Blatant Brewery is a new contract brewery from Massachusetts. The head brewer used to work at both Mayflower Brewery in Plymouth and Offshore Ales in the Vineyard. He also runs the new Amherst brewpub High Horse. They brew their ales at Just Beer in Westport, MA, which is the same location that renowned Pretty Things Brewery uses.
I had recently wrote about Blatant in my post on the new microbreweries in Boston. At first they were sold as draft-only, which made it a little more difficult to acquire, especially living in northern Connecticut. Luckily, Blatant did its first run of bottling recently and bottled its two primary beers: Blatant IPA & Blatant Session. My wife was recently picking up some Nugget Nectar for me and I had to told her to take a gander for bombers from Blatant, as I had seen on the interwebs that they were starting to hit retail locations.
The packaging looks great. The labels are simple and the Blatant Exclamation Point logo is blatantly (*had to) displayed in contrasting colors on the front. There is just enough info about the beer on a side panel without writing a short story like some other breweries. (not mentioning any names, Stone) Competitively priced at $4.95/bomber at Russell's in Amherst. This is within my $6.50/bomber daily drinker limit, so that is always a positive! My only concern with packaging is the lack of a bottling date, although the brewer addressed that on the Beeradvocate forums.
Blatant IPA. Hoppy beers are my favorite style and I don't get caught up on the IPA/DIPA/Imperial Amber/American Pale Ale distinctions. This beer will not be confused for a DIPA, but it is certainly very passable. A huge factor in IPAs is there freshness, and I mentioned Blatant did not use a brewed on date for their first batch. Luckily, I knew that these bottles had just been released, and the guy at Russell's told my wife that it was the first day he had put them out for sale. This beer was extremely fresh, the hops were teeming out of my tulip glass. The whole beer was dominated by the hops, and that's just how I like my IPAs. I wouldn't change a thing about this beer and it is good for what it is trying to be: a local, fresh, affordable, hop-forward IPA.
Blatant Session. Some may be wary of shelling out $5 for a bomber of 3.9% ABV beer, but that's asinine to me, and the session beer culture of the UK backs me up on this. You pay for flavor, regardless of the ABV content. ABV should not be seen as your measure of value in a beer, or you are better off picking up some non-branded spirits. This beer is a light colored, light bodied beer, but it is an ale not an adjunct lager. There is tons of flavor packed into this light beer. Surprisingly, this reminds me of Samuel Adams Noble Pils, I assume because of the similar hop profile. Although this is clearly and ale and the SA a pilsner, they are both crisp and refreshing. Depending on your views on session ales, I think this is a great deal, especially for those of us trying to lose weight, without compromising on beer quality
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