Jack’s Abby (2020)

IMO Jacks Abby has one of if not the best taproom in the state. It’s huge and the food options are great. The brewery exclusives don’t expand the options too drastically. Usually a one off of an existing beer or a kettle sour. I feel like they’ve pushed the experimental brewing over to Springdale and just kept the original lager game plan at JA which is perfectly fine.

 

Haven't been in quite a bit but concur that it's one of the top tap rooms in the state. Awesome mix of families, regular joes, beer geeks, etc. Always busy but never too crowded. I normally just order a big stein of House Lager when I'm there. It is nice that you can get springdale drafts there, too.

Springdale's space right next door is kinda fun if you're looking for something more young and hip.

 

Heavy Trommel is back with a new (boring) name: German-style Porter. Its easily one of my favorites of the Keller series.

 

NICE! Loved that beer. Completely agree.

Fuck, I have way too much beer in my fridge right now. So many stouts...I guess another dark beer couldn't hurt. At least they don't "go bad" in a month like IPAs.

 

Heavy Trommel was a fantastic name and I'm bummed they change it. I will, however, still buy a bunch of it.

Also, to echo: JA is one of the best taprooms in the entire Northeast. I think they typically have like 25 draft options, of which 4-5 are probably draft/taproom only. Tons of beer to go. Great food. TVs to watch the games. Absolutely gotta do the Springdale taproom, too. Arcade games, board games, 20 things of their own on tap and it's more low key so you have all the space on Earth to stretch out.

 

It was an awesome name. If I had to guess they changed it because consumers were confused about what it was.

Kind of like how Notch briefly changed Černé Pivo's name to just "Black Lager". They found a good middle ground though by putting "BLACK LAGER" in bold font and below it, "Černé Pivo".

 

2020 Release Calendar is out. Year round Shipping Out of Boston!

 

Nice, really liked Shipling Out of Boston, though funny it apparently won't be shipping out of Mass.

Seems like Excess is slowly fading away (in place of new citra brau variants). It's only dropping twice this year

 

Ugh. I wish they would take Blood Orange Wheat out of the variety pack. Put Smoke and Dagger in there. I would even take 4 beers each of only three options.
Whenever I pick up a couple of variety packs for a cook out or party, I open the cooler the next day and... Blood Orange Wheat.

 

Blood orange wheat is the best breakfast beer I've found. Sorry if you don't

 

I can't even bring myself to try Blood Orange Wheat.

 

I’ve had a few out in public. There, I’ve said it. It was fine. Lots of beer is fine.

 

Would have preferred Franconian Kraft.

The IPL thing is kind of slowly dying out in general. I think you'll probably only see Hoponius locally (if at all) as a year round release in the future.

From a recent article posted in the OP of the IPL thread on the main forum...

“While Hoponius is really strong for us in Massachusetts, it doesn’t translate as well in other markets because it’s not considered a local hoppy beer,” Hendler explains. One other challenge for hoppy lagers is the extended lagering periods they often go through, ramping up production costs relative to ales that finish in a few weeks. “It’s a real investment on our end to keep [Hoponius] going and keep it strong and make it as big of a product for us as it is.”

It's not bad if you're out at a bar and there's no other low ABV options. You could do a lot worse at 4% ABV.

I'm also intrigued by this new summer seasonal "Ray Catcher".

 

It's honestly quite good. Tastes like real oranges AND real beer.

 

Shipping Out Of Boston is an entirely new beer, we are just reusing the name. The New Shipping Out Of Boston is a new Amber lager. It will also be available in other states on draft and in 6-packs.

As you can see from the calendar, all the kellerbiers are losing their individual names. We wanted to increase our focus on kellerbiers and found out that all the different names ended up confusing a lot of people. So Kellerbier will be the focus and they will be differentiated by their style. This calendar is also just beers for distribution, so can expect more kellerbiers that will be available at the beerhall.

 

Ray Catcher will be a new lemongrass lager. Something light and refreshing for the summer.

 

Low ABV too?

 

The same lemongrass lager that's on tap at the beer hall right now? I thought it was very good.