12oz. glass to finish the night at Northamptom before heading to dinner.

Maggie’s Wee Heavy Scottish Ale: Beautiful dark brown ale. Big big malt with a ton of caramel. The big malt gets balanced with a slight hops edge in the after taste. This one made me quite buzzy, and yet I still had to sample one more thing…

Berkshire Mountain Distillers Ragged Mountain Rum:While aving the Wee Heavy, we asked the bartender if they carried any local spirits. She showed us a bottle of Berkshire Mountain Distillers Rum and we asked of a side neat. This is a beautiful rum. Light brown with a slightly oak scent. No alcohol harshness at all. Just a nice warm sweetness. We ended up bringing a botle back with us.

ROAD TRIP TOTALS
Beers Sampled: 13
Rum drank: 1
Towns visited: 3
Breweries visited: 2
Breweries open: 1

Next up: We slight sway out of the brewery and head out for local beer, a bar in a tunnel and the best.ice cream.evah.

Brewery: Berkshire Brewing Co.
Location: South Deerfield, MA
Style: Hefeweizen

On the label for Berkshire Brewing Hefeweizen Ale it states:

“Locally produced. Keep refrigerated.”

We were asked by the folks at Ryan and Casey Liquors if we had a way to keep the Berkshire brews cold on our trip as they arrive in refrigerated trucks. Luckily we had a cooler.

I have to say, I’ve never seen a beer specifically state it should be kept in the fridge. I somewhat understand – heat hurts beer – especially good beer. The “Keep refrigerated” label – however – was something new to me. If it makes the beer taste this good – though – I certainly am not going to one to question.

This is a lovely pale yellow slightly cloud beer with solid carbonation and a nice foamy head. There is a great yeasty wheat scent as you pour. That yeastiness carries over into the flavor balancing nicely with the wheat to give a fruity banana spice. There a touch of citrus in the aftertaste. A medium light body beer with 4.5% ABV, this is about as good a summer hefeweizen as you can get.

I now understand “Keep refrigerated”.