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Go Home Boston Beer Week, You’re Drunk

So Boston Beer Week starts today, and ironically ends on the 17th. Call me crazy but 10 days do not a week make. Hence the title of this blog post.  But hey we’ll take a few extra days of beer celebration.  Why the hell not? Shaky definition of a “week” notwithstanding, we’ve got a lot of shit going on — and while we’ll undoubtedly be telling ya’ll through social media, we figured we’d put it all in one place...
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Salute – Tasting Notes

Hello Hello Hello- Here we are at another installment of pre-release tasting notes, and I honestly couldn’t be any more excited.  You see, usually when we produce a new beer we go heavy on how much beer we put into our 22oz bombers.  As such, there’s normally plenty to go around (one 20 barrel batch of our beer will net out 3,000+ bottles, just for some perspective).  However, with this beer we decided to go heavy into kegs.  The...
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Going American – Salute

  It’s been about 18 months since Backlash has been selling beer commercially. Damn, where did the time go? Somewhere amidst the endless beer tastings, beer fests, brew days, labeling days, waxing days, and lots of drinking, a year and a half went by. We set goals — some we hit and some we did not.  We made pretty awesome beer.  We made a shitty beer. We’ve grown, a lot. One thing has been consistent though since we started —...
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Clarity

I’ve said it before, but I’m continually amazed by how things work out in life. It’s crazy to me how I can go days on end with a bullet proof diet, being well hydrated, completely sober and not have one deep, “intellectual” thought.  Then in a hungover haze, full of 2 a.m. regret pizza, in a bedroom devoid of light, be struck with realizations that really cut to the core of me. Life has no sense of timing. Moments...
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Letting Go

  Ask anyone. I’m a perfectionist – to my own detriment. As a brewer, I’m predisposed to being my own biggest critic (as I think all brewers/creators of any art form are).  I’ll be the first person to point out that maybe I could have done better on the hop character, malt flavor, dryness , color, etc of a beer.  I’m never quite content. As a business owner, I obsess over details.  Because really, if I don’t, who else...
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Behind Backlash: Helder Pimentel

Behind Backlash is a small series of posts dedicated to giving a little more insight into the people that make Backlash what it is. Meet: Helder Pimentel, Backlash Founder // Brewer Helder is 28 years old, and was born and raised in Taunton, MA (read: the ghetto). He’s the youngest of 2 children; his older sister Dina helped out immensely in the beginning stages of Backlash (and she’s kind of a big deal on the internets herself). Where does...
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Conquest – Tasting Notes

  Alright- So I know  a few days ago we published a blog post about the Apocalypse series/Conquest, but it wasn’t crazy-descriptive about Conquest itself.  Being that the beer is about to hit shelves (like, tomorrow), I thought it would be appropriate to post some tasting notes here so everyone knows what they’re getting into.  I literally just poured myself a glass (10:00 pm on 9/19), so away we go. Appearance:  Hazy golden color – a great billowing head...
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Apocalypse Series – Conquest

So. As you may or may not know (depending on how connected you are to the FB and Twits), we have some cool shit coming up in the next few months.  What am I talking about, specifically?  I’m talking about our Apocalypse Series. I know you probably have a bunch of questions right now, so keep with us here.  I’ll try to address the major ones. What is the Apocalypse Series? So the idea is to craft 4 different...
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One Year Check-In

  Damn  It’s insane to think that a year ago today, we were launching Groundswell at Sunset Grill and Tap in Allston.  A ton of awesome people came out to help two ambitious kids kick off a long shot, at best, of an idea.  Flash forward and here we are:  Backlash can now be found in all corners of Massachusetts and we’ve launched another two beers to accompany our flagship.  I truly feel like the beers are getting better...
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ONCEMADE Collaboration

Coming up on the heels of our one year anniversary, we’re beyond siked to officially announce our partnership with the awesome dudes at Night Shift Brewing to bring you guys SUPER limited and unique saisons for Pintley‘s ONCEMADE project. We brewed a pale saison and Night Shift brewed a red saison — both are being barrel aged over local Massachusetts raspberries. Less than 900 of these two-bottle sets will EVER be available, and they’re already moving fast. We have another post...
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GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR BEER

Before you even begin reading this post, let me set the stage:  I’m not here to name names, point fingers, or put anyone on blast.  If you’re looking for insider industry drama, you’ve come to the wrong place. With that said, and at the risk of sounding like a complete douchebag, here we go. The past year has seen a shit load of new faces enter the craft beer market here in Massachusetts (with us being one of them).  What’s even...
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Smile, It’s Not That Bad

  Sometimes, the silver linings find you. Allow me to explain, and it goes a little something like this: Last week was a bit of a shit sandwich for yours truly.  Driving to Holyoke from Boston 5 days in a row to label/wax dip bottles of beer isn’t exactly the most fun thing to do, especially when it’s balls hot.  It also doesn’t help when you’re by yourself for 3 out of 5 of those days, and all 8...
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Diving In

Those of you who follow our blog/progress probably know that a few months ago I became Backlash’s first full-time employee.  Working for a beer company I started was (and still is) a far cry from what I’d spent the previous ~2 years doing — specifically, wearing a suit and sitting in a cube all day.  Since then, I’ve spent a lot of my time “doing me”.  Feel like growing a beard today, Helder?  Go for it.  Want to get...
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Growing Pains

I like to add a little visual to every post, and it might seem weird that I chose to go with an empty glass for a post entitled “Growing Pains”, so let me explain. Backlash Beer, as a company, is about 9 months old.  For all intents and purposes, we’re babies. It might not seem that way, because we came to market at a time when a lot of other companies were starting out as well. Relatively speaking, we’ve been around...
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Barrels 101 – Prepping your barrel

This is the second post in a series I’ve committed to writing, focused solely on using spent liquor/wine barrels in home brewing.  Just in case you missed it, here’s the first post. So at this stage I have a couple barrels which are being stored with plain water and the chemical mixture I discussed previously.  Several weeks ago, I brewed a Belgian Chocolate Stout which has just recently finished fermenting and I think will do well with some barrel...
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Behind the Scenes: Brew Woo

Beer fests are fun.  They’re also pretty exhausting for those who work them, especially brewers.  Don’t believe me?  Next time you’re at a two-session fest that lasts until, say 9:00 PM, head over to your favorite brewer and say hello at like 8:45 PM.  Observe the look on their face.  It usually says something like “Please find me a couch, asap”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m supremely thankful for every beer fest invite I get- and we try to...
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Never-Look-Back: Meeting Garrett Oliver

I’m continuously amazed by how things just happen sometimes. Yesterday I was riding along with a distribution rep on the north shore when he got a phone call.  Turns out one of his friends had secured some tickets to the Brooklyn Brewery beer dinner at Eastern Standard and I had a chance to attend.  Not being one to turn down good food and good beer, I immediately said yes.  I mean, what else am I doing, right? It wasn’t...
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Barrels 101

The following post is going to be the first of a 3 post series about barrels.  In this installment we’ll cover some barrel basics.  Part 2 will cover how to use a barrel for aging your home brew, and Part 3 will cover some troubleshooting should you neglect your barrels, as I did.  Enjoy! You may have noticed more and more beers hitting the scene that are “barrel aged” or “barrel fermented”, but what does it all mean?  Why...
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What’s in My Beer?

A couple days ago, I got a QR code review that bothered me a little bit.  Here it is: Appearance: 1 Aroma: 3 Taste: 2 Overall: 2 Comments: “Why they hell is there a snowstorm of white particles in this beer? I’m pretty sure it’s wax, and that’s f*cked up.” In typical me-fashion, I took to Twitter and made a joke out of it, ridiculing the reviewer for not knowing what the particles in a Belgian-style beer are: But...
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Labors of Love

  Labors of love — we have plenty. We try to impress a hands-on feeling to almost everything we do. Whether it’s hand labeling, wax dipping and hand stamping all our bombers, or making homemade candi sugar for our beer, we do what it takes. It’s not always the easiest way, and almost never the most efficient way — but it’s what we believe to be the right way, and that’s all we give a shit about. Today’s example: carefully...
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Thoughts on Groundswell 2.0

So since our launch in July 2011, I’ve had some time to think about/tinker with the Groundswell recipe.  The beer was a pretty huge hit, and a lot of people loved it.  I was really happy with the results, especially given the fact that I scaled up a 5 gallon home-brew batch to 20 BBLs and the result wasn’t a total train-wreck.  I was more nervous about that batch than you can imagine. As you may or may not...
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Backlash Going State Wide

Posted 14 Jan 2012 in Progress

I had to take a second, while the ink on our newly signed distribution contract is still wet, to share some feelings around this new development here at Backlash.

Awwww isn’t that cute! He’s gonna talk about FEELINGS!

Yea, I know.  Whatever.  Shut up.

Seriously, it’s hard to put into words the overwhelming sense of joy, pride and, most importantly, GRATITUDE I feel right now.  Maggie and I have been in this thing, head down, day in and day out for the past six months.  Often when you’re so involved in a task or project, you lose the forest for the trees.

Wait…did I just use that correctly?  Fuck it.

Basically what I’m trying to say is that you lose track of the progress you’re making when you look at something every day.  Awesome, another bar.  A few more liquor stores selling our beer.  Another person who tried our beer and liked it at a festival, tasting, etc.  We’ve been stuck in the hustle and personally, I haven’t taken a second to step back and really look at the big picture.

Until today.

I mean goddamn.. 6 months ago Backlash was just an idea. 

Our beer was just some notes in my homebrew log about beer brewed on a dirty stove. 

Our logo was nothing more than a few scribbles of brass knuckles on a white board in my kitchen in Brighton.

Our gear?  lol. 6 months ago Maggie, myself and my former roommate Tim literally stayed up one Saturday night spraying black t shirts with a bleach mixture through a stencil to make branded apparel. (I still have those T shirts by the way, if the bleach hasn’t eaten straight through them by now)

Now here we are.  We’ll soon be available in all corners of the state, people LOVE the beer, and every once in a while I get this huge shit-eating grin on my face as a result of seeing someone in the streets wearing one of our T shirts. 

It’s just… wow.

I really can’t say enough to thank everyone who has paid their hard earned money for one of our beers- or said something kind about us- or helped spread the word about our little company in any shape or form.  For a humble homebrewer, words can’t explain how much it all means to me.  You guys are the absolute fucking best.

There’s not much more I can do to thank you all- aside from continuing to do what I’ve been doing.  Specifically, brewing the best possible beer I can, connecting with as many of you as I can, and staying humble throughout the process.

At the end of the day, we just brew the stuff.  The success, that’s all you guys.  YOU are the Backlash.

Tonight I raise my glass to you- and to a bright 2012!

Cheers!

Helder

Posted by Backlash