Finally! The most up to date book on New England craft beer is here!
After three years of my blabbing, mewling and hoping, here on this blog and my Facebook and Twitter platforms, my new beer book is published!
You can find it here on Amazon:
Unlike many craft beer books that focus on a single state or region, What’s Brewing in New England covers all 6 states: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut and last but not least, Little Rhodie.
When I began writing the book, there were about 3000 craft breweries in the United States. Today, there are about 4300. If you log onto the Brewers Association website, you can find out what their figures show. They’re pretty up to date.
Dave Geary poses with his laid back lab, May, 2014. Today Geary’s also has a tasting room.
In the coming weeks, I’ll begin blogging more often. I promise! And I’ll show you the photos I shot during my three-year-long journey of researching, phone-calling, interviewing, tasting and beer-bus-touring. The photo above, of the master Dave Geary, is special. Dave and his late wife Karen began Geary’s Brewing in 1986. It has the honor of being the first craft brewery east of the Mississippi post-Prohibition.
The beauty of talking to the brewers in person is that they’ll often spill the beans on some aspect of their lives and careers. Dave told me about the brewery in Scotland where he learned to brew and how centuries before it had a secret room where priests would say Mass for local Catholics who might be persecuted for practicing their faith.
He also talked about leading a beer class aboard a cruise ship. Does that need any further elaboration? Sounds like great fun.
Scott Bendtson and Ethan Evangelos stand in front of their boil kettle and mash tun at Threshers Brewing Company
Threshers Brewing Company was the most recent Maine brewery to open on August 6, 2016. Others have opened since:
Lone Pine in Portland. Opened in 2016. Yum, beer
Also debuted in summer, 2016: Foulmouthed in SoPo.
In a brilliant beer-food pairing move, Foulmouthed’s chef makes a killer poutine. What’s poutine?
French fries, cheese, gravy and bacon. What diet?
Tom Bull takes a break from the brewery to talk about Dirigo Brewing
Stay tuned, people! There is much more to come in this exciting beer scene. That’s only Maine! There are 5 more states to go. And I’ll continue to cover them so you can set your GPS and go!
