Summer is here

Summer is most definitely gearing into full swing. The Memorial Day weekend was abnormally hot, even Marina, my Brazilian wife, was sweating and complaining the whole weekend. I have been getting back into playing pick up basketball with some old friends and some new ones here in Quincy. We played some poker at my friend Joe from Walpole's house on Monday night, and I managed to drink roughly 20 craft beers!


I was in Western Mass with Marina checking out dorms at Mount Holyoke College, where she begins in the fall. She couldn't decide which one she would pick, but we made some progress. That campus is breathtaking in the summer, the old buildings are beautiful, its exactly what you think of in a private liberal arts college. We managed to grab some food and beer at Amherst Brewing Company right by UMass' flagship campus. Their beer is not spectacular, but the "Gone Postal" IPA that complemented my Bison Burger was hoppy and delicious. Didn't manage to take pictures, but I definitely recommend checking the place out, if you are in the neighborhood.

I grabbed a sixer of Founders Centennial IPA, could not find a date, but the hops were slightly faded, I was disappointed for $12. Additionally, I picked up a 12 pack of cans of Cisco's Whale's Tale Pale Ale, which is a solid English Pale Ale, that very lightly hopped, but thirst quenching and awesome in cans.

I grabbed a 750ml of Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus, mostly because I never see Cantillon in the bottle shops around here. Would drink exclusively sours if they weren't $17 a bottle! This was a 2010 vintage, and the raspberries were very clear, and accentuated the tart base lambic. I apologize for the lousy picture! Cantillon really is the master of sours, although my next sour will be Jolly Pumpkin's La Roja, to see what an American sour brewer can do.

Finally, I enjoyed my second 500ml bottle of Maine Brewing Co.'s Zoe. I grabbed 2 bottles for $10 at my local packy, which apparently is a pretty good deal. Zoe is a delicious amber, darker than something like Nugget Nectar, which is one of my all time favorites, but it was still hoppy and delicious, bottled 4/28 so the hops were still bright.

I will be volunteering at BeerAdvocate's American Craft Beer Fest on Saturday, and will try to get some photos!

Short's Brewing

Short's is a tiny Bellaire, Michigan based micro-brewery that has a particularly large following in the beer geek community. They are renowned for trying strange and experimental brews such as Key Lime Pie & Bloody Beer made with real lime and roma tomatos, respectively.

They are not normally distributed in Massachusetts, and according to the beer community in the midwest, they are barely able to meet demand in their home state. However, they were taking a truck out here to Boston based BeerAdvocate's Extreme Beer Fest, and decided to pack the truck with enough beers to provide to distributors as a one-off opportunity.

I wasn't able to acquire any of the beers at my local liquor store, but I happened to be out in Western Mass, and stumbled into Russell's in Amherst Center. I asked them if there was any beer they had around here that I wouldn't be able to get in Boston. They pulled these Short's brews off the shelf and I took a single of each of them. $8 well spent on Hangin' Frank, Huma Lupa Licious, Bellaire Brown, and The Magician. I actually just polished off Hangin' Frank a few moments ago, inspiring me to write up this blog. Very solid IPA, fruity nose A-/B+ overall for me. If have an opportunity to acquire any of this stuff, I highly recommend it.