At long last, the week we’ve all been waiting for is finally upon us – New Hampshire Craft Beer Week.
That’s right, from this Friday through April 15, the entirety of the Granite State will be celebrating the beauty and the wonder that is high quality craft beer. More specifically, it’s a week meant to focus on the beer that’s made right here in New Hampshire, and the people who make it.
On the previous page we gave you an idea of some of the events going on around the state that tie into the week. While those events definitely should be checked out in honor of the special week, we thought we’d also fill you in on some general knowledge about some breweries in our area (meaning the Monitor’s coverage area).
In other words, we wanted to find out whatever we could about as many beer-centric places as we could. That way if you don’t get the chance to make it to one of the N.H. Craft Beer Week events, you’ll still have an idea of what each place is like and be able to go to whichever one you want any time you like – it doesn’t have to be a special beer week for you to go and hit up a few local breweries.
Speaking of which, that’s exactly what we did last week. Since we almost never leave the city of Concord, we weren’t that familiar with most of the breweries around here, so we went out to see some for ourselves.
We stopped into several breweries within about a half-hour of Concord and found that although a lot of stuff is similar, every brewer has his or her own identity, and it shows in the beer.
Here’s a roundup of some of the microbreweries, nanobreweries, brew pubs and everything in between we found within the Monitor’s coverage area. Feel free to check them out during N.H. Craft Beer Week as well as any other time they’re open.
Just remember, if you’re planning on being a N.H. Craft Beer Week hero by attempting to hit all (or even just a portion) of these places in one trip, make sure you get a designated driver who doesn’t mind schlepping you all over the place. That’s what friends and family are for, right?
Concord Craft Brewing Co.
117 Storrs St., Concord. 856-7625, concordcraftbrewing.com.
Downtown Concord’s own little brewery, Concord Craft Brewing Co., has been delighting beer fans from the heart of downtown since January 2017, and there’s no signs of anything slowing down over there any time soon.
The brewery offers beers in 4-ounce tasters or full pints – the presence of pints indicating that food is also served. On the food side, it’s mostly frozen and reheated fare, such as Blake’s All Natural pot pies, but the food isn’t exactly the primary draw.
“We try to think of ourselves as primarily a beer destination,” owner Dennis Molnar said.
As far as the actual beers, Molnar said they try to maintain eight on tap at all times, with a new addition just about every week. They keep about six “standard” beers while having a couple open slots for experiments, one-offs and seasonals. Most of the names of the beers make reference to the fact that the brewery is in the capital, such as Kapitol Kolsch, The Gov’nah and The Senatah.
The beer can be sipped on the premises or taken home in 16-ounce cans, 64-ounce growlers or 25.4-ounce crowler cans. You can buy it at places around town like Local Baskit, Capital Beverages, Riverhill Market and South Main Quick Stop. It’s also on tap at more than 60 restaurants, including most of the beer-serving ones in Concord now.
Every once in a while, Concord Craft will concoct something pretty funky that you probably don’t see too often. For instance, they made a jalapeno cream ale last year that will be making a return this year for Cinco de Mayo – a lot of places around here will have it on tap for that holiday, Molnar said.
Concord Craft Brewing Co. is open Wednesday through Friday from 4 to 8 p.m., Saturday from noon to 8 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. Tours can be given if/when time allows for it, so if you’re interested in a tour, just call or stop by and ask.
Lithermans Limited
126 Hall St. Unit B, Concord. 818-9102, lithermans.beer.
Lithermans Limited is Concord’s other brewery, but we don’t mean that in a disparaging way – there are only two places in Concord and one had to be listed first, so we went alphabetically.
Lithermans is the result of a hip-hop group that never really took off the same way groups like, say, Milli Vanilli or the Wu-Tang Clan did. But that’s okay, because rather than making music now, Michael Hauptly-Pierce (“MHP”) and Steve Bradbury (“Doc Jones”) focus most of their time and energy on creating cool beers with musical themes and names.
They keep between eight and 12 beers on tap – there were nine when we stopped by last week, with a 10th on the way, Hauptly-Pierce assured us – and in the two years they’ve been open have produced 111 unique brews as of early last week (that number is probably higher now). You’ll see a lot of IPAs and saisons – Hauptly-Pierce said saisons are a nice palate to work from.
There’s always something going on at Lithermans, with a new beer coming out just about every week. Sometimes they’ll even put out about five in a week, after which point there might be a little break to let people catch up.
When they added food to their lineup less than a year into the business, “it was a game-changer,” Hauptly-Pierce said. “It changed why people come here,” he said.
He doesn’t mean the place has become a serious contender in the gourmet restaurant world, but now that you can get a full pint and a bite to eat, there’s a lot more reason to take that long, strange trip down Hall Street and find the place.
Once you do find it, you’ll be tempted to stay awhile – and try a bit of everything. With names like Big Old Seth Airliner and Tangled Up in Bruges, you’ll get a chuckle as you start singing songs in your head (or out loud) while sipping away. Outside of the tap room, you can get Lithermans beer at places like Local Baskit, Concord Food Co-op and Cimo’s South End Deli, among others. They’re on tap at Tandy’s, the Barley House, Penuche’s, True Brew Barista and Dos Amigos and others. You can also get some varieties in cans, as well as growlers in 32- or 64-ounce varieties.
There have been one or two strange brews whipped up at Lithermans since they opened almost two years ago. There was a crisped cream ale made with crisped rice (like that cereal with mascots Snap, Crackle and Pop) that will make a comeback soon, as will a smoked Scotch bonnet pepper ale.
The hours at Lithermans (new as of Thursday) are Thursday and Friday from 4 to 8 p.m., Saturday noon to 7 p.m. and Sunday noon to 4 p.m.
Henniker Brewing Company
129 Centervale Road, Henniker. 428-3579, hennikerbrewing.com.
We visited Henniker Brewing Co. in February 2017 for our first-ever Field Trip Issue, so we knew we had to go back for this issue to see what was new since we last stopped in.
Henniker is quickly becoming one of the bigger and more successful breweries in the region – their beers are now sold in Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont and now Philadelphia, too, as well as most of the Granite State.
There are usually anywhere from 10 to 12 beers on tap at the brewery, where you can also get cans and/or growlers to take home. And in some cases it’s worth it to go to the brewery instead of the convenience store to get your beer.
“This year we’ve started doing brewery-only releases in terms of cans, then we’ll send limited kegs out to the market,” said Ryan Maiola, one of the owners who also does sales and marketing.
Also new at HBC is their branding. New labels now grace all of their cans, with all products sharing the same format – a solid color on the bottom with white on top and bold, sans-serif, drop-shadowed text. It gives HBC brand uniformity and helps people immediately recognize their beers from the other side of the store. This means gone is the famous space man from the Miles & Miles can – a tribute to Derry’s Alan Shepard – replaced with a figure resembling a crescent moon, a moon with dimples in it like a golf ball.
Like at many breweries in New Hampshire, the crew at Henniker Brewing is always pretty busy.
“We’re releasing one beer a month, at least,” Maiola said. “We have Wait a Minute, a rotating IPA series, so it’s always a 6 percent IPA but will have a different hop profile, different yeast from month to month. We’ll put the batch number on the can and you can go to our website, hennikerbrewing.com, and click on HBC brews and you’ll see Wait a Minute right on there and the batch information is listed on there,” Maiola said.
They also have a new beer called Dinger about to make its debut in honor of the new baseball season. That’s an American lager which will only be available in cans at the brewery and limited amounts will be sent to bars and restaurants.
For the rest of the lineup, 32- and 64-ounce growlers can be filled or you could get 12- or 16-ounce cans.
The tap room is open noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Tours start at 12:30, 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. on Saturdays. You can sign up for a tour, which are free, on their website and make a reservation.
Canterbury Aleworks
305 Baptist Hill Road, Canterbury. 491-4539, canterburyaleworks.com.
Canterbury Aleworks is a small operation – owner Steve Allman is the entire thing – but it’s not one to ignore.
Securely hidden in the depths of the Canterbury woods, this little brewery feels like a secret hideout from some movie set in the 1950s or so. Getting there requires navigating a twisty, muddy, unpaved road, but like most great things in life, it’s worth the journey it takes to get there. Once you get inside, there’s a cozy, speakeasy-type atmosphere that immediately takes over.
Allman said he usually has eight beers on tap, the products of “probably 40 or 50 different recipes.” There are four flagship beers and four that change up regularly. Usually something changes every three to four weeks, he said.
There’s no food served at Canterbury Aleworks, so that means you can only get one 4-ounce taster of each label there per day, or you could get a 32-ounce flip-top growler filled to take home with you.
“It’s really the nano nanobrewery of New Hampshire,” Allman said. “I don’t distribute, and it’s all I can do to keep up with selling growlers and tasters out of my backroom. Everything is sold right out of the store. That’s my ultimate business plan – to be able to continue to do that while continuing to grow a little more,” he said.
Allman said he’s thinking about adding cans this year to provide another option, but they wouldn’t be distributed to stores. He’s also not sure if he’d ever add food to his business, especially since there’s a piece of legislation making its way through the State House that would allow small brewers to serve pints without having to offer food. “It would just be great for all beer-interested people,” he said of the prospect of the bill becoming law.
The hours are 1 to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. If the pint bill passes Allman said he may expand hours a little and do some Friday evenings, but you’ll have to stay tuned for that. As far as tours, “I love doing tours but my hang-up is I often don’t have the time when I’m open. … It’s so small I can kind of give people the quick 5-second tour just by pointing around.”
Flying Goose Brew Pub & Grille
40 Andover Road, New London. 526-6899, flyinggoose.com.
As its name implies, Flying Goose Brew Pub & Grille is a lot more than just a little brewery – it’s also a full-blown restaurant with a full menu.
The restaurant has been there since 1993 and the brewery has been there since ’96. In all that time there have only been three brewers, so that gives you an idea of how important the beer side of the business is – and how good of a company it is to work for, according to Rik Marley, the current brewer.
“Tom Mills is the owner, and he’s a really good guy to work for,” Marley said. “By far my favorite boss I’ve ever had, and I will most likely retire from that place.”
So what makes it so special?
For starters, they have 20 beers available, plus a homemade nonalcoholic root beer for the kids. A new beer is introduced at least once a week, and they’re constantly brewing something over there. They have five different seasonals that are currently in fermenters at various stages of fermenting, including – get this – an oyster stout.
Yes, Flying Goose is making an oyster stout made with real oyster shells and oyster meat from Duxbury, Mass. “It does not taste like the ocean,” Marley said. “You would never know if I didn’t tell you that there are oysters in it.”
Instead, he said, the calcium carbonate from the shells buffers the pH level, and the salt kind of boosts the natural flavor the way it does when you use it on food. That salt also adds body and mouth feel, Marley said.
If you don’t make it to the restaurant, you can also buy Flying Goose beer at any of about 30 locations in the area that carry it, though stock varies wildly – sometimes as few as five stores will have any of their beer in stock, Marley said.
The restaurant opens at 11:30 a.m. and closes about 9 p.m. daily. “On weekends we go later but we stop serving food at 9,” Marley said, adding that they often stay open until 10:30 p,m, on weekends.
“Our focus is not on keeping people there drinking beer deep into the night,” Marley said. “We don’t stay open till last call. We’re balancing beer and food.”
There’s also a live music series, with about 10 concerts a year. Tours are possible if time allows for it, but there are no set tour times. And you can take home any beer you want in 32- or 64-ounce growlers. Select beers are also available in 22-ounce bottles.
Oddball Brewing Company
6 Glass St., Suncook. 210-5654, oddballbrewingnh.com.
Oddball Brewing Co. likes to do things differently and march to the beat of its own drum.
The brewery and tap room occupy a pretty small building in Suncook, but owner Bill Walden has managed to squeeze every last square inch out of that place to make it a successful beer business.
When you walk in, you’re in the tap room with a small bar and just a few spots to sit. Below you can see the tanks and hoses and all the equipment used to brew the beer. Up a couple steps to a slightly higher deck is another big tank where liquids and solids combine to turn into beer, with places to sit around it.
There are usually six beers on tap, sometimes five, Walden said. “We sell fast enough that we often run out.”
They have three regular beers and two seasonals, and they’ll add one occasionally – it’s based on what customers want, Walden said.
Although the place is small, it does serve food like sandwiches, hot pretzels and Crock Pot fare. This means, sure enough, that full pints are also available, though if you prefer you can still get a flight of tasters.
Growlers can be bought and filled at the brewery, and most beers are $5 fills (some specialty beers are $8 for a fill). Unusual beers they’ve made include a mango jalapeno sahti – a type of beer about 500 years old from Finland.
Bottles are available in some stores, but it tends to sell out quick, Walden said. On the other hand, places like Buffalo Wild Wings and Chuck’s Barbershop in Concord now have it on tap.
Tours are given on an informal, unscheduled basis. If you’d like to tour the place, just ask.
Hours are Friday from 3 to 7 p.m., Saturday 1 to 6 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. Those hours may extend come May, but check back in with them when it’s closer to that time.
Big Water Brewery
24 Robie Road, Salisbury. 648-6068, bigwaterbrewery.net.
In a juxtaposition of name and reality, Big Water Brewery is actually a very small business.
“I’m a small brewery on residential property, so I’m not allowed to sell out of here,” said owner Benjamin Jones. “I brew out of my garage, and I was the last nanobrewery licensed in a home in New Hampshire. In May it will be three years in business, but I’ve been brewing for almost 20.”
Jones distributes his roughly 13 labels to about 50 different places throughout the state, with “quite a few” sours in the repertoire.
“I believe I make more sours than anyone else in the state,” he said. “They became popular and I continued to make them to keep up with demand.”
Jones makes a new beer about once every couple months, he said, with things getting a little slower in the winter. “I stock up in the winter, don’t usually brew that much,” he said.
It’s a three-barrel system that makes about 100 gallons per batch. Jones said he brews on average once a week, so about 5,000 gallons a year, or about 50 batches.
For odd beers, “I had a Belgian triple I aged in pepperoncini barrels,” he said. And “a citrus sour started as an experiment that I make regularly now.”
The beer is primarily available in 12-ounce bottles, but Jones will occasionally do some 22-ounce bombers.
In the future Jones said he would like to expand and move out to a commercial location – the reason he started at home was he just didn’t want to incur debt, he said, but as he’s gone along he’s realized it’s hard to get big without taking on some kind of debt.
As of now, Big Water Brewery beer is available at the Concord Food Co-op and Epsom Circle Market, and several places farther south carry it as well.
Woodman’s Brewery
195 Peaked Hill Road, Bristol. 744-3669, facebook.com/WoodmansBrewery.
Woodman’s Brewery was created in a kitchen in a 5-gallon homebrew kit a number of years ago. The idea grew fast with every new piece of equipment purchased and tasty brews developed.
Soon enough, the cottage on their property became a brewery.
The goal at Woodman’s Brewery was to have five beers on tap to start, one being a seasonal or specialty.
At the brewery, 4-ounce tasters are available, as are 32- and 64-ounce growlers to take home. The beer list includes Blu’s Pale Ale, Alpine IPA, Ashlee’s Oatmeal Stout, Fireglow Irish Red, Woody’s Maple Cream and Woodcutter’s Wheat.
Hours are Saturday from 2 to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m.
(Woodman’s Brewery did not respond to a request for comment. Information was obtained from the company’s website.)
Kettlehead Brewing Company
407 W. Main St., Tilton. 286-8100, kettleheadbrewing.com.
Kettlehead Brewing is a small craft brewery focused on building better beers. Kettlehead brews are served from the taproom as well as packaged in cans to be sold on premise. The kitchen offers a small menu of locally sourced foods.
The brewery offers 4-ounce tasters, half pours, full pours and 32-ounce crowlers. There are 20 total varieties listed, with 12 on tap now, including Chardee McDennis Dry Irish Stout, Shuttlebus Rye IPA, Bomb Pop Raspberry Sour and Udder Punch Lactose IPA. They also serve wine.
The beer can be found on tap in five locations (Laconia Local Eatery, Tuckaway Tavern in Raymond, Hop & Grind in Durham, The Hungry Diner in Walpole and Highland Mt. Bike Park in Northfield).
The food is scratch made from quality, fresh ingredients. Whenever possible, they work directly with local farms and rely on Blackriver Produce for daily deliveries of hormone- and antibiotic-free New England -raised meats.
Hours are Wednesday and Thursday from noon to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday from noon to 9 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.
(Kettlehead Brewing Co. did not respond to a request for comment. Information was obtained from the company’s website.)
Out.Haus Ales
442 1st New Hampshire Turnpike #2, Northwood. 548-2151, outhausales.com.
Billed as “Northwood, New Hampshire’s first Nano-brewery,” Out.Haus Ales is a three-barrel nano-brewery in Northwood. Built in the garage during the summer of 2013, the brewery was officially licensed in November 2013 and the beer became available January 2014.
There are eight beers on tap (including IPA, IA Imperial Amber, Red Ale, Brown Ale, Fly Ryte Rye Porter, Coffee-Oatmeal Stout), with six available in bottles. Growlers and growlettes are also available at the brewery. Typical fill price is $8 for 32 ounces and $16 for 64 ounces. Specialty beers may be more expensive.
Out.Haus beers can be found on tap at Area 23, Barley House and four other places. Their 22-ounce bottles are usually available at 12 different stores including Bert’s Better Beers in Hooksett and Epsom Circle Market in Epsom.
Tasting room hours are Thursday and Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. and Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. If you would like to see the brewery outside of the official tasting hours, call at least a week in advance to make sure the calendar is clear.
Out.Haus Ales will be releasing the newest Whiskey Barrel Brown and West Coast Double IPA on Friday, and on the 12th will come the latest Barleywine.
(Out.Haus Ales did not respond to a request for comment. Information was obtained from the company’s website.)
Blasty Bough Brewing Company
3 Griffin Road, Epsom. 724-3636. facebook.com/blastyboughbrewingcompany.
Located on an old New Hampshire hill farm, on the same hilltop where a tavern operated decades before the Revolutionary War, Blasty Bough Brewing Company takes it’s name from a branch of pine, turned amber by the sun that is used to start a fire.
Blasty is all about place, celebrating local flavors, having fun with local characters and adding its own twist to traditional brewing styles. They want people to come and love the beer (of course), but also to feel connected to the landscape, history and to the flavors that come from the land. They work with a nearby farm to grow grain, and thrive off the idea of being a farm-to-kettle operation – with endless possibilities about what they can produce on the land that will go into their beers.
The beers change regularly and range from low alcohol session beers like the Old Immigrant to big, flavorful New England-style Double IPAs like the Fort Mountain. For craft beer week, they put together a collaboration saison, Farmer’s Alchemy, with Canterbury Aleworks. There’s also the Rosa Ru Gose, for the second weekend of Craft beer week. As well as Jigs and Reels, an Irish red with maple and spruce. In all, they like to have eight beers on tap.
On April 13, the BlastyTrad concert series will host Matthew Byrne from 7 to 9 p.m. Make sure to call for availability. And on April 14, from 1 to 6 p.m., Blasty is hosting a craft beer and ironmongery event featuring Thomas Boucher from Greasy Luck Forge, who will will be smithing out craft iron bottle openers.
Hours are Friday from 5 to 9 p.m, Saturday, 1 to 9 p.m., and Sunday, 1 to 6 p.m. Also available by appointment.
