Drink

What's Brewing in Providence

Local brewers offer a sip of fall this season

Posted

October is a month awash in beer. The rest of the calendar year is awash in it, too, I suppose. (Rhode Islanders are a sudsy lot.) But October beer is a special breed, and its devotees take on a certain, giddy fervor at the prospect of reuniting with it.

Suffixes like “-fest” begin to crop up on event posters. Adjectives like “spiced” and “toasty” promise the equivalent of a fireside snuggle in liquid form. Pumpkin mania erupts. And after months of sweating out of every conceivable pore, and rehydrating with thin pilsners and astringent pale ales, we're ready for it.

Luckily, folks in the state's burgeoning craft beer and microbrewing scene have worked to ensure that we have choices beyond the schlocky, one-note, mass-produced beers that have dominated the seasonal market for some time. Crappy pumpkin beer won't happen on their watch.

Sean Larkin, the guru behind the beers at Trinity Brewhouse as well as those under the Revival tent, associates the fall season with a return to intensity. “To me, it means embracing flavor again,” he offers. “That's not to say that summer beers are devoid of flavor. It's just that fall is the time to embrace the dark, warm tones of malt.”

Malt is the backbone of beer, but it goes somewhat underground with summer beers to maximize their thirst-quenching factor. It can be a nice change of pace, sure, but for the brewing set, fall's occasion to return to malt and showcase it again is a sweet one. Accordingly, “brewers pull out all the stops for their fans in the fall,” Larkin explains, with a tenor of sincere passion.

At Revival, this means the return of the Imperial Octoberfest, a fan favorite heavy with German malts and hops, as well as the rollout of a special-edition imperial brown ale later in the season. That beer — with a knock-you-down 9% ABV and a slightly sinister pro-file — is set to be christened “Mercy Brown,” after the notorious Exeter woman who sparked a Victorian-era vampire panic. Meanwhile at Trinity, the taps will return to standbys that were built for crisp weather: the Imperial Belgian Pumpkin Ale, the Scotch Ale and the Russian Imperial Stout.

In Newport, the Coastal Brewing Co. is covering seasonal bases with the return of its crowd-pleaser Oktoberfest-Märzen and the debut of its first-annual pumpkin ale. “We had a Cyclone series pumpkin ale called Gloria way back in the day,” says Brewmaster Derek Luke, which was immensely popular but had to compete with the Oktoberfest for tank space. “Our tanks are sized such that we can't have bottled and draught versions of both,” he says, so pumpkin ale went out of production for years.

This season, though, the team decided to go halfsies in order to satiate demand: the Oktoberfest-Märzen lager will be available in bottles, and the pumpkin ale will be on draught. Called RIP (for “Rhode Island Pumpkin”), the ale starts life with three full pounds of pumpkin per keg, and incorporates allspice, clove and cinnamon sourced from a mill in Wakefield.

Down in Westerly, the upstart brewery Grey Sail will stick to Germanic lineage with the return of the Autumn Winds Fest Beer as their fall seasonal. Head brewer and “yeast wrangler” Josh Letourneau uses five German malts for its base, which yield a bread-like flavour, and finishes it with a strong dose of German noble hops for balance. (Fans of the beer will be pleased to learn that this year it's available for the first time in four-pack tall boys.) Meanwhile, the brewery's working on their second-anniversary beer, which will likely be a Belgian-style strong, dark ale, modeled after the Trappist quads. “My wife and I will be visiting some breweries in Belgium,” Letourneau notes, adding with a slight wink that he plans to get to know the style quite well. When great beer is the outcome, there is no such thing as too much R&D. (P.S. Mr. Letourneau, call me. I've got research skills for days.) Back in the Bucket, no new beers are in the works at the city's eponymous little brewery that could, but that's because a massive expansion in a new space is underway — and conveniently timed for an October opening to the public. Located at 545 Pawtucket Avenue, the Bucket Brewery's new home is ten times larger than its original space, which opens up the ability to offer tours and tastings for the first time. Let's all nab a pint and celebrate.

drink, providence monthly, beer, local, craft beer, oktoberfest, pumpkin beer, drink, draft

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here



X