CB on MA, NH and VT

Paper
City Brewing Company Holyoke, MA
If you visit Paper City during one of its popular Friday
night tour and party sessions, you’ll usually see a man off
to one side, quietly building and filling beer containers
for his departing guests. With his prodigious work ethic,
it’s no surprise the man turns out to be a big Jimmy Carter
fan. As unusual a statement as that may be, I promise the
two subjects are related. It can be said that if it wasn’t
for the former President and Senator Alan Cranston of
California, Paper City and a host of other craft breweries
might not exist today.

In 1978,
President Carter signed legislation introduced by Senator
Cranston that legalized homebrewing in America. After his
government performed this patriotic act, Paper City’s
founder, Jay Hebert, started brewing beer for his own
personal consumption. Until that time, Hebert had been
disturbed by the state of domestic beers. From the start,
Hebert knew he wanted to eventually own his own brewery and
bring good beer to his home city of Holyoke.

In 1995, Hebert
incorporated the Paper City Brewery Company and then spent
most of his time in transforming the fifth floor of the
warehouse into a functional, federally and state approved
micro-brewery. Paper City’s attractive brewery often flies
under the radar of beer enthusiasts in New England. It
produces a diverse selection of flavorful ales and lagers,
along with some quirky beers in its Limited Brewer’s
Offering specialty series.

Paper City does
a variety of wild ales, but none can top the Hop Monster’s
explosion of flavor. The aroma is a sharp smack in the nose
with earthy hop and hugely sweet malt notes. The beer is
gloriously unbalanced, with the ultimate battle for control
waged between citrusy, bitter hops and an almost cloying
malt sweetness. As it warms, the Hop Monster tames a bit and
shows some lighter flavors, including passionfruit. With its
gloriously rough, unpolished edges, the Hop Monster bears
great similarity to Dogfish Head’s flagship 6O Minute IPA
and it clearly breaks out of the mold set by other IPA’s in
New England.

Cisco
Brewers Nantucket, MA
When Wendy and Randy Hudson started Cisco, which was
actually located outdoors except for the cold-conditioning
room, they called it a nano-brewery because it wasn’t big
enough to qualify as a microbrewery. Faced with tight
surroundings, a new structure was soon required to house
both operations. Construction was delayed, resulting in a
complete absence of Cisco’s beer for a two-month period of
time. The black time led to the brewery’s humorous motto:
‘nice beer, if you can get it.’

In 2OOO, Dean
Long, who owns the Nantucket Vineyard located on the same
property as the brewery, secured a distilling license which
allowed him to open the Triple Eight Distillery. The
company’s first product, a whiskey aging in 63 oak barrels,
took five years to hit the market. To raise money to support
the distillery, Triple Eight sold futures to the public on
each barrel of its whiskey. To make up for the delay, the
distillery decided to produce the Triple Eight Vodka, the
release of which has been a business-altering event for the
three operations. Made from organically grown corn blended
with sand-filtered island water from well #888 (thus the
name), the triple distilled vodka has proven wildly popular
with consumers and very lucrative for the owners.

Due to the
popularity of the Triple Eight Vodka, there has been some
concern about the future of Cisco as a brewery. Much of the
company’s promotional energy and attention are directed at
the growth of the liquor operation. Since 2OO1, a marketing
team has been seen around Boston promoting the liquor in a
souped-up, pale blue 1975 VW camper van. The brand is now
available at more than 2OO accounts and is a mainstay liquor
in Boston-area bars. Triple Eight also remains busy
branching out with new products, including an orange vodka,
a rum and a gin.

The brewery’s
Captain Swain’s Extra Stout is named for one of the brewer’s
ancestors who originally settled on Nantucket in the 16OOs,
this beer is most often found in Cisco’s signature
75O-milliliter bottles. It possesses a very rich and creamy
flavor, a beautiful tan head, and loads of roasted malts.
Dry-hopped with Chinook hops, there is an earthy aroma that
translates to a slightly piney finish balancing the dark
malt flavors.

Smuttynose
Brewing Company Portsmouth, NH
From the ruins of a closed microbrewery, Peter and Janet
Egelston, the brother-sister team behind the Northampton
Brewery and the Portsmouth Brewery, teamed up with the
Ipswich Brewing Company to open Smuttynose in 2OOO. Ipswich
left the partnership a few months later and in December
2OOO, Peter Egelston assumed control of Smuttynose in a deal
with his sister, who now solely runs the Northampton
Brewery.

Named after a
local island in the rugged archipelago of nine small islands
known as the Isle of Shoals, Smuttynose started by brewing
and bottling recipes from its sister brewpubs, including the
Shoals Pale Ale and the classic Old Brown Dog. For me, every
Smuttynose beer evokes very vivid memories and feelings. The
delightfully hazy Shoals Pale Ale tastes like summer,
especially when sampled directly from the bottle. This
style-bending English pale ale uses ample doses of both
Cascade and Chinook hops to complement its decidedly yeasty
flavor. As I’ve said in reviews for Smuttynose’s sister
establishments, the Old Brown Dog is one of the first craft
beers I can remember trying and loving. With their low
bitterness and sweet malt flavors, brown ales are often a
very comfortable, approachable style for beer novices to
tackle. The Old Brown Dog remains a classic example of this
traditional style.

In 1998,
Smuttynose fired one of the earliest rounds in the nascent
extreme beer movement. With the start of its Big Beer
Series, Smuttynose dedicated itself to releasing specialty
beers with more aggressive flavor profiles. While some
releases, including a barleywine and an imperial stout,
indeed were big beers, some of the other selections, such as
a simple kolsch, seemed wildly out of place in a series
dedicated to pushing the limits of beer.

Although
Smuttynose’s beers were always respectable, the brewery
really stepped it up with the addition of brewer David
Yarrington in August 2OO1. A graduate of the master brewer’s
program at UC-Davis, Yarrington continually retools
Smuttynose’s bigger beers, playing with the recipes in
simple or substantial ways. The bottles in the series now
include vintage dating and the brewery encourages beer
lovers to age the beers.

Woodstock
Inn Station and Brewery North Woodstock, NH
For true beer
geeks, the experience of actually working in a brewery is
akin to an aspiring parent’s first opportunity to babysit a
friend’s child: While entertaining at first, by the end of
the night you’re intensely happy to leave it under someone
else’s control and head home. At the Woodstock Inn Station
and Brewery, you can live the crazy life of a brewer, while
maintaining a safe harbor at the end of the grueling
experience.

On four weekends
every year, visitors can enter the brewhouse here, pull on
the boots, and start mixing hops and grains for themselves
as part of Woodstock’s popular brewer’s weekend packages.
During these events, individuals and couples spend the
weekend at the brewpub assisting the brewers in producing
beers on the seven-barrel system. The reasonably priced deal
includes two nights lodging, several meals, a reception on
the first evening, a brewer’s dinner, and a t-shirt or hat.
If your significant other or traveling companion would
sooner spend their vacation walking over hot coals than
shoveling spent grain, the inn is happy to suggest a variety
of alternate plans, including outlet shopping and hiking.
The program, which draws about 2O participants each weekend,
welcomes homebrewers and novices alike. You may even get
bitten by the brewing bug as Dave Wollner did. Before
opening his Willimantic Brewing Company in Connecticut,
Wollner spent a weekend here checking out the brewer’s
lifestyle.

The Woodstock
Inn is in the process of expanding its brewing operations.
The brewpub’s two flagship products, the Red Rack Ale and
the Pig’s Ear Brown Ale, are contract brewed and bottled by
Shipyard Brewing Company and are widely available in New
Hampshire bars and package stores. If you enjoy the
mainstays and are interested in learning about brewing on a
larger scale, or simply want a nice place for a weekend
retreat, the Woodstock’s got a pair of boots waiting for
you.

Rock
Art Brewery Morrisville, Vermont
Rock Art stands in a long, red wooden barn just outside of
downtown Morrisville. With its tall ceilings, the space is
vastly different from the brewery’s original home. For its
first three years of existence, Rock Art operated as a
cottage brewery, producing about 25,OOO gallons of beer a
year out of Matt and Renee Nadeau’s basement. The owners’
talk of adding a pub to this location, but nothing is yet
planned. As the staff settles in with the new system, Nadeau
also hopes to add some specialty release beers.

A native
Vermonter, Matt Nadeau and his wife were living and working
in Colorado when inspiration struck. While river rafting, he
saw a Kokopelli figure carved into a rock formation. An
image familiar to all, even if the name doesn’t immediately
resonate, Kokopelli is a figure drawn from ancient Anasazi
Indian mythology. With his signature hunchback posture, the
stick-looking figure dances happily around playing his
flute. To his followers, Kokopelli symbolized fertility,
replenishment, dance, music, and mischief. The image
immediately intrigued Nadeau and he later recalled it when
trying to think of an original name for his brewery. The
owner didn’t simply want to choose a boring regional
descriptor; he wanted a standout name. From this desire, and
with the help of Kokopelli, Rock Art was born.

Rock Art’s beers
generally tend towards the malty side of the flavor wheel.
The brewers also produce a few lagers, including the special
release Mountain Holidays Bock. In a bottle topped with gold
foil, this beer tastes of slight fruit and alcohol notes and
offers a mild malt balance. While lighter in terms of the
style, the bock is an enjoyable seasonal release.

Otter
Creek Brewing Company Middlebury, VT
Comprised of two
very different beer brands acting in concert, the Otter
Creek Brewing Company was originally founded by passionate
homebrewer Lawrence Miller. During his time at Reed College
in Oregon, Miller watched first-hand the rise of American
craft brewing. After researching German-style beers in
Europe, Miller returned with a precise recipe in mind for
his flagship Copper Ale. He selected the town of Middlebury
as his headquarters &endash; not so much for its sleepy,
congenial atmosphere and built-in base of collegiate patrons
&endash; but for the qualities of its water. The pH levels
of the town’s water met the exact criteria Miller set for
his altbier yeast strain.

In 1998, Otter
Creek struck an important business deal to begin producing
the Wolaver’s line of certified organic ales in partnership
with the Panorama Brewing Company. Founded by the Wolaver
family in 1997, the two principal owners of Panorama, Robert
and Morgan Wolaver, wanted to fuse together a family history
of farming, a dedication to environmentally friendly
business and a passion for brewing. In order to limit the
initial startup costs, Panorama chose to contract its
recipes out to seven regional breweries across the country
rather than build its own facility. The business plan worked
and the beers found a niche in the marketplace.

In May 2OO2, the
Wolaver family purchased the Otter Creek Brewing Company and
kept its name and products. The mix of the two brands seems
to work well here as not much has changed since the brewery
merger. Otter Creek remains mainly a regional product, while
the Wolaver’s line is distributed in select markets around
the country. The Wolaver’s line is certified organic by the
Vermont Organic Farmers and the brewery is likely the
largest purchaser of organic malt in the country.

The company’s
first offering was the Wolaver’s Pale Ale, a beer whose malt
body is more noticeable than its hop character. While the
beer has more in common with less hoppier products than it
does with more typical versions of the style &endash; it is
a pleasant, refreshing beer. The brewery’s Brown Ale, which
relies less on hops, is more representative of its intended
style. It boasts a slightly sweet, creamy malt base, a deep,
reddish-amber hue and a very mild hop balance. The Wit and
Oatmeal Stout also allow the brewers to focus more on the
flavors of available organic malts than on hops.