Dogfish head called something like this called a Randall
We had one at our restaurant that we’d use one a week and it was always a massive disaster and would take forever to defoam if it worked at all and none of our customers gave a shit anyways and ended up being a huge waste. Sorry captain buzzkill here.
And ya I’ve mentioned this before but we would get a free shifter beer every day after work and I would drink whatever the best or freshest IPA was every day until the keg kicked or we got something better. My new job gives me free spindrift soda water so that’s cool I guess.
The silliest thing about my wedding booze situation is that we left about 1/3 of the wine, which was almost all the red wine, at my wife’s house without taking it to the reception, and almost no one cared. The homebrew beer and the custom cocktails we created ourselves based on our own liqueur creations were good enough that ordering wine was almost uncouth.
Yes! I think it’s that. The one my brother got for my wedding wasn’t half that sophisticated looking. It was a wooden table with a tap coming out the top with a line out the bottom with something like a pool filter in the middle stuffed with hops.
I actually think in a restaurant or bar situation, it’d take so much fussing to be good as to hardly be worth it, but for a few hours at a wedding? Pretty great.
Reminds me, many moons ago La Conner Brewing here in WA did a “dry-hopped” IPA where they would jam a couple fresh hop flowers into the bottle along with the beer. It was good but a pita because you had to strain the hop chunks out before you drank it.
The building where I worked at my last job had rotating taps too which was pretty cool. Not that I often wanted to drink after or during work but it was still nice when a favorite showed up. Usually a pretty decent local selection, with one cheaper beer, occasionally mixing it up with something from elsewhere (like we got Abita Purple Haze once, which I hadn’t had in years).
Anyone ever went on a northeast brewery road trip? I’m thinking some sort of route that includes flying into Boston and renting a car. Treehouse → Portland for Bissell + lobstah + other breweries → Vermont → fly out somewhere in Vermont?
I use to drink way too much beer, all around here, but none recently, so my input may be old.
I’m sure you’re aware but TH is not exactly close to Boston and there is not much at all going on out that way. You may want to consider flying into Hartford (BDL), go to TH, and then up to Boston/Maine. Idk if it’s much shorter but to me it would feel better than just driving up and down the Mass Pike. The new TH brewery is a pretty cool spot to hang out though.
In Portland, Allagash is my favorite brewery to tour. Last time I was up there a few years ago we did a private tour that culminated with having a couple coolship beers in the actual coolship. Super awesome experience.
No breweries worth going to in Portsmouth, but I always enjoy going to that area. It’s about halfway between Portland and Boston. Bunch of cool bars/restaurants with local brews on tap of course.
Appreciate the tips. I actually did my bachelor party in Portland and had the exact same experience at Allagash. It was day 2 so I was incredibly hungover, but we took a tour and the guide ended up taking us to the aging room and hooked us up with basically unlimited amounts of their rare beers. It will forever be the greatest brewery tour I’ve ever been on. I wish I had access to Allagash White year round.
Fun story - I met the now owner back in 2004 on Xbox Live playing Halo 2. We were in the same clan and ended up being top 5 in the world in Big Team Battle (a game mode in the game). I reconnected recently with him and can’t wait to meet him in person at the brewery on this future trip. I was 14 at the time which is crazy to think about how much has changed.
