New England Brewing Company Tower Takeover at Prime 16

The NEBCO Tower Takeover  at Prime 16 took place on 01/27/2011. We arrived around 6:00 pm since we wanted to grab some burgers for dinner (the NY Steakhouse burger is superb). There was already a pretty decent crowd and the list of NEB beers was already up when we arrived. Lots of great stuff was up on the chalk boards. Gandhi-bot DIPA, Wet Willy Scotch Ale, Gold Stock, Double Oaked Gold Stock, Alphaweizen, 2005 Three Judges Barleywine, Sea Hag IPA, Citra Sea Hag IPA, Elm City Lager, Imperial Stout Trooper, and casks of Coffee-infused Imperial Stout Trooper and Cherry Vanilla-infused Imperial Stout Trooper were all being poured. Some of that list was being held back until 8 pm, but there were plenty of tasty NEB choices until that time.

The first thing I went after was the Goldstock. Goldstock might be my favorite beer made by NEB. Lots of english hops that creates a really nice, intense grassy and herbal hop experience. It is a pretty unique beer and I hope they end up canning this at some point. I ended up trying the double oaked Goldstock as my night cap. It was pretty interesting as well. There was a subtle oak flavor that smoothed the taste out nicely. The hop profile was the same, but the oak flavors added a level of complexity. I think I prefer the regular Goldstock, but the double oaked version would be great for the times you may not want such a strong hop punch and I can never complain about an interesting variant of an already great beer.

We finished dinner (which was accompanied by a personal favorite Sea Hag) right before 8 pm, when all the special taps were going to be poured. By this point the bar area was the fullest I've ever seen it. They even had the row of tables across from the bar removed. There were 4-5 rows of people behind the people sitting at the bar. 

The staff started pouring the casks of IST pretty promptly at 8 pm. There was no real organization to getting the beers out which I think would have made things move a little more smoothly. Maybe no seating at the bar or a serving station with some sort of line would help in the future. Overall this was a really crowded event, but the staff handled it well and my complaints are just nit-picking. The bartenders were continuously busy the entire time I was there and they did a great job getting the beers out as fast as they could. I hope they had a bit of fun doing it! 

Sarah and I shared a coffee IST and cherry vanilla IST. Both are VERY good variations of IST. The cherry vanilla IST has a strong cherry vanilla aroma that compliments the roasted and chocolate malt aromas of the IST very well. The cherry vanilla flavors take total control in the taste. I was impressed by how well the cherry and vanilla flavors could come through such a heavy flavored base beer. In all honesty I was glad to be sharing the 10 ounce pour with someone. The first few sips were really good, but after awhile the sweetness from the vanilla became too much for me. This was is definitely a slow sipper and nice to try, but 5 ounces was enough for me. The coffee IST was the highlight of the event for me. There was a pleasant coffee aroma that mixed with the chocolate and burnt malt aromas of IST. It came off a more subtle than the cherry vanilla variation. The flavor was outstanding. Strong, distinct coffee flavor that wasn't overpowering and was a great compliment to the base beer. It wasn't like drinking a totally different beer that shared the IST name, but it was more of an extension. The bitter coffee flavor worked well to balance the strong roasted malt flavor of the IST. Coffee-infused IST is one of the best coffee beers I've ever had. Hopefully more of it shows up in the future and I'll keep my fingers crossed that it will one day show up in bottles. 

This was a really fun event. I'm looking forward to the other brewery tower takeovers at prime 16 in the future. They had a list up on the one blackboard and off the top of my head I remember Allagash on March 31st and Sierra Nevada. There were 3-4 others as well, but I'm blanking on them right now. NEB had a really great selection of beers on tap and on cask last night. I consider myself lucky to be living so close to a great brewery. 

New England Brewing Co. Tower Takeover at Prime16

The picture is from the Prime 16 facebook page and sums up the event pretty well!

1/27/11 looks like it will be a great night to go to Prime 16! On top of a full stock of their more typical line up and seasonal releases there are going to be casks of coffee infused IST and cherry vanilla IST. I'm still kicking myself for missing the cask of cherry vanilla IST last year. It is supposed to be superb. The coffee infused IST is all new and I think it will compliment the high roasted/burnt malt character in this years batch, so I might be looking forward to that one even more.

Cask Republic in New Haven

Last night I took a walk down to a new beer bar/restaurant in New Haven, Cask Republic. Cask Republic resides on 179 Crown Street. Some of the online info says 181 Crown Street, but that is the Wine Thief's address. This location is right next to a parking garage, the previously mentioned Wine Thief, and right around the corner from Prime 16. I was surprised to hear about another quality beer establishment opening up in New Haven, but incredibly happy about this. We now have Cask Republic, Delaney's, Mikro, and Prime 16 in a few mile radius. Plenty of options to go get a quality draft beer. Now the only things I have left to complain about are the lack of a quality brewpub and a package store with a large craft beer selection within walking distance!

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I didn't hear anything about this place opening until last week. They currently do not have a full food menu available, but all their beer lines are up (in the mid 50 range + plenty of bottles). Cask Republic is supposedly a sister restaurant to the two Ginger Man restaurants in Greenwich and Norwalk. I have not been to either of these places, but they have a good reputation.

On walking in I was surprised about the size. It's not a huge, place but is pretty big and feels spacious. We we're greeted at the door by a friendly, but clearly green employee who took awhile where to seat us in an empty restaurant. The seating seems geared more towards groups of 4 or larger as there were only a few 2 person tables throughout the room. We sat in the down stairs section that is right by their walk in fridge. The walk in fridge is a fairly interesting feature. You can see all the kegs they have hooked up through the windows as well as the well organized bottles that are available. The decor is mainly dark wood with sparse beer paraphernalia on the wall. The place is kept a little too dark for my taste and we had some issue with flickering overhead lights. Overall it is pretty nice place inside, nicer than Prime 16 or Delaney's in my opinion.

The full food menu wasn't available, but I was aware of that going in, so it wasn't a surprise. I ended up going with their pretzel roll sandwich which had pork and sauerkraut with a dipping sauce and freshly cut french fries. I was impressed, very nice pub food. The sandwich prices look like they'll be in the $10-15 range with entrees being slightly more expensive.

The beer menu was the most impressive part to me. All quality beers on tap. Quite a few Captain Lawrence, NEB, and other new england breweries on draft. I ended up geting a citra dry-hopped New England Brewing Co. Sea Hag on cask, Captain Lawrence Espresso Stout on nitro, and a New England Brewing Co. Imperial Stout Trooper. All were very good and I can only hope that they develop a larger cask selection over time the cask Sea Hag was a great start! The prices for most of the american craft beer seem reasonable $5-8 for a 16 ounce pour or 12 ounces in some cases for the bigger beers. I was pretty shocked at the price of the Belgian offerings, lots hovering around the $12 range. The bottle prices were sky high as well. The biggest example I could pick out was the $29 bottle of Imperial Stout Trooper, which cost $12 from the brewery and they were selling a 12 ounce pour for $6! One nice thing they were doing was serving small portions of Brewdog's distilled spirits Sink the Bismark and Tactical Nuclear Penguin for only an arm and not the arm and a leg buy the full bottle would cost you. One other quibble was the serving temperature of their beer. It seems that since all the kegs are in the walking in fridge they are all kept at the same temperature. This resulted in the Stout Trooper we ordered being ice cold. This took quite awhile to heat up and this brew is much better at warmer temperatures and I feel bad for people who get this served so cold and gulp it down before it has a chance to reach it's maximum taste.

Overall I will be visiting Cask Republic in the future and I look forward to their expanded menu and great beer selection.