Yankee Brew News Archive

What's Brewing: Massachusetts/Rhode Island

Originally Published: 10/96

By: Kerry J Byrne

Following a flurry of activity in recent months, it appears that things have begun to settle down a bit in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. This can mean only one thing: I can now spend less time going to breweries and drinking beer and more time traveling the country and watching college football. Which begets the question: how soft a life can one lead and still make a living? I'm trying to find out.

Massachusetts

Cisco Brewers, 5 Bartlett Farm Road., Nantucket, just celebrated its first year in business, and owners Randy and Wendy Hudson are going ahead with plans to move their tiny brewery into a new brewhouse at the same location in Nantucket Vineyard.

Cisco is one of the smallest commercial breweries in New England and its beers, Bailey's Ale, Whale's Tale Pale Ale, Moor Porter and Captain Swain's Extra Stout, are available only on-island. "(We) used to say we were a nano brewery aspiring to be a micro," said the owners.

With the new brewhouse, the Hudsons are going from a two- to six-barrel system custom made by Randy. "I think we're moving into the micro range," said Randy. Cisco is slated to come out with a barleywine in September, but intrepid beer travelers will have to go to Nantucket to try it and the other Cisco products.

"We don't look to be off-island any time soon," said Randy.

Cisco has about two dozen accounts at pubs, restaurants and package stores and could have more, said Randy, but their tiny brewery can't yet handle the demand. A visit to the brewery could make for a fun, if not woozy trip: it is located next to the Nantucket Vineyard Winery.

Central Massachusetts may soon be home to another microbrewery, pending approval from the ATF and the ABCC. Jay Hebert, owner of the Paper City Brewing Company, 108 Cabot Street, Holyoke, was hoping to be fully approved some time in September. Rick Quackenbush, one-time brewer Northampton Brewery, was scheduled to make the beers at Paper City.

"We will start with an ale--we have to order more tanks--then we will do specialty ales for winter," said Hebert, adding that he and Quackenbush are "still experimenting." The Paper City beers will be brewed on a 20-barrel DME system. "We already have some verbal accounts, but nothing is set yet," said Hebert. "The local pubs have shown some interest."

Atlantic Coast Brewing Company, 50 Terminal Street, Charlestown, continues its daring, head-first, watch-out-world-here-we-come, don't-leave-the-teenage-boys-alone-with-the-sheep forays into the world of authentic English-style ales. The company was slated to introduce its northern-style Tremont Brown Ale in September.

The 4.5% ale was described by Atlantic Coast's Chris Lohring as "pretty malty but finishing slightly dry." It is brewed entirely with Maris Otter floor-malted barley. The brown ale was to be released September 11 at Sunset Grill & Tap in Allston.

The Tremont Boys brewed their Old Scratch Barleywine in July for release in November. They expect their bottling line to be up and running this fall, making Tremont ales the only beers brewed and bottled in Boston.

Salem Beer Works, 278 Derby Street, Salem, known as Olde Salem Brewing Company before being bought by Boston Beer Works in April, is undergoing a number of changes under its new owners. First and foremost are the beers.

"We have six or seven new brews up here," said brewer Bryan House, head man at Boston Beer Works. Among the offerings are Salem Pale Ale, Witch City Red, North Shore Light, Black Bat Stout, Derby Street Nut Brown, Castle Rock Raspberry, Hawthorne Hefe-Weizen, and Pumpkinhead Ale. The Pumpkinhead is one of Salem's biggest sellers, said House. He said they took the popular Pumpkin fall seasonal from Boston Beer Works and made it into a year-round offering as a tribute to Salem's haunting past.

"We also have a new beer, Custom House IPA. And some specialty beers done in Boston are being done here as well," said House, adding that most beers are redesigned for Salem.

Scott Houghton will take over the brewing operations at Salem in the fall. He served as an assistant to Greg Norris when the brewpub was still called Olde Salem.

As far as Boston is concerned, House said he and Beer Works owners Joe and Steve Slesar are still waiting "for the Canal Street thing to happen." The Slesars purchased a building last year on Boston's Canal Street, near the Fleet Center, but have yet get the legal OK to go ahead with a new brewpub.

"We still have to get all the legal stuff out of the way," said House. "It will happen some day, hopefully. I don't know when."

At Boston Beer Works, 61 Brookline Avenue, House was making plans to celebrate the 1,000th batch of beer brewed at one of America's busiest brewpubs.

He was hoping to brew a Duvel-style beer, possibly using 1,000 pounds of two-row barley and 1,000 ounces of hops, though the idea was still in the planning stages when we spoke.

The multi-level rooftop beer garden which opened at Northampton Brewery, 11 Brewster Court, this past May, has been quite a success, said brewer Chris O'Connor.

To celebrate the first season of operation of the 240-seat outdoor area, the folks at Northampton will hold an Octoberfest party towards the end of September before the beer garden closes for the winter.

The celebration will include live music, traditional food and the appropriate beers, including Northampton's own Octoberfest which O'Connor began brewing in mid-August.

The exact date of the Octoberfest party had not been set as of press time, but you can reach the brewery at (413) 584-9903.

The opening of the beer garden was part of a year-long project to expand and improve the facilities at Northampton Brewery. The pub also saw additions and expansion in the brewhouse and kitchen. Nonotuck IPA was added to the Northampton beer list in late August. O'Connor said the IPA was finished with a "solid amount" of Mt. Hood and Chinook hops for a "hoppy punch," and was finished and dry-hopped with Cascades.

The Boston Beer Company has added a new feature to the tour of its Jamaica Plain (30 Germania Street) brewery: the Samuel Adams "Jules Verne Tank." The unique tank represents, if only slightly, a submarine standing on end and is named after the author of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." It has several portholes and interior lights so that brewers can monitor their beer during fermentation and dry-hopping.

The tank also allows tour-goers the unique opportunity to see beer-in-process. If fermentation is beginning, the frothy mixture can be seen from the top porthole. While the beer is conditioning in cold storage, the settled-out yeast can be seen from the lowest porthole, with the bright, unfiltered beer suspended above it.

The release of Samuel Adams Octoberfest this fall will be accompanied by a Boston Beer Company sweepstakes. The prizes will be a trip to see one of two autumn classics in 1997: Munich's Oktoberfest or the World Series. Information will be available at bars and package stores when the seasonal beer is released.

Frequent flyers will be happy to learn that Samuel Adams Boston Lager was recently chosen by American Airlines as its in-flight beer for first- and business-class passengers on transcontinental flights. This, of course, can only lead to one thing: an airborne mutinous riot caused by those of us schleps in coach forced to live with the swillwater of the masses normally served in the back of the plane.

Wouldn't it be a better world if coach passengers got all the Sam Adams they needed, but first-class passengers had to hold a bake sale to buy their Sam Adams?

Having opened this past spring at the end of the school year, the folks at Watch City Brewing Company, 256 Moody Street, Waltham, are waiting to see what kind of surprises are in store when students return to the several colleges and universities in the area.

"We're looking forward to the students coming back," said brewer Steve Lincoln. "When we opened they were going through their finals. It's all kind of new and mysterious what fall will be like."

"Despite the summer we're still doing pretty well - better than I thought we would," said Lincoln.

Summer customers have taken a particular liking to Tick Tock Ale (a standard golden ale) and Titan Ale ("A Steve Lincoln hybrid," said the brewer. "Our biggest beer.").

Tick Tock and Titan are two of the four regulars on the Watch City beer list. Lincoln also has two taps rotating constantly. In August, Lincoln introduced what he's called a "wheat bastard." "It was supposed to be true southern Germany weizen beer," said Lincoln. "But the yeast didn't take off the way I wanted so I used our host yeast. Still, the grain bill is 50% wheat."

The brewpub will be holding a contest for customers to name the wheat beer. A Kolsch was to be added to the beer list in late August/early September.

The Rumor Mill:

We hear rumblings about a possible microbrewery in the Allston section of Boston to be built by some people Already Known in the Boston beer scene. More details if and when we get them.

Rhode Island

The Ocean State's first commercial cider maker was scheduled to began operations after an initial public offering slated for late August. The Lovecraft Cider Company will offer two products, Lovecraft Light and Lovecraft Dark, and will be produced under a lease agreement at the Newport Vineyard Winery in Middletown.

The company is under the direction of Maury Ryan, who runs the Rhode Island International Beer Exposition each year. He is using recipes designed by cider expert Paul Correnty, author of The Art of Cidermaking" and is being consulted by former Narragansett head brewer Bill Anderson.

Ryan said he will open with draft accounts at five Rhode Island restaurants. When we spoke he said he was in the process of ordering kegs and keg lines and will purchase a bottling line with the completion of the IPO.

Lovecraft ciders will be primarily available in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Ryan also expects to distribute in New York and Colorado and talked about putting a bottling line in a North Carolina location in the future.

A new brewery in downtown Providence is in the planning stages and may be open some time next year. The owners of The Great Providence Brewing Company were set to put their entire project together following the anticipated success of an initial public offering in September.

The brewer at the planned micro will be Kurt Musselman, who has served as head brewer at Trinity Brewhouse since its opening in 1994. Owner Greg Hutchins said in August that he was in lease negotiations for a site at 162 Clifford Street in the jewelry district of Providence.

Musselman was working on test batches at a pilot plant on Central Avenue in Providence. Hutchins said the company will likely produce an India Pale Ale and a hefe-weizen at first.

Hutchins said he plans on making the beers available in both draft and bottled versions. "We want to open our doors with about a 10,000-barrel annual capacity but be able to take it up to 50,000 as demand hopefully increases," he stated. "We anticipate being up and running in six months." Hartel Corporation of Wisconsin is designing the brewery and brew system. For information on the IPO call (860) 437-0863.

Sean Larkin was slated to take over Musselman's duties at Trinity Brewhouse, 186 Fountain Street, Providence. "Sean has been working here for quite a while," said Musselman. "I trained him and feel confident that I'm leaving them in good hands." Larkin attended Johnson and Wales and had worked in the kitchen at Trinity before moving over the brewery.

The Union Station Brewery, 36 Exchange Terrace, Providence, just racked up a pair of "Best of Rhode Island" awards from Rhode Island Monthly magazine. The Ocean State's first brewpub was named Best Bar and Best Place to go for Beer. It is the third year in a row the popular brewpub earned both awards.

"It's quite the honor for us to do so well each year," said Union Station general manager Andy Cook.

Union Station had a pair of big events planned for September. The first Union Station Smoker was scheduled for September 16. The evening included a four-course dinner--beers with three of the courses and Knob Creek bourbon to go with the final course--as well as two as-of-yet undetermined cigars ("probably Davidoffs," said Cook).

A September 10 Brewer's Dinner was called "A Night in France." The menu featured Golden Spike Ale with duck confit, seafood bouillabaisse with Providence City Cream Ale, garlic rubbed pork loin with Independence IPA, and French pastries with Gaelic Stout.

For information on future events, Union Station can be reached at (401)274-2739.