So this happened back in November, but we’re just now getting to posting in. Sorry we’re bad at keeping up the blog! #goals for 2017 is to get on track!
Anyways, one of my very good friends that I’ve known since second grade was getting married in Holyoke, MA. And being the opportunists we are, we decided to visit a few breweries while we were in town. Because you drink beer to celebrate good things right?
This was actually my first week at my new job in Jersey so I had to kindly ask for the Friday off to make the trek up to the rehearsal dinner. We stayed at my house in CT before getting an early start on Friday up 91.
High Horse (Amherst, MA)
The High Horse of Amherst, Mass is more bar/restaurant than brewery at the moment. They’re wedged in downtown Amherst which we’re told is college party central. The bartender was telling us that they were actively looking to expand, they even had all the plans to build the new brew facility. Problem is, they can’t get the local government to approve the operation yet.
Anyways, the beer. They only had one of their own brews available: Kolner Dom Kolsch. It was a kolsch and there really isn’t much else to say about it. This is due to their limited capacity at the moment. After checking untappd, I did note that I had two beers from them previously; Minx Saison and Satisfaction IPA. These were probably from the Vermont Brewers Fest and I did note that I had enjoyed them but that was July 2015 and this is now late 2016. They did have other good breweries on tap.
High Horse has a great atmosphere, a tiny barrel system and literally only one of their own brews that was available. I’d like to say more about the place and it’s beer, but from 1 measly sample we cannot. So we’re not going to post a score for this brewpub.
Northampton Brewery (Northampton, MA)
It’s time for lunch and the next brewery on the list is Northampton Brewery in Northampton, MA. This easy to find brewpub is plagued by extremely hard to find parking. I’m talking lot, after lot, after lot of searching in the quaint downtown area. Finally when you do find a spot, don’t forget to pay!
We grabbed a spot by the bar and ordered a slow roasted pulled pork sandwich and a grilled chicken club. These two sandwiches really hit the spot and were a great compliment to our beer choices. The one item on the menu that we wish we grabbed was the fish sandwich. It wasn’t until halfway through our meal that we noticed everyone had the fish. It is apparently one of the best items on the menu.
In the usual order from least favorite to most: Conundrum Porter, Greyhound IPA, Mean Green IPA and Hoover’s Porter. The Conundrum didn’t have much flavor, and didn’t taste like much of a porter. The Greyhound had decent marks on untappd, so this must have been a bad keg because we didn’t really enjoy it or find anything interesting about it.
Hoover’s on the other hand was much more porter and exactly what we were expecting. The Mean Green (in my opinion) was the best brew on the flight. It wasn’t so mean as it was dry hopped DIPA delicious. If you get this beer however, make sure it’s the last beer of your flight because this hop overload will overwhelm your palate.
Northampton Brewery has great food and average brewpub beer. We noticed several medals on the wall across from the brewsystem so we’re pretty sure we didn’t have the best beers they had to offer. Northhampton earned a 2.75 road-rage fueled parking space assaults out of 5.
Brew Practitioners (Florence, MA)
Brew Practitioners Brewery and Taproom of Florence, MA was one of our favorite breweries of the MA trip. The large building is home to a modest size brewery, that is owned by a female lawyer who clearly needed more beer and stress in her life. The crazy thing about Brew Practitioners is the amount of beer they had on draft which revolved around two different flights of five.
In no particular order this time we had the Brown Ale, Black Stout, Orange Pale Ale, White Blonde, Copper DIPA, Red Ale, Yellow IPA, Holiday Beer, Pink fruit beer, and Smith Voc Brown. Obviously we can’t get into all of them so lets do our top 3: Yellow IPA, Copper and Pink.
Yellow is a 7% IPA with grapefruit tones and a mild malt body. It was easy drinking for a 7%, but as usual Melissa wasn’t a huge fan. Copper was a slightly higher ABV clocking at 8.1% which is essentially the lowest abv you could have an DIPA. The menu claimed it was 6x hopped, with an IBU of 106 but it wasn’t as bitter and palate punishing as it would have you believe. Lastly, Pink. This strawberry lime lager (I think it was lager-ish) was a sweet beer that was a cheery end to the flight. We both hope that B.P. makes more interesting variants of this beer which produced an excellent strawberry flavor.
Brew Practitioners is still in the youth stage of their practice and we expect big things from them as they grow. The jury finds Beer Practitioners guilty of being delicious by 4 out of 5 jurors.
Building 8 Brewing (Florence, MA)
If you do one thing, you better do that one thing really good. At least that’s the idea behind building 8. They typically brew and can one beer, aptly named The IPA which as you may have guessed is an IPA. They also sometimes do a variation, such as The Double (which was on tap when we visited), the Session and the Double Dry Hopped IPA. But that’s it. If you want a great IPA, this is your place. We (along with our new beer friends Jeff and Kathy) agreed this was an excellent IPA. We also enjoyed the double.
It’s probably a good thing that there were only two beers to sample because we were running late for the rehearsal for the wedding. I guess we were really in Mass for the wedding and the beerventure was just an added bonus.
Also fun fact, this brewery is owned by Susan Sarandan’s brother and his wife.
Building 8 does 1 thing well; really well. If you don’t like IPAs you might as well steer clear of this fantastic establishment. If you do like IPAs than you should follow BLDG8 and wait for their variants and fresh cans to appear. Since there was only two brews on draft, and they were both IPAs we’re going to forgo a review of this place as well. But, if you like IPAs and can swing a few minutes off your route this place is certainly worth a stop.
New City Brewery (Easthampton, MA)
Winning our coveted “Where the f*ck is this place” award on our MA excursion is New City Brewery of Easthampton, MA. This brewery made its home in an old, converted, industrial building that had loft apartments on the top floor, and various businesses on all of the other floors; including an indoor hydroponic park which was really neat looking.
So how difficult could it possibly be to find a brewery in 4 story industrial building that was maybe ¼ mile long at best? Well, if you parked out front where we did, walked across the cat walk, take the elevator near the hydroponic park to the basement level, make your way down a dark hall way to a women smoking by a fire exit who says “the brewery is somewhere on the other side of the building but doesn’t actually connect to the building, I don’t think”, down the fire exit stairs onto a loading dock, down the loading dock and about 100 yards past the green dumpsters on your right back up a flight of stairs into the brewery that’s an offshoot of the building, you would have been fine. Or you could just park in the rear and save yourself about 10 minutes of hunting.
New City brews come in a flight of 6: Dauntless Dry Stout, Autumn Amber, Minuteman Pale, Signature IPA, Connecticut River Kolsch, and the New CIty Original Ginger Beer. With the exception of one, these brews were average by all definitions. The stout was stout, the amber was amber, and the IPA, especially with lingering memories of Building 8, was not very flavorful. The only real contender for a beerventurer was the Original Ginger Beer. Fair warning, if you don’t like ginger this brew will not change your mind. The nose was pungent of ginger, in a good way, and the body was crisp and light with a very distinct ginger flavor matching the smell to taste perfectly. We rather enjoyed the ginger beer since it’s not something we run across often; especially at 8% abv!
New City Brewery was a difficult spot to find, that had huge hipster under & overtones, live music and a good sized space. Did we enjoy the beer, and the company of our friends and the live music? Yes, we absolutely did. This brewery would make an excellent spot to start a night out on the town. Did we love the beer enough to warrant a beerventurer trip? No, not really. With that in mind, we give New City a disappointing 2.75 out of 5.
Ye Old Watering Hole (Northampton, MA)
*This is not a brewery but deserves a special mention for the beer can museum. #Beerducation.
If you’re ever in the area and feel the need to visit a museum and drink alcohol, the Ye Ol Watering Hole of Northampton, MA is probably a good bet. Sure, the museum is a beer can museum and its a dive bar but hey, educational field trip! The Ye Ol Watering Hole boasts itself having over 4,000 cans and while I didn’t count myself, I have no reason not to believe them. There’s a decent beer selection and drink prices are wonderful when you’re used to $10 cocktails.
The beer can museum has a sadder history than expected. In 1942, five young friends about to leave to serve in World War II came into the Ye Ol Watering Hole for a farewell toast. Each of them placed a full can of beer on the wall, with a vow that they would all return and toast those cans upon their return from duty. Only three of the five men came home. The remaining three drank the beers they had left on the wall, and placed the three empty cans next to the two full ones in memory of their comrades. The collection, started in 1970 remains a tribute to the fallen friends.
Visit the Ye Ol Watering Hole if you love old beer cans, cheap drinks and dives. You won’t regret it.
Wedding Day (Holyoke, MA)
I wont bore you with a recap of the wedding. But we did take the day off from beerventuring so I could do my bridesmaid duties before the wedding. Basically, just doing my own hair and make up and bringing champagne for mimosas. But the wedding went off with the only problem being the fire alarm went out and we all had to #evacuatethedancefloor into some refreshing 35 degree weather. I guess that’s what happens when you put the fire pit for s’mores right next to the door?
Anyways, here are some pictures.
Still to come, our final day in Mass featuring five new breweries! It will be posted eventually, I swear!
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