Preserves Online: Beer Brewing Magazines

Thursday, 19 July 2012

Beer Brewing Magazines

For Bostonians, local and regional beers — including Sam Adams, Harpoon, Catamount, Dock Street and others — provided flavors and aromas that had been absent from American palates up to that point. I also learned how to brew my own beer that year. For me, and many beer drinkers at the time, there was a beer revolution going on. This last week, I’ve been in Boston and — judging from the beers I’ve tried — I think that Boston beer is still “revolting.” A lot of breweries have opened up in Massachusetts recently, and there are some interesting stories relating to some of them. To pick one example, Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project describes themselves as “tenant brewers” — renting open time slots in existing breweries to brew their beer (in a way that’s similar to Mikkeller). Their flagship beer, Jack D’or, is a pale, “Belgiany” beer reminiscent of a saison. In some ways, the Boston beer scene is settling down. Sam Adams is now very familiar and is distributed across the US (and even exported to other countries). Harpoon is big enough that I can get their IPA (and UFO brand) in Texas. And, of course, some of the early breweries are gone. (Catamount was gobbled up by Harpoon back in the 90s after their new brewery was built and they weren’t selling enough beer to get by. I don’t know what ever happened to Dock Street.).