Kick Off Your Shoes for a Session with Bouncy House IPA!

Today, April 7, is Session Beer Day, a day to celebrate the growing ranks of beers that are full-flavored but low in alcohol. This celebratory day is part of Lew Bryson's Session Beer Project, which can really fill you in all things low-in-alcohol. Session Beer Day also provides us the perfect opportunity to show-and-tell our upcoming year-round release, Bouncy House IPA!

At Smuttynose, we see Bouncy House IPA as an important addition to our year-round releases, like Finestkind IPA and Old Brown Dog. It's an IPA with a simple yet perfectly-honed malt bill and a beguiling combination of Magnum, Calypso and Saphir hops. Sure, this new beer is dry-hopped to the point that you'll have a beer foam nose (instead of a milk moustache) from sniffing its beguiling aromas, but the best part is that it's just 4.3%. That's right; you can enjoy all the delicious hopping of an IPA, without a high alcohol content clouding up your world view.

We've previously brewed two pilot batches of Bouncy House, with a third about to hit the market in the next week or two. David Yarrington and our production team are so confident they've got the recipe perfected that we expect to brew the first full batches at the new brewery this week. Our sales team are finalizing roll-out events for the month of May (including SAVOR, the premier beer and food pairing event in Washington DC), but we expect to have it in all our markets by Memorial Day, just in time for your celebrations.

We're very excited about the Bouncy House beer, but it wouldn't be a new Smuttynose beer without fun, distinctive packaging.  Below are pre-print images of the six pack, twelve pack, bottle labels (yup there are more than one) and tap marker.  We shot the photos inside a real bouncy house!

Please enjoy the images below and stay tuned for updates on the roll-outs.  In the meantime, get ready to get your bounce on!

The Return of the Bounce!

Remember Bouncy House, that session IPA we brewed way back in 2013?  It was a pilot batch for a new beer Smuttynose will release later this year.

This Friday at Heritage Avenue, we'll be releasing our next pilot batch of Bouncy House at 4:30pm. To you, this means samples on tap and 22 ounce bottles for $3 each. There will be a two bottle limit, so we can spread the beer around as best we can.  The bottle price is in line with the rest of our year-round beers and we're excited to be able to offer something this delicious at such an appealing price.  

Here are the details:

4.65% abv  86.5 IBU  29 barrels in this batch

Malts: North American 2-Row, Crisp Pale Ale, Aromatic, C-60, Carahell

Hops: Bittering- Magnum, Flavoring- Calypso, Dry Hop- Calypso and Saphir

Yeast: American Ale Yeast

We will begin shipping Bouncy House 2.0 to all our wholesalers on Monday, February 17, so if you don't make it in to the brewery, some beer will still be heading in your general direction, provided you already have Smuttynose beer where you live.

Come put a few ounces of Bounce in your fridge this Friday!

Short Batch: ParadoX, a session IPA

We brewed another IPA in the Short Batch Series; this one is called ParadoX.

ParadoX is a beer of the moment.  It's a session IPA, brewed with an experimental hop variety (01210, it's really lemony) and a portion of New England grown malt.  Our brewing staff has wanted to brew one of these for a long time and just about everyone in the company has been waiting to drink one. So, why'd we do it now?

Way back in late 2012, David Yarrington, our intrepid Director of Brewing Operations, was approached to brew an anniversary beer for Mohegan Sun's Sun Wine Fest's 10th anniversary (we've got the whole craft beer crossover thing covered here too), he called up one of our hop brokers to inquire about an experimental variety he'd smelled at hop harvest last fall.  Despite there being only 5 acres of this variety growing in the whole world, we were able to get enough pellets to brew ParadoX.

The Sun Wine Fest, which took place January 25-27 at the Connecticut casino, only needed about two barrels of the batch, so we've got the rest to ship out to beer lovers.  We've saved you the ticket price, but you also missed on the chance to eat some incredible food and meet some really talented chefs.

ParadoX is light bodied, loaded with lemony-citrus hop flavor and very drinkable, but you don't have to take my word for it, here are a few reviews:

Man Drinks Beer
The Boston Globe's 99 Bottles

We'll tap the beer and have 22 ounce bottles for sale ($9 each) at Smuttynose during tours the weekend of February 8. You can reserve spots for our tours on the "Visit Us" section of our website. Shipments to our wholesalers begin the following Monday, February 11.    For our home market, ParadoX will be featured on tap at three February events:

February 14 7pm-9pm Strange Brew, Manchester, NH 
February 25 6pm Black Trumpet Early Bloom event, also pouring Durty, Bloom and barrel-aged    2010 Baltic Porter, Portsmouth Beer Week
February 25 8pm-10pm IPA Night at TJ's, Portsmouth Beer Week

Vital Stats:

5.3% abv   40 IBU
Malts: North American 2-Row, English Pale Ale, Aromatic, Valley Malt C-60
Hops: Bittering- Bravo, Flavor-01210, Dry Hop- 01210
Yeast: American Ale

Production:  30 barrels (100 1/6 bbl kegs, 28 cases)

Food Pairings:  Paradox would be good with certain types of seafood and maybe some salads, but you're going to want to just drink this one on its own.

Here is a list of most of the accounts where you can find ParadoX.  Please remember that we don't know when the accounts will get their beer, or when they'll make it available, only when it leaves our warehouse.  For more information, please contact the account of your choice.

New Hampshire Draft
    Strange Brew, Manchester
    Biederman's Deli, Plymouth
    Popper's at the Mill, Newmarket
    Rudi's, Portsmouth
    The Press Room, Portsmouth
    TJ's, Portsmouth
    The Black Trumpet, Portsmouth
       
New Hampshire Bottles
    Bert's Better Beers, Hookset
    The Beer Store, Nashua
    Barb's Beer Emporium, Concord
    Ayotte's, Hudson
    Brewtopia, Keene
    Route 13 State Line, Hudson
    Portsmouth Provisions, Portsmouth
    Cigarette City, Seabrook
    Johnson's Market, New Durham

 Maine Draft
    The Black Birch, Kittery
    Pi Men Miyake, Portland
    Nocturnem Draft House, Bangor
    Novare Res, Portland

Vermont Draft: 2 logs, destination unknown

Massachusetts Draft
    Armsby Abbey, Worcester
    Plan B, Springfield
    Deep Ellum, Allston
    Meadhall, Cambridge
    Atwood's, Cambridge
    Bukowski's, Cambridge
    Christopher's, Cambridge
    Independent, Somerville
    Sunset Grill, Allston

Massachusetts Bottles
    Julio's, Westboro
    Table and Vine, Springfield
    Spirited, Lenox
    Liquor World, Somerville
    Craft Beer Cellar, Belmont
    Gordon's, Watertown and both Waltham locations
    Blanchard's, Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury, and Allston

New York Draft
    Cole's, Buffalo
    The Tap and Mallet, Rochester
    The Ruck, Troy
    The Bier Abbey, Schenectady

Connecticut Draft
    Gingerman, Greenwich
    Mikro, New Haven

Rhode Island Draft
    Julian's, Providence