Cambridge Brewing Company (2021)

The Toasted Red Lager is ridiculous. A great beer. So smooth and unified.

Cow Tools is an awesome milk stout; a restrained use of lactose allows the roasty malt to shine. Just great.

Elephant Talk NEIPA is terrific. Bought a fresh growler a couple weeks ago and poured a glass for my wife. We had an impromptu side-by-side tasting with this and a Bissell Bros. Substance. We both preferred Elephant Talk, no question. In fact, it wasn’t even close.

If you haven’t been lately, you should remedy the situation.

 

Jedi Mind Trick, which historically has been great, is back as well.

 

I bought a growler of YEMS in October 2020. At the time, I thought I'd open it around Thanksgiving. Turkey day came and went and the growler remained unopened in the fridge. Knowing that CBC uses a counter-pressure filler, I thought I'd be OK holding on to it until Christmas. The holidays came and went and, still, the growler remained. Flash forward until Friday after work, June 18th. My friend invited us over to hang in his backyard. Yup, the growler was STILL in the fridge. Honestly, zero clue how the beer would be. I think, what the hell? I'll bring it over to my friend's house. I open the growler, pour a couple of glasses and, nearly NINE months later, the beer was phenomenal. It was the best batch of YEMS I've ever had. Rich, full-bodied, rounded flavor with amazing carbonation. It probably had the best head retention and the most carbonation I've ever seen on an imperial stout. We sat there drinking it...and hell if it wasn't one of the best big stouts I've ever had. When I bought it, I simply couldn't resist the thought of buying a beer like this, all 64 ounces of it, in a growler. And it was a only $28.

This is hardly the first time one of their beers, or something related to CBC, has far exceeded my expectations. Now they need to move the place closer to my house.

Was hoping they'd have had some kind of anniversary party this year. That's one of the best yearly beer events in the Boston area.

 

Making a mental note of this for the next time I see growlers of Blunderbuss in CBC's fridge the day after Barleywine Fest! :-)

Didn't CBC announce they were going to put the 2020 batch of YEMS into bottles when they released this last year? Did the bottles ever get released?

 

Indeed, that announcement was made, but I don’t recall seeing the bottles.

 

A Letter To Jimmy Page was on draft this past weekend. It was great.

That is all...also resurrecting this thread from the depths of the bottom of page 2 of the Northeast Forum.

 

...and Jack Straw has been bottled. Plus another couple of new bottles coming. Check the CBC IG feed.

 

I used to dream about them bottling this. Do yourself a favor. Go get some. Or don’t, and I’ll just buy it up periodically.

 

Any word on if they're doing their Pumpkin Festival this year?

 

They're not . Hoping for at least a weekend with the pumpkin fest inspired menu again, loved that last year given the circumstances.

 

Thought they were going to do a Fall Fest of some kind. I could swear I had had a convo with Will about this on some social media, but I can't find it.

 

I’m sure they will tap some good pumpkin stuff later this month considering they might be the preeminent pumpkin beer brewer around. I’ll be stopping by in a couple weeks regardless.

 

I’m heading by this weekend if I can for the Festbier!

 

Hmm, might go for a long walk into Boston Sunday and snag this on tap.

 

Picked up a crowler of it after work. Will open it after work this afternoon and report back. $14 for a crowler is a little steep, but I don't anticipate getting a ton of crowlers from there in general. It's a nice little spot and it looked like there were some interesting beers on. Vibe is definitely touristy/main stream vs for beer nerds or locals. And that's ok!