Beantown Brews: A Boston Beer Blog

I just tried Saint Botolph’s Town from Pretty Things; a heavenly brown ale that is sure to be a welcome addition to your fall beer menagerie.

Pretty Things, out of Holyoke Massachusetts is an unbelievable craft brewing outfit. I have never had a bad beer by them. They are small. Hell, they don’t even own a brewery – they rent! This is sort of indicative of the craft beer movement; Size takes a back seat to quality and Pretty Things is 100% committed to producing quality craft beers that are as satisfying as they are unique and well crafted. Check out their site for more info.

So lets take a look at the the beer.

Serving type: 22-ounce bottle

Appearance: A deep, dark mahogany – opaque. Thin coffee colored head that hangs around. A good amount of lacing. Low but adequate carbonation.

Smell: Sweet malt and just a hint of hoppiness.

Taste: Sweet chocolaty malt w/ a hint of vanilla. Some smokiness nuttiness. An almost coffee like bitterness toward the end.

Mouthfeel: Full bodied. smooth with a nice dry finish.

Drinkability: As autumn slides down the thermometer reading, this beer grows exponentially more drinkable. There is some math in there, so I will let your brain rest a second…

Overall grade: A-

…seriously – this beer is a delight and I could easily see a few pints of this poured on a cool autumn evening – at the pub – at home – by the fire – after dinner – you name it. Seems to be more of a stand alone ale or dessert beer to me. I can’t imagine what I would pair this with. Pretty things is an understatement – this beer is gorgeous! At 5.9% ABV, this beer is a bit outside the sessionable area, but it’ll warm you up plenty. Fantastic!

Continuing on the trend of fall beers, we have Sam Adams Octoberfest. We see a lot of beers labeled Octoberfest (or Oktoberfest) this time of year. So What gives? What makes an Oktoberfest and Oktoberfest?

First off – we are dealing with a lager – a bottom fermented beer made with specific lager type yeast. Beer Advocate gives us this little infobite -

Before refrigeration, it was nearly impossible to brew beer in the summer due to the hot weather and bacterial infections. Brewing ended with the coming of spring, and began again in the fall. Most were brewed in March (Märzen). These brews were kept in cold storage over the spring and summer months, or brewed at a higher gravity, so they’d keep. Märzenbier is full-bodied, rich, toasty, typically dark copper in color with a medium to high alcohol content.

The festival itself is almost 200 years old and was established during the October of 1810 by Prince Ludwig of Bavaria in celebration of his marriage to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. You can read all about it right here.

Let’s see how Sam Adams holds up -

Serving type: Bottle

Appearance: pours a deep bright copper – perhaps a bit reddish, leaning toward amber. Nearly no head and minimal lacing. Clean and clear.

Smell: Sweet Malt

Taste: Toasted and bready malt goodness

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied. Smooth malt taste with a crisp carbonated finish.

Drinkability: Smooth and tasty. I could definitely see kicking back a few of these. Very drinkable.

Overall Grade: a solid B

I was relatively happy with this beer. It was distinctly different from Sam Adams Boston Lager, a Vienna Lager. I was pretty sure that, given the similarity between the two styles, these beers would be pretty indistinguishable from one another.

Now if they could stop putting it on shelves in August and ruining the feng shui of my summer beer, it would be a solid Oktoberfest.