New Brew Thursday: 'Nite Lite' from Night Shift Brewing

The other weekend when I was in Boston I stopped by my old liquor store, Brookline Liquor Mart, and said hello to some friends and picked up some beer. One of the beers I grabbed was Nite Lite from Night Shift Brewery.

Nite Lite is a light lager does not skimp on the flavor and is infinitely better than any light lager I have ever had. Now my affinity for lagers is nothing new here and when I first heard about this beer it was something that I just had to try. It pours just like you atypical beer and like most lagers the head disappears within a few minutes.

The best word to describe this beer is crisp, as from top to bottom it is just that. The smell is crisp, the taste is crisp, the finish is crisp, and the mouthfeel is (and you'll never guess this one) very light and crisp. Night Shift on their website states that they made this beer to combat the notion that a light lager can't be both flavorful and drinkable. This beer is both of those things and is absolutely perfect for the tailgates, the summertime, or whenever you feel like something light and refreshing.

New Brew Thrusday: 'Thank You (2019)' from Maine Beer Company

Years ago when I was working at a liquor store in Boston, Brookline Liquor Mart, I would typically work on Thursdays when some of our new beer would come in and I would try to buy something new that I had never had before in the name of exploration and to better serve the customers. I still carry on this tradition in order to push my own horizons and to keep exploring the world of craft beer. However, I often buy new beers all the time and now I try to save them for a Thursday rather than just buying them on Thursdays. Now, I share that tradition with you and start with the appropriately named Thank You from Maine Beer Company.

Thank You 2018 from Maine Beer Company is a very, very nice IPA that I purchased at the brewery a few months ago. It is a very floral and piney smelling IPA with the taste to match it. It also has a very bitter finish that will linger on your tongue for minutes afterwards. It's got a fairly light mouthfeel as well and is a relatively simple and non-complex taste for a very good east coast style of IPA. On Untappd (profile on the right) I gave it a four out of five. A beer I would definitely recommend because while it is not an overpoweringly hoppy IPA if you like an IPA with a good, solid hop taste that is a little boozy (7% and it does not taste like it) this is a solid bet.

My Favorite Beer

I routinely talk about most beers/breweries in the terms of them being "one of my favorites." However,  I have always said that my absolute favorite beer is 'Heavy Mettle' from Trillium. I have said before that IPAs are my favorite style and this double IPA is everything that I love in an good IPA. I love everything there is to love about this beer. I love the artwork on the can, I love the way it pours in a glass, I love the way it looks in that glass, I love the way it smells, and I love its mouthfeel. I love this beer and every time Trillium brews it and posts it to their Instagram it makes my day. 

The artwork on the can is clean and simple, the same logo that also appears on the 'Mettle' cans on the far left with the name prominently displayed in the dead center of the can. It pours into the glass almost like a nitro beer as it cascades down the glass with the head that is white as fresh snow. Its bright-yellow, hazy appearance in the glass that really showcases the dry-hopped Galaxy hop look that is a thing of pure beauty. Then when the can is rolled and the sediment at the bottom of the can is poured into the glass and gives the beer a darker, yellow hue while keeping the bright-white head. The incredibly sweet, citrus notes it gives off to entices you to take a sip like a cartoon pie on a windowsill and then that first sip. Even though it has an ABV of 9.3%  the mouthfeel is amazingly light and does not suffer from an overly heavy and boozy that most IPAs with that percentage do. The initial taste that really showcases those Galaxy hops so full of citrus with an incredibly bitter finish that can only come from the Amarillo hops that lingers on your tongue long after the beer is gone. However on that next sip you still get that full hit of Galaxy with the same light mouthfeel but the bitterness from the Amarillo, the bitterness from that previous sip, just amplifies each time. It it THE definitive pallet wrecker. 

If you like devastatingly hoppy  IPAs with a bitter finish then this is your beer. What is your favorite beer? Let me know below. 

Stout Day

Happy (belated) Stout Day everyone and sorry for the long gap in posting. Sometimes the 'Lawyer' part of the title gets in the way of the 'Drinking' part. I was able to celebrate properly with one of my favorite stouts, 'Blackjack' from Tilted Barn. This pumpkin stout is made with pumpkins that they grow on their farm. I was first able to try it last year out of sheer curiosity, I never was (and still are not) a fan of pumpkin beer but a stout brewed with freshly grown pumpkins was something that I just had to try. Roughly one hour and one four pack later I had my prize and was excited to try it.

Most pumpkin beers really dial up the pumpkin flavor resulting in an overly sweet, spiced, overpowering taste with the notes to go along with it. 'Blackjack' does not. The pumpkin adds a level of sweetness to this amazingly robust stout and the batch this year does not disappoint. Unfortunately, the cans have sold out and there is likely only a limited amount left at the barn for the year so I would recommend strongly going down there for a pour ASAP.