In this episode we venture north to Harpoon Brewery to check out the Harpoon Championships of New England BBQ competition. We enjoyed some great barbecue, great beer and live music all outside on a beautiful Vermont summer day. This family friendly event offered all of Harpoons standard beers and all of their craft brew soda’s (unfortunately they hid the Leviathan brews for the day). We were hoping to taste some of the BBQ delights from the infamous “I Smell Smoke” team, however it seems they were completely sold out in the first hour of the event. Perhaps next year!
Overall this was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon, my only wish was that I could have had a sample of two of the Leviathan Series. I was looking forward to taking home a growler of the newly released Big Bohemian Pilsner, but they were not offering it on draft. I guess we will have to give a call to Scott Shirley, head brewer at Harpoon Windsor, and give him a piece of our mind! Just kidding Scott…
I guess we will just have to order ourselves a case for our Putney Road Pub. So if you are in the Brattleboro area we hope that you will come join us for a pint!
We are excited to be heading down to Boston for this years Craft Brewers Conference. I am sure that we will get a bunch of great footage down there and it will be a nice way to say “hi” to some of the cool people we have met in our travels.
In their 26th year, the Craft Brewers Association puts on the largest beer industry gathering in North America. This will be our first year attending but based on the schedule and details we have read from others it promises to be much more than an ordinary trade show and conference. (No offense to the Professional Association of Innkeepers International PAII – whose also solid conference we just attended in Atlanta). But the bus tour of Boston area breweries, pre-party hosted by our friends at Harpoon and the promised special release and seasonal samplings really make this look like it has one up on the innkeepers…
If you are going to be down there, please let us know – we would love to hook up with some friends while we are in Boston! This will only be our second time in the city and we would love some travel advice…
We attended the Dogfish Head 75 Minute Simul-Cask aka Johnny Cask at The Sierra Grille in Northampton, MA. At precisely 7:50pm the beer began pouring. The 75 Minute IPA is a mixture of the ever so popular Dogfish Head 60 and 90 Minute IPAs with a special whole leaf cascade dry-hopping session. After hopping, the beer was transferred into firkin’s where fresh yeast and Maple Syrup were added. What a fun event this turned out to be. We love the creative ways that Sam and the Dogfish Head team bring beer lovers together.
We were invited to this event by the owner of The Sierra Grille, O’Brian Tomalin. Though we went for the beer, we left with a great first impression of The Sierra Grille. The food was excellent, served in a tapas style. The menu offered a wide variety of reasonably priced small plate options , including $3 desserts. Don’t worry if you have a big appetite the menu also offers about 8 full entrees. The beer selection was top notch including, among others, HE’BREW Jewbalation Twelve and Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA.
We would like to thank The Sierra Grille for hosting this event and look forward to stopping in again. We would also like to say hello to all of the awesome beer lovers who attended, we enjoyed meeting you all. If we do not see you at The Sierra Grille, we will see you next time on Here for the Beer!
Last week Andy Crouch, beer writer for Beer Advocate Magazine and the author of The Good Beer Guide to New England, booked a room at our Inn. He was in Brattleboro making his annual trip to McNeil’s Brewery and in looking around for what was new in the area, found our website.
Coincidentally, we had purchased his book a few months ago and have been using it as our guide when we travel around New England. The book is well put together and a great resource of brew pubs, breweries and beer bars in the New England area. It is very informative including all kinds of details and specifics on each location, but its also an entertaining read full of short reviews of his experiences when visiting each of these places and anecdotes from his travels. We highly recommend this book if you are from the area or are doing some traveling through New England. You can purchase a copy of The Good Beer Guide to New England right here!
During his stay, Andy was kind enough to sit down and answer a few questions in the Putney Road Pub over a few pints of McNeils Pullman’s Porter. In this episode you’ll find out Andy’s favorite state and why as well as the most unique and off the wall brew pub in New England.
We hope this interview and book will inspire you to visit the breweries, brew pubs and beer bars throughout New England. And of course, if you plan to make a weekend out of it we have a room and a supply of great beer waiting for you right here at Forty Putney Road B&B.
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