Unless I’m mis remembering I thought Great Lakes had made distro here a while ago. I remember trading for Christmas ale in the early 2000’s and then in the last 5-7 years swear I saw their stuff on shelves in MA or New England?
Good news. I would love to get my hands on some Edward Fitzgerald, as well as their Octoberfest, Dortmunder Gold, and Elliot Ness.
It's Edmund Fitzgerald, but yeah, especially that one. There are not enough quality porters on the shelves these days.
They are in RI now as well. Not sure about CT. The store I went to had the Hop Madness IPA variety pack and a few others but there was no Eliot Ness. I think its good they finally made it to this region but I think it might be too little too late considering the bigger regional breweries arent cool anymore like they were 10 plus years ago so the sales wont be what they would be if they came here sooner.
On the contrary, although many local brewers seem to be returning to classic styles to some degree, many are charging far too much for them. It's like they think because they can get $18/4pack for a double dry hopped IPA, they have to charge that same price for a helles or classic porter. There's a huge hole in the market right now for reasonably priced beers in the classic styles. Great Lakes is the perfect brewery to fill that void. Sierra and Bell's used to do it, before they went all-IPA-all-the-time.
Great Lakes is also available on Long Island, NY. Unfortunately, mostly Straw Pineapple Wheat near me! My old favorites Edmund F. , E. Ness, and Dort. are around, but not in my striking distance.
I thought the Strawberry Pineapple Wheat was pretty good. Yeah it doesn't taste much like a wheat ale and its very very sweet but you can tell its all natural flavors and nothing artificial. I mean the American Pale Wheat Beer is one of my least favorite styles so if they add some fruit to it to jazz it up and I cant really complain about it.
100% disagree. I think they're returning to the game in a major way and mostly because of price point/packaging in 12 packs. The Harpoon summer beer was awesome and I bought at least two 12-packs of it. I've purchased a ton of Stone IPA this year. I even found fresh Sculpin earlier this year. Allgash. Lagunitas. Sam Adams. They all make good beer and I don't have to spend $20 to only have four beers.
I grabbed a six of Eliot Ness for $10.50 yesterday. Don't remember the last time I had a straight up amber lager. Poked around Great Lakes beer locator, don't think anywhere in MA has the porter yet.
