Just a heads up to folks in Southern NH. I stopped into From the Barrel today. It was their grand opening. Pretty nice space. They had quite a few beers available. They have two beers, a porter and an IPA that they serve in bombers, and another 5 or 6 beers served in 32 ounce growlers. They have tastings on site as well. I'm sipping on their single hopped Strictly Simcoe APA. Pretty damn good. I'm pleasantly surprised. I grabbed one bomber each of their IPA and porter as well. Gonna be a From The Barrel kinda afternoon/night. Craft beer is looking up in Derry with Cask and Vine, Kelsens, and there is a place coming soon called The Drinkery. I'm happy to see it.
I, too, checked out their grand opening. Liked the space, setup, and system they had. Same plaza as Moonlight Meadery is convenient, and pretty easy to make it an afternoon by swinging by 603 and Kelsen. They're running a pretty small system (1.5 bbl I think), and are mostly going to do taproom flights, growlers, and bottles on site, though I saw them mention somewhere that distributing bottles to local stores isn't out of the question in the future. The beer was a bit hit or miss for me. Lily IPA and Remedy porter were both very nice beers, and I enjoyed Opening Day Kolsch and Strictly Simcoe Pale Ale. The pours of Zeds Dead and RIPPA DIPA that I had were both not good. The RIPPA especially had a terrible off aroma that could have been dirty lines or something. I'm willing to give it another shot on the strength of the other offerings and possible grand opening kinks. The Nautical Mile Pale fell in the middle for me. Grabbed a growler to go (they've got the boston round 32ozers) of the Kolsch to share with someone who particularly likes that style. I tried it later with them and it had lost a bit in the growler as compared to the tap. I didn't notice how they were filling, but it's a growler so I'm not going to jump to any conclusions about fill quality as I don't particularly trust growlers from anywhere. Because of that, glad they are bottling a few (grabbed a Lily bottle as well).
I tried bombers of the Porter and the Lily IPA. Both very good. I grabbed a growler of the Strictly Simcoe and enjoyed that as well. I guess I'll try some samples before I grab any other growlers based on Auror's feedback.
