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Portsmouth New Hampshire-based Smuttynose Brewing has officially retired their Portsmouth Lager after rumors of the beer’s demise had been swirling for nearly a year. The beer has been replaced in the Smuttynose everyday line up with a new brew entitled, “Star Island Single”. According to David Yarrington, the Smuttynose Executive Brewer,

Several trains of thought converged in the decision process to arrive at this style.  Our first concern was accessibility.  We really wanted a beer that would appeal to a person just getting into craft beer as well our loyal customers looking for a lighter style.  With so much emphasis on Extreme Beers there has been a growing undercurrent of desire for what we like to call session beers.  Star Island Single is our offering into this realm.  The beer itself is our take on a Belgian style single ale brewing to around 5% ABV with generous amounts of Honey Malt as well as Demerara sugar used to lighten the body.  The yeast is our house Belgian strain that adds subtle fruitiness that we’ve balanced with a dash of coriander.  As we’ve been drinking the trial batches we’ve become more and more exited about how this beer is turning out.  Hopefully you’ll  enjoy it as well.

It sounds to me like this new brew will still grab ‘hold of the remaining Smuttynose Lager fans, while pushing the envelope just enough to entice some of the fans of Smuttynose’s ballsier beers. Smuttynose owner Peter
Egelston goes on at length on his blog Smuttynose Tavern about the company’s choice to phase out and eventually completely retire the Portsmouth Lager. Egelston says,

After a slow launch in a down market, and encountering indifference from our local wholesalers and retailers, Portsmouth Lager never gained traction in the market. Cut out of the sets in the supermarket chains, where 80% of the beer is sold in New Hampshire, it became nearly impossible to find in our home state, except on draught at the Portsmouth Brewery, where it has been consistently one of our most popular offerings. People would discover it in a Variety Pack and write to us asking where they could buy it, and we’d shrug helplessly. So while all of our other brands were growing, Portsmouth Lager numbers remained static, buoyed up artificially by the significant volumes that were served at the Portsmouth Brewery and placed in Variety Packs. And the warm embrace we anticipated from Portsmouth’s bars and restaurants never happened; most of them remained perfectly content to offer up Boston Lager as their local beer.

For more of Peter’s thoughts on the elimination of Portsmouth Lager and the introduction of the Star Island Single, read his original Smuttynose Tavern piece on the subject here. And keep your eyes on your favorite Packie’s shelves; Star Island Single should be there any day now. Cheers.

The following is a guest post written by Brian Burns, a full-time writer and part-time beer drinker, living in Boulder, CO. Brian is a fellow Clark U. grad and the author of brianlburns.com. You can also find him on Twitter @brianlburns

My name is Brian. I live in Boulder, CO — a place most people just call paradise. It’s true that we have lots going for us here. We have a major university, and major high-altitude rocky mountain skiing. We have an active outdoor culture, and an attractive population. We’re laid back, but we get our work done… and we’re within shouting distance of the major city of Denver. It’s no surprise that Boulder is consistently ranked among the top-10 places to live in the US.

One thing we’re overlooked for, however, is our beer. We have a vibrant culture here that produces some darn good brews. That starts with the big-boys right down the road in Golden — Coors brewery. They’re good to have around, even if none of us drink their stuff. The scene also includes the awesome Left Hand Brewing company right up the road, as well as Avery Brewing Company and the Boulder Beer Company right here in town. Plus, a Flying Dog brewery (one of their two) is just down in Denver, and they’re active in the Boulder community. I’ve drank free beer from them twice in the last two weeks… and have no complaints. Planning to do so again tomorrow.

Boulder also has a few smaller breweries/restaurants, that offer the best burger-and-a-beer options around. They include my favorite, the Walnut Brewery, as well as Oskar Blues — which features an incredible Stout, Ten Fidy Imperial Stout (editor’s note: this is one of my personal favorites; check out my review), with 10%+ alcohol content. Walnut’s right downtown, while Oskar Blues is just a short drive away.

So… if you find yourself in town at some point — here to enjoy the culture or relax after a day on the slopes — I urge you to check out the local beer scene. It may be better than you think. If you do, give me a call. I’ll buy you a drink.

Note: If you have an article you would like to have appear here on BlogAboutBeer.com, please don’t hesitate to checkout the Write for BAB page. Thanks!

There are lots of little things coming across the Beer News Wire today so I thought it would be most beneficial to post them all at once and let you troll through for anything you might need.

• To start, The Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce is teaming up with the Androscoggin Bank Colisée to produce the second annual Maine Grains and Grapes Festival on June 20th at the Androscoggin Bank Colisée in Lewiston (click here to read my recap of the inaugural festival in 2008). Tickets are $25 (if purchased in advance) or $30 purchased at the door (Designated Driver tickets are $10 each). You can purchase online by visiting androscoggincounty.com or at the Androscoggin Bank Colisée box office or by phone at 207.783.2009.

• A website 15 months in the making, www.beer-universe.com, has launched. Beer Universe is a new social media/e-commerce platform that “synthesizes beers/bars/breweries together”. What differentiates Beer Universe, however, is that they’re giving “beer points” away to users to use in their points store for free stuff. Essentially the more you use Beer Universe – the more free stuff you can get. You can also follow Beer Universe on Twitter at @BeerUniverse

• The Indianapolis Star has a recent story about the new Indianapolis Sun King Brewing Co. owned by Clay Robinson. The story (part 2 to be specific) even features a video where you can watch Clay receiving his new 15-barrel brewing system. Check out the story here (part 1) and here (part 2) with video.

• Andy Crouch — author of one of my favorite beer books: A Good Beer Guide to New England — Heeds The Call Of Beer Evangelism…

“The continued success of craft brewers and the industry that supports them will not depend in the long-term on a small but passionate group of beer geeks buying greater amounts of quality ales and lagers. Instead, craft beer’s prospects rest with the uninitiated masses who have yet to embrace the products we love”.

• There is a fun new Facebook application from the folks at LivingSocial going around which allows you to pick your top 5 favorite beers (among other top 5’s, including top 5 albums, movies, books, ncaa basketball teams, tv shows, video games; the list goes one). And I was pretty impressed with the depth of the application’s database. Just for shits & giggles, I chose 5 of my favorites (I don’t know if I would call them all my only top 5’s though) and ones I thought were sure to stump the application. But sure enough I was able to choose Bar Harbor Brewing Cadillac Mountain Stout, Oskar Blues Ten Fidy, Bell’s HopSlam, Meantime Coffee Porter and Portsmouth Brewing Kate The Great.
• And last but not least, a good friend (and the friend who hooked me up with a bottle of Kate the Great, speaking of which, in February so I still owe him even more link love) @jchristie has released an awesome new blog combining two of the world’s best guilty pleasures: good books and good brews. Check out what he has to say at www.brewsandbooks.com

Until next time BlogAboutBeer.com faithful…

Portland’s own Peak Organic Brewing has released their own IPA and I have to say, it’s the single best Peak beer yet! After trying a pint myself at $3 Dewey’s a few days ago, I had the chance to ask Peak muckety-muck Geoff Masland about the new brew. Geoff says,

It’s been a beer we’ve had on our mind for a few years, as we are all hop heads at Peak.  We love a variety of IPAs– American, British, Imperial, Double, etc– but we wanted to create a unique IPA that isn’t common for New England-brewed beers that is also versatile (a session IPA for extreme hop heads, and a delicious offering paired with a meal for folks who enjoy trying new beers).

Our goal from the start was to create a continually aroma-hopped IPA that has low bitterness.  We wanted to brew a beer that truly glorified and highlighted our favorite hops– Amarillo, Simcoe, and Nugget.  These west coast style, American hops give our IPA a big, citrusy bouquet and front palate.  This is also a result of significant dry hopping (we dry hopped with 100 lbs of hops per 50 barrel batch).   We use mostly Pale and a little Crystal malts, which lend a smooth, slightly sweet backbone to the hop showcase.

A sneak test batch of the IPA is currently on tap at $3 Dewey’s and another keg is expected to make its way to the Great Lost Bear this weekend. After a few slight alterations (upping the malt body a bit, for instance), Masland said, the next batch will be bottled and kegged for proper distribution on March 26th.  By early April the Peak IPA will be available in “the usual spots with a great beer selection”.

The final ABV is 7.2% with 74 IBUs. If you can make your way to $3 Dewey’s or GLB this weekend, I would highly recommend it. Now that the sun is out, the Peak Organic IPA makes a great, refreshing session IPA. Cheers!

It seems that the Craft Beer Community is increasing their participation in all things New Media at an incredible clip, with their presence on Twitter really taking the helm. One such community member however, San Fransisco’s 21st Amendment Brewing, took the beer-on-Twitter phenomenon to new heights. Just yesterday 21st Amendment brewer Shaun O’Sullivan brewed the very first #twitterbrew.

The beer, which later was named “Spring Tweet” (a name suggested by one of the followers of @21stAmendment), is described by O’Sullivan as, “light, refreshing and drinkable”, exactly what is needed to ring in spring.

All day yesterday followers of @21stAmendment were able to read about the brewing process as it progressed, complete with pictures of each step of the brew (posted, needless to say, to twitpic.com).

Comically, however, some time late in the day the hashtag for the beer used by the brewery itself changed from #twitterbrew to #tweetbeer. Which lead me to believe that the Tweeple (ew, sorry.) on the other end had a few too many #tweetbeers to drink during the brewing process.

What’s next for the #twitterbrew? The beer was on its way to the fermenter during the brewery’s final tweet of the day but it reported that it should find its way into a pint glass right around April 6th. Enjoy, San Fransisco!

If you’re not yet following me on Twitter, please do so @livingstonmedia