Every now and then, one of us gets the opportunity to beerventure when the other doesn’t. In the event we’re separated, our individual beerventure does not count towards our official brewery count and thus aren’t subject to my usual brewery ratings. #CoupleorBust. This was one such case.
I was coming back from a bachelor party in Bahstan, Massachusetts with my buddy Nate when we decided, what the hell there is beer to be had. So with half-failing kidneys and livers, we decided to hit four beer filled stops along 95.
Dorchester Brewing Company, or DBco, is another baby in the ever expanding family of small breweries; just opened in July, 2016. This 25,000 sq foot operation is a rather large baby. In addition to making their own beer, DBco is also a fully operational contract brewing facility. If you’re concerned about quality issues often faced by new breweries, let me alleviate those fears. The brew master and assistant brewer are Harpoon veterans with over 16 years of combined experience and can dish out a wide variety of styles and unique one offs that typically wouldn’t be allowed by their previous employer. As we hung out with one of the owners at the bar, we learned that a large portion of their brew crew were in fact poached Harpoon employees.
I can already hear the internalizations of beersnobs reading the previous paragraph: “Oh, Harpoon, that’s cute. I mean, if you’re into O.K. beer, I’m sure those brewers will be O.K.” As a connoisseur of all things alcohol related, let’s discuss the beer flight. IPA, DIPA, Hefe, ESB and Berliner. As expected, the ESB and the hefe were standard flight beers made to cater to the masses. The Mass Ave IPA and the Volks Berliner (with syrup) on the other hand were certainly of a higher quality than anything you could find at Harpoon. The Mass Ave and Volks were two solid beverages, nothing to snub, but nothing really to gawk at. The DIPA on the other hand earned itself a full pour while I mowed down on my burger. Despite the strong, hoppy aroma, the beer itself was actually on the fruity side and more thirst quenching than most 8% DIPAs. If DBco focuses on more beers like the V1, they will certainly be a welcomed new addition.
Two unique events also happened while we were at DBco. 1) Free burger day. Burger, chips, and an interesting conversation with a cross-dresser while in line for said burger and chips. What did we talk about? Annoying habits of people from Bahstan; and there were a lot of those *wink*. 2) Mollie, friend of Melissa, somehow managed to severely injure herself on a beach. I’m talking ambulance ride injury. Thankfully, Melissa where there with Snapchat to capture the escapades from injury to ER room. And there were drugs, lots and lots of happy drugs. In addition to my own enjoyment of the situation, the owner of DBco also enjoyed the constant updates. Maybe they will name a beer after your Mollie; The Beach Flopper lager, Wambulance Porter, or Morphine Mollie Barley Wine?
Trillium Brewing Company gets a lot of things right but the hype-train had done little to earn my love in the past few months. Between my friends recent haul from Trillium with beers that left much to be desired, and our own previous purchases from Trillium; I didn’t have much faith in a second visit. But sure as shit I’m happy we made the stop to visit Trilliums brand new facility.
Fort Point, Congress Street, Scaled Up, Skimpy Sparrow, Melcher Street, Outside the Lines and Secret Stairs were slowly consumed by Nate the novice beerventurer, and I. Starting with the weaker, albeit still enjoyable beers were Secret Stairs (a slightly nutty stout that felt a little watered down), Skimpy Sparrow (average APA), Fort Point (Fruity and refreshing), and Scaled Up (double IPA, hype-train beer that honestly gets out classed by the rest of the Trillium offerings). The weird bit is Scaled Up gets stellar reviews on Untappd when IMO, Congress Street IPA has a better, more balanced flavor without the off putting abv/hophead in your face experience found in Scaled Up. I guess this is one of those moments where pallets differ.
Now for the great, should not miss beers. Melcher Street and Outside the Lines. Melcher, IMO, was the best IPA they had on draft that day. Stacked straight up against the other IPAs, Melcher had this crisp citrus flavor with a small, bitter bite on the backend. What made it more enjoyable you ask? I have no idea. But it was different and I liked it. As for Outside the Lines, holy ImpStout. The vanilla came out super potent, helping to mask the whopping 12.7% abv which was surprisingly easy to drink. I was shocked to have such a rich bodied, sweet stout coming out of a hophead paradise and I certainly enjoyed the change of pace from the IPAs.
Now, all of these beers were on draft, so I can’t speak to the bottle situations. In my own previous experiences with Trillium, bottles have been less than amazing to the point I didn’t understand the hype. Drinking fresh Trillium on draft however, changed my entire perception of Trillium. Do yourself a favor and hit their new tasting room; because this is a must stop.
Continuing on our way back home, we decided we had room for two more breweries. Castle Island Brewing Company of Norwood, MA was the next stop on the way back to NJ. Unfortunately, this brewery was neither castle nor island. This brewery had setup shop in the ever popular industrial park. This huge space (20,000 sq ft) offered plenty of expansion, but their current system was more on the petite side and there wasn’t even a conventional tap room yet. Instead of flights and pints, Castle offered a small sampling free of charge. So let’s get to the beers.
2 IPAs, a stout and a pale ale were available for tasting that night: Keeper, Candlepin, TBD and Juice Patrol. While these beers did an excellent job at representing their individual styles, there was only one beer of mention. Keeper was, and I don’t say this lightly, a near perfect IPA. I’m not sure what the hop profile is, but if you can imagine the perfect combination of danky hop flavor and fruit juice, you can imagine Keeper. One of the drawbacks of Keeper however, was its really bitter after taste. Sure IPAs do usually carry bitter on the backend, but this was an unforgivable bite that negated a perfect nose and body. I hope they even it out in future batches.
As we continue back down to NJ, Nate says something not so unusual for a US citizen; “Hey, I’ve never been to Rhode Island.” But followed it up with something completely unusual; “Can we stop?” So after a short google search we found a brewery called Bucket in Pawtucket so lets truckit because f*ckit. (I’m so sorry I will show myself out now)
Bucket Brewery of Pawtucket, RI is a classic brewery you know and love.
– Wedged in a weird abandoned industrial building in the middle of town.
– Absolute sh*t parking when crowded.
– Super industrial feel of white walls, cement floors, industrial grade lighting that absolutely killed any form of ambiance.
– Two super weird and quirky bartends that nerded super hard over the love of beer.
Bucket was a small slice of what small American breweries used to be before the hop wars, food trucks, limited (wait in line overnight) releases and hype train beers trading for 10x the value. Bucket brewing said Pawf*ckit, lets stick to what we know. And yes, I’ve been dying to say Pawf*ckit.
In order from least favorite to most we have Pawtucket Pail Ale, LEROY! The Million $ IPA, 33rd Inning Rye, Prudence and Patience Sour, Park Loop Vanilla Porter and Black Goat of the Woods. The Pawtucket and LEROY were your standard pale ale and IPA. The Rye was a little light for my taste, but it was one of the more refreshing and satisfying beers on the menu. Prudence and Patience Sour was a gose that would have scored higher if it didn’t have a bitter and dry finish after its initial sweet reception.
Park Loop Vanilla Porter almost hit a homerun. There was a great, creamy and rich vanilla taste in the front however; it was slowly marred by a more pungent bitter backend. Yeah it’s a porter, I get that, so I’m sure the barley flavor had to be in there somewhere.
Lastly, the Black Goat of the Woods scored the highest marks and is our must get brew from Bucket. The flavor was a tad unusual and I couldn’t quite pin it, but think of a sweet cinnamon stout with a minor sour (ginger?) note on the backend. Nate thought it tasted of bacon, so maybe our pallets were too far gone by this point to make an accurate interpretation.
Our post-bachelor party, impromptu beerventure breweries may not count towards Beerventurers overall brewery body count, but Nate and I sure enjoyed the beers. Naturally, Melissa and I will have to make these stops on our next trip to MA, which will be this November for the last wedding of the season.
