January Sobriety Be Damned, It’s Our One Year Anniversary! Let’s Recap Some Things!

“You have 30 days to renew your domain”

Nothing like an email that you owe money to remind you that you’ve been punishing your liver in the name of hobby journalism for a whole year! Since I decided to spend January sober (I can hear all your boos already), obviously there hasn’t been much to post about. But rather than letting my already questionable writing ability get rusty, I’m going to run down the past year; giving you the facts, handing out some obviously super important superlatives and then filling you in on what to expect in the future for the Brew Guide!

Bissell Brothers Brewing Co. – Portland, ME

Last week I attended the Craft’d Company‘s Beers With the Brewer night held at Dorchester Brewing* on Wednesday, which was a really cool event. For the price of admission, you get a full pour of a beer of your choosing (although there is a featured beer), a snack (we got soft pretzels!) and got to hear from Todd Charbonneau, DB Co’s head brewer. Todd told us all about the beginning of the brewery and how he got started; he’s one of the handful of past Harpoon brewers in the area that are now doing off their own thing. Hearing from someone who was at the forefront of the craft beer wave is always super interesting!  It’s was a night full of great beer and fun talks among other avid craft beer fans. I highly recommend you check out one of their future events!

And now, I welcome you back to my popular series “How Have You Never Heard Of…?”, where we waited over an hour to bring you Bissell Brothers!

Black Hat Brew Works – Bridgewater, MA

Saturday Night I hit up the Colosseum in Providence to check out Arcade Revival, a pop up old school arcade game set up that was going on all weekend that also happened to feature Revival Brewing. I recommend giving them a follow, that event was a bunch of fun, there was never a long wait for a game, and the people watching was fantastic. I believe I saw Jareth the Goblin King there, it was uncanny.

And that’s the last bit of RI I had. For the next two weeks,  I’m bringing it back home to Mass for 4 big features. There are now over 100 visitable breweries in the state according to Mass Brew Bros, so I’ve got a lot of work cut out for me.

So lets start super local for me, with Black Hat Brew Works.

Crooked Current Brewery – Pawtucket, RI

 

I can’t lie, in my early to mid 20’s I hated Rhode Island. Every time I went to a bar in the Providence area, there seemed to be this snotty hipster vibe that made me wish explosive bowel issues on all of its flannel shirted inhabitants. Yea, it was that bad. As time has gone by and I’ve explored more, there are now more places that I enjoy in Rhode Island than don’t. Either I was going to the wrong places (likely), the scene down there has chilled out a bit (it’s possible), or I have grown up a bit (unlikely, although I will toss on a flannel shirt on the rare occasion).

With that trip down memory lane outta the way, I found myself in the lovely city of Pawtucket this past weekend at the self-proclaimed, and most likely accurate, “smallest brewery in the smallest state” Crooked Current. Look for the “Brewery” sandwich-board sign on the side of the road, or you may miss it!

Also, check out the Esquire article IS IT POSSIBLE TO DRINK AT EVERY SINGLE BREWERY IN ONE STATE IN JUST ONE DAY?. It’s a journey through RI that I would like to embark on myself one day…for purely journalistic reasons, of course.

To the guide!