Cambridge Brewing Company - Banryu Ichi

On the second day of my Boston trip, I woke up ready to visit one of Boston's largest and most famous breweries, Harpoon. So we woke up, spent a few hours walking around the Boston Commons, and then took the T down towards Harpoon. But as soon as we got off the train, we realized something was amiss. While the brewery should have opened an hour before we arrived, the gates were still closed. Looking around a bit more, we noticed a sign that said the brewery was closed for the day because they were preparing for a festival later in the day called Harpoonfest. Damn... Undeterred, we decided to check out a brewery across town that I had heard nothing but good things about, Cambridge Brewing Company.

Cambridge Brewing Company is located, surprisingly, in Cambridge. It's just a few blocks away from MIT, and in one of the nicer areas I've ever found a brewery. There's a beautiful outdoor patio surrounded by gardens and old brick walls. While that's probably not too popular in the winter, the weather was perfect, so we grabbed a seat outside and checked out the menu. After trying the fantastic You Enjoy My Stout, I started searching the menu for something different. And it didn't take long to find the winner- Banryu Ichi, a sake-beer hybrid. Whaaaaaat?


I've had beer aged in sake casks, but I've never seen the combination of beer and sake together quite like this. You can find the full description at CBC's website here, but here's the short version. Banryu Ichi was made by first getting together with a local sake brewer and making 100 gallons of sake. Then, they made a beer using pale barley malt, flaked rice and brown rice syrup and added the fermenting sake to the beer. No brewer's yeast was added, so the sake was actually used to ferment the beer. Pretty crazy stuff. The beer is served in a traditional wooden Masu (sake cup) and comes in 5oz pours, which is probably a good thing because this monster clocks in at 14%.

Banryu Ichi pours a deep copper color with no trace of a head whatsoever. At an ABV this high, that's not really too surprising.  I had no idea what to expect from the smell of this one, and I was met with an almost mead-like sweetness with a big smack of grape jelly. Bubblegum and a faint trace of brown rice could be found in there as well as well as just a hint of something that smelled like sake.

The taste was pretty similar to the smell with a lot of rich, honey-like sweetness throughout. Juicy red grapes hit first along with some honey and grape nuts and the finish brought a touch of brown rice. This beer finishes dry (almost sake-like), which was actually really nice. It kept the beer from becoming syrupy and made me totally forget about the high ABV. All in all, I would call this very different experiment a success. It can't be easy to craft a beer like this, but Cambridge Breing Company made it work somehow. Hats off! Maybe I'm not so sorry we missed Harpoon after all.

Final Grade: A-

Top 250 Beers Tasted: 118

Cambridge Brewing Company - The Great Pumpkin Ale

I know, I know. It's kind of weird to do a pumpkin beer post when it's after Christmas. I debated not doing a post on this beer at all, but this one was just too good to pass up.

I'm a big fan of pumpkin beers. However, the more I try, the more I feel like every brewery is just trying to make the same beer. Some of them, like Southern Tier, do it incredibly well. Some, like Coors, do not. But, with very few exceptions, it's seemed like nearly every brewery was throwing nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon and pumpkin into a brew kettle, jacking up the alcohol, and selling it as pumpkin beer. But as I recently discovered, all pumpkin ales don't have to taste the same. Just look at Cambridge Brewing Company's The Great Pumpkin.

The Great Pumpkin pours a hazy orange-ish brown color with a thin off-white head. The smell is like opening a spice cabinet, full of heavy cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. Some clove was in there as well. A bit of cooked pumpkin lingered in the background. I had heard great things about this beer, but after smelling it, I wasn't confident it was going to be much better than the rest of the pumpkin beers I've tried. Then I tried a sip of it.

The beer opens with a tingling of baking spice and a touch of pumpkin flesh. Then it progresses into some flavors I've never experienced in a pumpkin beer before: fresh grassy hops and a bunch of pale malt. The intensity of the hops was something I'm more used to in a pilsner, not a fall beer. A light mouthfeel helped the hops and pumpkin flavors to work together incredibly well, resulting in a beer that feels like the child of a pumpkin beer and a blonde ale. At a mere 4.4%, this beer is a baby in the pumpkin beer category, but it is one tasty, tasty baby. I can't say I liked this more than Pumking, but this was a really great beer and a fresh new take on the style.  A huge thanks to my sister, Melina, for picking this up for me in Boston!

Final Grade: A

Top 100 Beers Tasted: 44

Note: This is probably the last post I will get in this year. Thank you all for your support. It's been a great year for this blog and I and I can't wait to see what beers come across our path in 2013. Have a happy and safe holiday and look for a "Best of 2012" post coming very soon. Cheers!

-Walker

Cambridge Brewing Company - The Audacity of Hops

Cambridge Brewing Company may not be the best known brewery in Boston, but the general consensus seems to be that it's among the best that Boston has. Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to make it to the brewery on this trip (next time, Cambridge, next time) but I was able to find a bottle of their Belgian Double IPA, The Audacity of Hops, at a liquor stone in downtown Boston.

The Audacity of Hops (fantastic name, by the way) pours a hazy golden color with a one-finger cream colored head that leaves some spotty lacing down the glass. The smell wasn't massive, but I was able to pick out a musty pine hop note and a touch of the Belgian yeast.

I was a little worried about how this was going to taste when I got home from the trip and noticed that the bottling date was December, 2011. A 5 month old IPA? That couldn't still be good, right? Luckily, I was very wrong. The taste opens with a huge medley of pine and citrus hops. A hint of Belgian yeast shows up in the middle before some more pine hops and cracked black pepper show up on the finish. The finish is dry, bitter and delicious. If you don't love hops, this probably isn't for you, but if you do, this is a beer you absolutely have to seek out. If it tasted this good at 5 months old, I can't even begin to fathom how good this would taste fresh. I'll have to find out on my next trip.

Final Grade: A


Top 100 Beers Tasted: 37