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
              

Calling All Artists!

It's just under a month until 2013's Portsmouth Beer Week begins.

This year, we're teaming up with Sam Adams and Portsmouth's hallowed Press Room, to put on a crowd-sourced art show, Art ²: Unique Beer and Unique Art, but we need you to create the art.

One part gallery show and one part beer event, Art ² kicks off on March 2, with vintage, rare and unreleased beers, live music and most importantly, your Portsmouth-themed or inspired art.

Submitted works will remain on the fabled brick walls of the Press Room, for sale, for the entire month of March and a portion of the proceeds will be going to (H)EAT, a local non-profit.

What type of art? Photography, painting, prints, ceramics, sculpture and any other medium. If it has to do with Portsmouth and the surrounding area, we want it in the show. For more details, please email Tristan Law (TristanKLaw (at) gmail.com). All entries must be submitted by February 28th.
 
On behalf of all three parties, we hope you can channel your inspiration into something artistic, preferably by the 28th and participate in the show.

2013 Gravitation

2013 Smuttynose Big Beer Series Release #1: Gravitation

 

Belgium is known around the world for its six unique abbey breweries.  Inside the monastery walls, Trappist monks oversee production of rich, fully flavored beers that range from light in body and alcohol to strong, rich and dark.  These sacred beers are known by the names enkel or single, dubbel and tripel.  Singles are the lightest in both color and alcohol and can be seen as analogues to triples, which are also light bodied and colored but can be quite sweet and as strong as 10%.  Dubbels can be simply described as Belgian brown ales; they exhibit a rich, malty flavors, spicy yeast notes and typically range from 7%-9%.

With alcohol contents as high as 12%, “Quads” are the richest of the rich and the boldest of the bold and Smuttynose Gravitation is no exception.  Deep chestnut colored, with rich malt flavors reminiscent of brown sugar, Gravitation isn’t just sweet and boozy.  The use of imported Belgian malts and a special ester-producing Trappist yeast contribute the unified fruitiness that defines this beer.  The prominent malt character and strong alcohol make Belgian-style quads an excellent candidate for aging, as long as you store your bottles upright in a cool, dark space.

Food Pairings

Gravitation is a hearty and hefty beer, so it’ll pair well with foods that are intensely flavored and heavy.  Earthy foods like wild game and blue cheeses stand up to Gravitation’s intensity by playing against the sweet malty character.  If earthy isn’t your thing, seek out dishes that are fatty, tart or a combination of the two; foods like pork belly, mushroom ragout or rabbit with kriek, a classic dish of Belgian beer gastronomy. 

Stat Box

11.3% ABV 

25 IBU

Starting Extract: 21.3° Plato   Finishing Extract: 1.9° Plato  

Malts: North American 2-Row, Cara-Red, Aromatic, Special B, C-60, Wheat

Hops: Willamette

Special Guests: Demerara Sugar, Dark 2 Belgian Candi Syrup

Yeast: White Labs WLP-500 Trappist Ale

Production Size: 200 barrels (6200 gallons)

2013 Gravitation will begin shipping January 15.

Smuttynose Short Batch #18: Durty

Smuttynose Short Batch #18: Durty

Smuttynose is proud to introduce our eighteenth Short Batch Beer, "Durty," a brown IPA!

There's no denying that IPA is king of the craft beer world right now.  The style is getting so popular that even the big brewers are attempting their own versions, while IPA sub-styles, like session IPA, double IPA, white IPA and black IPA, continue to be created and defined.  Brown IPAs combine the caramel and nutty-biscuity flavors of a brown ale, with an American IPA-sized does of hops; it's pretty straight-forward, but pretty delicious.

On to the beer...Durty is a big beer (8.4% abv, 55 IBU) packed full of big hops.  We've used Polaris, a new German high alpha variety for bittering, followed by American hop icon, Nugget, for the flavor additions and finally, a boatload of Simcoe post-fermentation for dry-hopping. The malt selection isn't too different from Old Brown Dog, but it's a bit heavier on the nutty character and dark cocoa notes.

Durty will debut at Smuttynose on Saturday, December 15 from 3pm-5pm (unless you join us for a tour that day).  We hope that this time change will allow more of you to come to Portsmouth for Durty, and other Short Batch releases.

This will also be our first Short Batch to appear in 22 ounce bottles, each of which are bottle-conditioned.  Bottles will retail for $9 and there will be a remarkably small amount (25 cases) of off-premise distribution in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.  They will ship from Smuttynose on December 17 and be available at a very minute number of beer stores (see below).  If you'd like to know when these accounts will have the bottles, we suggest you contact them directly, as we don't know when they take deliveries from our wholesaler.

Vital Stats

8.44% abv   55 IBU

Malts: North American 2-Row, Munich 10L, Chocolate, C-60, Brown

Hops: Bittering- Polaris, Flavor- Nugget, Dry Hop- Simcoe

Yeast: American Ale Yeast

Batch Size: 106 logs, 69 cases


New Hampshire: Top Shelf Brews (Hampton)
                               Hampton Falls Village Market (Hampton Falls)
                               Johnson's Market (New Durham)
                               The Beer Store (Nashua)
                               Bert's Better Beers (Hookset)
                               Barb's Beer Emporium (Concord)
                               Ayotte's (Hudson)
                               Discount Beverages (North Conway)
                               Portsmouth Provisions (Portsmouth)

Massachusetts:    Table and Vine (West Springfield)
                                Craft Beer Cellar (Belmont)
                                Liquor World (Somerville)
                                Kelly's (Dalton)
                                Spirited (Pittsfield)
                                Domaney's (Great Barrington)
                                Liquors 44 (Hadley)
                                Ryan and Casey (Greenfield)
                                Yankee Spirits (Sturbridge)
                                Julio's (Westboro)

                                Bogie's Beer and Wine (Beverly)
                                Redstone Liquors (Stoneham)
                                Blanchard's (Jamaica Plain)
                                Ball Square Fine Wines (Somerville)

*We haven't quite finalized all the case allocations for the Boston area yet, so there will be a few surprise drops.

Brown, Belgian and Bourbon-barreled: welcome Zinneke to the Big Beer Series!!

Zinneke

2012 Smuttynose Big Beer Series Release #6

"Zinneke" (pronounced zinn-eh-kuh), Smuttynose's new Belgian stout and Big Beer Series release, will begin shipping to wholesalers on November 12!   

This relatively new sub-style combines Belgian, American and English influences to create a beer whose total is more than equal to the sum of its parts.  Here’s how Zinneke breaks down and adds back up.

Part 1) Start with a strong stout.  This is the Big Beer Series after all… 

Part 2) “Belgianize” it by altering the grain bill and fermenting the wort with a Trappist yeast strain. We backed off the heavy caramel and roasted malts to create a more complimentary flavor profile for the yeast, which contributes fruity esters and leaves a light body for deceptive drinkability.

Part 3) Put some wood on it!  10% of the batch was brewed early and aged in bourbon barrels for 10 months.  Why? because it adds complimentary vanilla and toasted oak flavors to what’s already there.  Think of it as an infusion of awesomeness!

These three parts combine to create a beer with dark color and light body with prevalent flavors of dark fruits, vanilla and toffee, while subtle chocolate flavors appear in the finish.

This deep brown-colored beer has lots of dark fruit flavor and a nice chocolate highlight in the finish.  We'd suggest pairing it with creamy desserts, roasted vegetables and rich, roasted meats, like duck.

What in tarnation is a "Zinneke?"

The name of our new beer is endearing Brussels slang that originally described the mongrel dogs that lived around the River Zenne during the Middle Ages.  The multi-cultural residents of Belgium’s capitol city, have since reappropriated the term as a tongue-in-cheek nickname for themselves.

 

TRIVIA: Zinneke began life as Short Batch #10: Belgian Stout in September 2010, but like several other of its series-mates, it has graduated to a larger release.

Vital Stats

8.4% abv 50 IBU
Starting Extract 18.9° Plato

Finishing Extract 3.75° Plato

Malts: North American 2-Row, Carawheat, Munich 10L, C-120, Chocolate, Roasted Barley, Brown
Hops: Magnum, Glacier
Mojo: Dark #2 Belgian Candi Syrup

Yeast: WLP-500 Trappist Ale Yeast

Batch Size: 200 barrels (6200 gallons)

Here Come The Hops!

Monday, October 29 marks the anticipated return of our award-winning Big A IPA!  After a five month hiatus, The Great British Beer Festival award-winning double IPA returns for a limited engagement.  We can only brew 100 barrels a month from October through January, so supplies of twelve ounce four packs and kegs will be limited, but available, throughout our distribution.  Tell your local beer store or beer bar that you need to see for yourself why the New York Times named Big A the top IPA in America and Men’s Journal picked it as one of the top 25 beers in America!

Here are the vital stats:

9.7% abv  120 IBU

Malts: North American 2-Row, British Pale Ale

Hops: Bittering: Magnum and Cascade

            Flavor: Magnum and CTZ

            Dry: Cascade, Nugget, Sterling, CTZ

Recommended Food Pairings:
Vietnamese, homemade guacamole, spicy scallops, tandoori chicken and spicy biryanis

Smuttynose Short Batch 16: Lindz

Lindsey, as we'd like to remember him

When Lindsey Altshul passed away unexpectedly this summer,  our community felt the loss in a deep, wide and profound way.  When I say our community, I don’t mean just our beer community, but our regional restaurant community and our arts community. Lindsey touched a lot people’s lives, including members of our staff, our customers and accounts in our home market.  He did this in many ways, from the simple sharing of a pint or a quick origami lesson, to providing a detailed list of museums, music venues, bars and restaurants to someone visiting New York City for the first time or offering solo folks a spot at his annual “Christmas of Misfit Boys.” Diners at Pepperland Café, the South Berwick, ME restaurant he co-owned with Chef Kevin Hahn, were never asked "what would you like," but the rather telling question, "what's your pleasure?" 

Lindsey was also great lover of craft beer, well before it was trendy or common place; serving as one of the earliest treasurers for NERAX and travelling to Belgium, visiting breweries and stocking his cellar, before stocking cellars was even a thing.  He once told me a story about buying an entire barrel of Cantillon lambic that wasn’t able to find a home anywhere else (imagine that happening these days!) and then bottling it off to be better saved for a later date.   His passion for beer was also manifest on the four taps at Pepperland Café in South Berwick, Me, which he co-owned with chef Kevin Hahn.  Those four lines often have one of the most interesting and diverse line-ups on the Seacoast.

Arts and crafts folk work within their medium, so the decision to brew a memorial beer for Lindsey began not long after his memorial service.  He loved Kolsch and supported local agriculture, so this was another no brainer.  It gave us a chance to use grains from Valley Malt, a two-year-old Massachusetts maltster who seeks “to provide the Northeastern craft and home brewer with artisanal malt from locally grown grains.” 

This beer also gave us a chance to revisit a style we hadn’t brewed since the late ‘90’s.  “Smuttynose Kolsch” was part of the inaugural Big Beer Series, but to call it a success would simply be erroneous.  Our wholesalers sent pallets of cases back to the brewery, explaining that “people won’t buy it because they can’t pronounce it.”  My how times have changed….

About The Releases:  The allocations are very different for this Short Batch release than what we typically do, for obvious reasons.  Almost the whole batch is staying here in New Hampshire for a two-part roll out.  The accounts listed below, will all be tapping kegs of Lindz on Thursday, October 18 at some point in time that day.  Please contact each account for details. We hope you'll join us in raising a pint in memory of someone who’s dear to you.

As with all Short Batch releases, a limited number of bottles will be available exclusively at Smuttynose on Thursday, October 25 from 5pm-7pm.  There will be a two bottle limit.  Bottle sales will take place both inside our retail nook and outside under a tent (weather depending of course). 

About Kolsch: Kolsch (German for “from Cologne”) is one of the two German ale styles, the other being altbier from Dusseldorf.  Both of these styles are unique in the ale family because they’re cold-conditioned like a lager, while Kolsch tends to be lighter in both body and color.  If you've never tasted a kolsch, you're in for a treat.  The first sip reveals a pronounced hop bitterness and a soft, slightly-bready malt character.  You're not going to be knocked over by big flavors in one sip. Kolsch are appraochable beers that are typically well carbonated and show a great depth of subtlety- and they’re very drinkable, whether or not you can pronounce the name properly. 

New Hampshire

 Portsmouth:

The Press Room

Moxie

Portsmouth Brewery

Blue Mermaid

The River House

Street

Surf

Rudie’s

The Black Trumpet

The District

Dover:

The Barley Pub

Newmarket:

Popper’s at the Mill

Maine:

Kittery:

The Black Birch

When Pigs Fly

South Berwick:

Pepperland Café

Wells:

Féile

Portland:

Novare Res Bier Café

Nosh

Pi Men Miyake

Bangor:

Nocturnem Draught House

Vital Stats

5.27% abv  10 IBU

Starting Extract 11.1° Plato                       

Finishing Extract 1.3° Plato

Malts: Valley Malt Organic Pilsner Malt, Valley Malt Organic Munich Malt, Valley Malt Organic Wheat Malt, all grown in New England and malted in Hadley, MA.

Hops: Motueka, a newer variety from New Zealand

Yeast: WLP-029 German Ale/Kolsch

Batch Size: 30 barrels (60 cases of bottles, 20 half barrel kegs, 50 sixth barrel kegs)

Smuttynose Short Batch #17: Herbaceous

Her • ba • ceous [hur-bey-shuhs, ur-] adj  1: of, relating to, or having the characteristics of an herb

It’s that time of year again, hop harvest time.  And what could be better than a wet hopped beer?  Since the East Coast is about 3,000 miles from the hop fields, our access to these beers can be a tad limited.  Thirst no more beer drinkers; Smuttynose is ready to fill your pints with Herbaceous, our new Short Batch, wet-hopped beer!  

We’ve been talking about brewing a wet hop beer for several years, but the freshly-picked hops need to either be dried and baled or, in the case of wet-hopped beers, used in a brew within hours.  Getting hops from Yakima Valley was a daunting expense for two reasons.  One, we needed 150 lbs and two, they had to travel 3,000 miles as quickly as possible.  Well, the stars aligned this year, which means we snuck the overnight shipping charges past Peter while he was busy with the construction of our new facility at Towle Farm in Hampton.

His oversight is your gain, because the beer came out beautifully.  We decided to go with a very simple malt bill using nothing but Vienna and CaraMunich II, from Weyermann Malt, to brew an amber ale as the base beer.  Bittering was done with Magnum and we used Willamette and Sterling for the flavoring additions.  The 150 lbs of freshly-picked Citra were used exclusively for the wet hop-as- dry hop component that we felt was the best way to showcase the pungent essence of hops right off the vine.  The best way for you to showcase these ethereal hop flavors it to drink the beer as soon as possible, just not on your way from Smuttynose.

We've got 46 cases of bottles going on sale on Thursday, October 11 from 5-7pm.  There will be a two bottle limit and as always, we'll have Herbaceous on tap for you taste.  If you haven't been to Smuttynose for a Short Batch bottle release, please enter through our tour entrance located in the back corner of our building at 225 Heritage Avenue in Portsmouth, NH.

 

 Stat Box

4.35% ABV 50 IBU

Starting Extract: 11.6° Plato Terminal Extract:  3.5° Plato

Malts: Weyermann Vienna and Weyermann CaraMunich

Hops: Bittering: Magnum, Flavor: Willamette and Sterling, Wet: Citra from BT Loftus Ranch

Yeast: WLP-001 California Ale

Batch size: 30 barrels (46 cases for sale)