Somerville Brewing Company Hits Boston: Slumbrew Happy Sol Hefeweizen & Slumbrew Flagraiser IPA [Beer Reviews]
Boston has been a hotbed of new brewing companies lately! It seems like every week we have a new brewer or a new beer from a Boston-area brewer hitting the shelves. It was only recent that Pretty Things and Notch Session were new and now those are established brands with people like Backlash Beer Company, Mystic Brewery, Idle Hands Ales, Night Shift Brewing and more springing up. We love it! And the latest to release their beers? Somerville Brewing Company (aka Slumbrew) out of, you guessed it, Somerville, MA (which is super-local to the Drink Craft Beer homebase)!
Jeff and Caitlin (pictured holding their brews below) from Somerville Brewing Company had their first big tasting today at Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont, MA (where I picked up my bottles), and there was a serious crowd (see the picture two below)! I managed to sneak in a few words with them, so you should see an interview on Drink Craft Beer soon, but left them to tend to the teeming hoards wanting samples of Flagraiser IPA, Happy Sol Hefeweizen and Porter Square Porter (not being released for three more weeks). But, with all that said, I know what you’re thinking...how is the beer?! So, without further ado...
Somerville Brewing Company Slumbrew Happy Sol Hefeweizen
As a hefeweizen should, this one pours with a big white head with amazing cling that looks fluffy like a sunny day cloud. The beer is hazy hazy hazy orange. It looks almost like thick orange juice, which makes sense!
You can really pick up the wheat and the yeast in this one! There’s a great balance between these two ingredients, it’s not a banana bomb like the style can sometimes devolve into. It smells smooth, yet a little minerally or chalky from the wheat, which is awesome. Oddly, the blood orange barely comes out at all, maybe just a little citrus aroma. Again, awesome, as too many people make fruit beers where the fruit is RIGHT in your face. Great to see some restraint on this one!
The balance comes from the smell and right into the taste! The yeast and wheat blend really well and the beer has a smooth, dry quality that you can only get with wheat and a not-over-the-top alcohol level (this one is perfect at 5.5% abv). The orange is handled amazingly, with just a hint to the 1,000 blood oranges that gave their lives for this batch of beer and the coriander could be merely a part of the yeast spiciness for all I know. It’s always great to see brewers use ingredients that don’t smack you over the head with their presence! The orange comes out mostly in the aftertaste as a light almost-glaze on your tongue. This would go great with a lot of different foods, like chicken or fish. This and some Chinese take-out? Sign me up!
Somerville Brewing Company Slumbrew Flagraiser IPA
The Flagraiser has a clear amber body with a sizeable cream colored head that last and lasts! Big bubbles settle to a decent covering that doesn’t go away with an almost solid looking top to it. If you can’t tell, it’s looks damn appealing!
There are some serious hops in this thing! Great aroma! It’s almost like walking into the hop room at a brewery, it’s not crazy bright citrus or pine tree...the air is just thick with hops. There’s a bit of sweetness in here, too, so you can tell that this one will definitely have a bit of a malt backbone to it, which is especially nice at the nights get colder here in Boston in October!
Upfront there’s a bitterness, but it’s not harsh at all. The malt swoops in right away to balance it and what you get is a bitter IPA that cradles your tongue in a hammock of sweet, smooth malt. Rather than citrusy or piney, as I mentioned, these hops are just dank. They were dank when I smelled them and they taste dank too. It’s pretty awesome, as that’s a tough flavor to nail! The aftertaste is all bitter, with a little of the hop citrusy flavors that many have come to expect from American hops. I’d say drink this one with some steak that has a hefty coating of salt and pepper. Delicious!
As a secret (not-so-secret) sidenote: Try blending these two brews 50/50. What you get is a mildly bitter, orangey, wheaty IPA. Cheers!
Add a commentWhat Is Your Favorite Cold Weather Craft Beer? [Poll]
To our dismay we awoke this morning (Friday) to find a light dusting of snow covering the ground. While it's a little early for snow in our opinion a chill in the air always puts us in the mood for some bigger, maltier, heavier beers.
Imperial stouts and barleywines that we may not have even thought of picking up a month ago suddenly seem just a bit more tempting. Between the two of us, we each have our preferred cold weather libation, which got us thinking...What do you prefer when the weather turns cold? We want to know, so vote below then tell us what you voted for and why on Twitter, on Facebook or in the comments below the poll. Cheers!
Drink Craft Beer goes to Oktoberfest
I’ve wanted to go to Oktoberfest for years, but something always got in the way, money, friends bailing out, it was always something...until this year. A friend of mine emailed me early this year asking if I was interested, I jumped at the chance and crossed my fingers this trip would actually come to fruition. Since I’ve come back from the trip I always get asked the same few questions so I’m going to tackle those right now.
Q: Do women really wear the dresses that, ummm shall we say show off their assets?
A. Yes, they’re called dirndls and I would say most women wear them
Q. Do men really wear lederhosen?
A. You bet! If I did the trip again I would have tried to buy some ahead of time. In Munich a traditional outfit will cost you around $400 US, I just couldn’t justify that.
Q. Is it as crazy and fun as it looks in the movies/TV?
A. Yes, this is one rare instance in life where the stereotypes are all true and that’s a good thing. Nothing can prepare you for the actual experience of being there.
We arrived at Oktoberfest at 11am on a Friday morning. If you’re reading this and thinking, wow that’s early, you’re right, but there’s a reason. In order to eat or drink at Oktoberfest you must be sitting at a table in a tent. Most of the tables are by reservation only and are completely booked a year in advance. We did not have a reservation so we had to get there early to grab one of the limited open tables. Nothing prepared me for the size of the “tents” at Oktoberfest. I’ve never seen anything like this called a tent, think aircraft hanger. Based on a recommendation by a friend from Munich we went to the Augustiner tent. As we walked in the sounds of hundreds of clinking glasses and thousands of voices greeted us. We found a seat after some time searching and got down to business. Our waitress arrived and I used one few but very important German phrases I know “sechs maß bitte” (six liters please). Moments later she returned with six beers in hand, an impressive feat given how heavy these beers are. The first sip was pure bliss. Was it the best beer I’ve ever had? No, but in that moment it was, there’s no other beer that could have possible been and better at that place at that point in time.
As we enjoyed our first beer the brass band began playing, by noon the entire tent was full and Oktoberfest was in full swing. Words can’t describe how packed the tents get. The tables are small and narrow and there’s less than an inch separating each one. This results in you sitting back to back with the people next to you. In any other situation this would likely feel claustrophobic but somehow here you just felt connected to your fellow man. What makes this so special is that everyone in the tent is there for the exact same reason. The people behind me were from Switzerland and I quickly became friends with them. We chatted about our travels, our excitement at finally making it to Oktoberfest and where we were from. The people on the other side of me were from Cambridge, MA one town over from where I live and it turned out they followed Drink Craft Beer on Twitter, crazy!
Now a couple beers in, we were in desperate need of food. As good as the beer is, the food is arguably better. People always think brats when they think German food but let me tell you, it’s all about the schweinshaxe (pork knuckle). This is a cut of meat from the lower part of the leg which is brined and then cooked over high heat. The result is a ridiculously good. It’s cooked skin on so there’s crispy pig skin covering deliciously fatty pork underneath. If for some reason this doesn’t sound amazing (something is wrong with you) grab a half chicken instead which is almost as good.
After some number of hours of eating, drinking, singing, participating in chugging contests while standing on tables while crowds cheered and general craziness we left the tent and explored the fairgrounds. There’s food and beer vendors outside of the tents as well as ferris wheels, roller coasters and all sorts of other rides. Oktoberfest was everything I wanted it to be and more. Looking back now there’s a few tips I’d give to anyone thinking of going.
1. Make sure you allocate two days for Oktoberfest. Munich is an awesome city and there’s so much else to do that I couldn’t justify going back a second day given my limited time there, but I would have liked to spend more time outside the tent and perhaps checked out a different tent one day.
2. Get a reservation. It’s hard to plan that far in advance but if I was planning the trip now I’d definitely do it.
3. Get the proper clothes, a dirndl if you’re female lederhosen if you’re male.
As I finish this article I can’t help wanting to go back, and for me that’s a rarity. I generally find that once I’ve gone somewhere once it’s rare that I go back, I’d rather go do something new. I find myself wanting to go back though, there’s so many other tents to explore, so many new people I could meet, so many experiences awaiting me if I return. And I think that’s the magic of Oktoberfest, that’s why so many locals come back again and again year after year. There really is something truly special about this event that makes it like nothing anywhere else. And that’s why you should go.
Prost!
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