Archive for the 'Mayflower Brewing' category
Mayflower Brewing Mayflower Pale Ale
Mayflower Brewing in Plymouth, MA just started shipping their beer this past week. The head brewer at Mayflower is Matthew Steinberg, who used to be the head brewer at Offshore Ale Company of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. I have met Matt a few times at local beer events and he is a great guy to talk to (friendly, and knowledgeable about the beer craft). Since Matt made some outstanding beers while at Offshore (Hop Goddess and Inkwell Double Stout are standouts for me), I was happy to find out that one of the first kegs off of Mayflower’s line would be tapped at a bar near me. The beer is called Mayflower Pale Ale and is the first of four beers (porter, IPA, and golden ale being the other three) to be coming from Mayflower.
By the time the beer arrived from being poured, the head had subsided down to a thin, full, white covering. Based off the beautiful lace stickage on the glass I would estimate the head poured a finger and a half. The body of the beer was a crystal clear red/orange (though due to the lighting of the bar I can not be certain of the coloring) with a steady stream of bubbles working up the pint glass. I gave the beer a quick swirl, to coax some aromatics from the beer’s head, that produced a light caramel malt smell with some floral hop notes.
The taste followed through with the aroma’s simplicity of a nice bread flavor middle, and a slight hop bitterness for the finish. This bitterness had a nice “drying” factor to it and made the beer quite refreshing. The clean malt after taste sealed the deal.
Though straight forward in taste, I found the beer refreshing and enjoyable. This beer would definitely make a great session beer for many an occasion. For the time being however, Mayflower is only available via keg, but come mid- to late-February, bottles should be hitting store shelves. Being a self-distributing microbrewery, I would not expect their distribution area to be all that large to begin with, but hopefully it will grow. In the mean time, there is now another reason to visit Plymouth… besides a rock.
(Note: For further reading about Mayflower Brewing, Drinkcraftbeer.com put up a good interview with Matt about the new brewery.)
