Pretty Things

I'm missing Enlightenment too! Hopefully we'll see more of Ben's beers in the US sometime soon. I still have a bottle of the Brut in the cellar. In the meantime, I've been enjoying some of the Idle Hands "funky town" mixed fermentation series that makes use of the Enlightenment bugs.

BTW - Did this June 2017 Idle Hands / Enlightenment collaboration with Ben ever get released? Was it one of the funky town beers?

 

Nope.

 

Totally agree!!

 

Yeah, I'll drink them, and from the sounds of it, it should be sooner rather than later.

 

terrible is a little harsh, as they do some things well (malt forward stuff mostly, though I also really enjoy their seasonal Lizzie Borden red IPA). But yeah a fair bit of not great stuff in an antiquated format.

But I agree with the overall point. It's the best brewery property in MA.

 

When is the last time you went to Buzzards Bay? I went there with low expectations this summer and was pleasantly surprised. Not top of the line, but definitely drinkable...especially given that outdoor space.

 

Just imagine a PT Tap room....

 

They were my favorite brewers and I'd pick up at least one bomber of something whenever I was at the packy. I couldn't begin to pick a favorite. When they announced their imminent demise apparently everyone in Boston decided they'd best stock up, because within a week their bottles had sold out at all the bottle shops that got good traffic; luckily a few less frequented joints in and around my neighborhood still had some in stock. I saved the labels from my last bottles like the sort of giddy fanboy I've never been for any other brewer. Oh man, just thinking about it makes me miss them so. I'd better go lie down for a while.

 

It's amazing that a barleywine that's been stored in a keg for 3 years still tasted so damn good. Nice malty sweetness with a smack of gumball.

And as far as Vee Vee's Pretty Things Stockpile, I guess that's all she wrote. Bittersweet both literally and metaphorically!

 

we drank a bottle of brut about a month ago or at least we tried. One sip and realised it had turned to an over oxidised mess that we drain poured. And that was a bottle kept in the fridge.

 

Already drank the last of my Papas and Baby Tree. That just leaves me with a lone bottle of Our Finest Regards. Ideally I'd like to crack in celebration of the Paquettes starting something new, but who knows if that day will ever come...

 

Can't remember who I said this to but it's worth saying again - when I first moved to Boston a good few years ago, long before Pretty Things, there was a bar down the street from my apartment on Comm Ave in Allston called the Northeastern Brewery, or New England Brewery, or something like that. I became friendly with the manager and he bought me a few beers of their excellent in-house brewed beer one night, which at that time, was a cool alternative to anything I knew by name. That bar lasted for a long time, but like most in that location, eventually changed hands.

I learned years later (likely doing what any good beer nerd does now and again, bu googling inane beer factoids on a lonely Friday night with nothing better to do...!!!) out of curiosity, not only what the name of the bar was, but that the brewer was Dan Paquette!!

Moral of the story - "all good thing come in threes"...so Dan if you're reading, please heed this kind man's advice and don't make him wait too long before he has to crack his last Our Finest Regards!! Cheers!

 

I miss them as well, but that bomber thing...

I have various bottles still sitting at the house. Our favorite by a long shot was Grampus, and a few bottles just surfaced in a local shop's "vintage" beer sections. I didn't get any, but I hope the people who did enjoy the hell out of it.

 

I heard they are brewing and doing colabs in the EU/UK. Knew them when they did Northeast Brewing in Brighton, a long, long time ago. First wave of brewing/ brew pubs in Boston. Back Bay, Commonwealth, Tremont, Sam Adams etc.

 

I've always found it curious that PT seemed so tied to Buzzard's Bay. It seemed like Notch managed to better utilize the variety of contract brewing resources available in New England to delivery a much broader variety of packaging, batch sizes, etc.

My two what-ifs along those lines are what if PT had access to Two Roads earlier in their history and what if laws made it easier for PT to have a taproom in the Boston area? I know they teased the idea to have a taproom in Somerville but couldn't get the licensing to work out. I wonder if they could have copied the early Somerville Brewing/Slumbrew model?

 

I too remember the Northeast Brewing Co - cool spot on Comm Ave where Dann was doing bbl & whiskey stuff b4 anyone else. I had a convo with Dann 12 yrs after his stint @ Northeast & he stated his beers there were “crap” - tho at the time they were pretty ground-breaking to me at least.

Also had the pleasure of drinking Dann’s beers at the Tap in Haverhill when it 1st opened. Lots of goodies on tap when he was there .

 

Barleywine's should hold up in a keg just fine for many many years.

I think Sierra Nevada has brought kegs of 20+ year old Bigfoot to Extreme Beerfests in the past.

 

The guys at Honest Weight told me he is looking to set up a brewery in Portland Oregon. That's all I got.