Hey Everyone- We don’t need to say how shocked/saddened we all are about yesterday’s events.  We live about a mile from the finish line and things still feel very surreal.  In light of that, we’re going to be taking the next few days off from promoting anything via social media (with the exception of twitter where we’ll be retweeting information that is relevant to what happened yesterday/how you can help). That’s not to say that our hearts and minds won’t be with those who were effected, we would just rather pay respect silently and give the social media stage to those people/organizations involved in returning Boston to its normal state. If anyone has any questions regarding Backlash-specific things...

  It’s been about a week since we’ve released Salute, our Double IPA, and all the kegs are sold. Well that escalated quickly.  So where did they all go? While we’ve been really active on social media with places where you can find the beer, I wanted to compile a list of all the places we now know have brought it in. One thing to note- these are places that have bought the beer.  It may not yet be on draft. If that’s the case, ask the bartender which beer it will be replacing and then proceed to drink the shit out of that beer. Here we go: Bars — Kegs/Draft Union Brew House – Weymouth Atwood’s Tavern –...

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 here. And away we go: 3/9/13:  Cure Me I’m Irish – Here’ well be pouring some Groundswell for a good cause.  We did this last year and the turnout was great.  Definitely something you should check out, being that it’s for...

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 reason being it is of utmost importance for this beer to be consumed fresh.  That deserves repeating. IT IS OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE THAT THIS BEER BE CONSUMED FRESH. Sorry to yell at you.  I do it out of love, I...

  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 — All of our beers have been Belgian. I’m not sure why it’s been that way to be honest.  I have nothing against hops, but I think when I started brewing for Backlash I was just burned out on IPA.  I...

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 of clarity choose you, not the other way around. I’m very lucky. That knowledge is never lost on me.  I try to remain as humble as I possibly can on a day to day basis.  It’s one of the things...

In keeping with what I guess we can now call a tradition (I’ve done this for Conquest and War), today I am posting another candid review of our third (and final, in case you missed it) Apocalypse Beer, Famine. First, a little back-story.  As is the case with every beer we’ve done in the Apocalypse Series, we try to tie the beer back to the horseman which it represents.  With Conquest I did this by playing off of the beer’s color (‘white”) to tie back with the white horse which Conquest rode.  With War I also used the color of the beer (kinda sorta red), but in addition I infused the beer with an element of conflict by using...

  Oh boy. Talk about screwing the pooch — we’ve out done ourselves this time, ladies and gents. As you might know, we’ve been debuting new beers as our four-part Apocalypse Series for the last few months.  So far Conquest and War have been well received, and Famine should be hitting the shelves in the next few days.  Although the timing wasn’t perfect (we had initially hoped to release all four in 2012), the beers themselves have been promising.  The last in the series, Death, was slated to hit the market around the end of this month. That was the plan. The thing is, you can plan until you’re blue in the face but things don’t always work out...

  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 will?  It’s me at the helm, and that’s it.  Look away for too long and you’re off course, coasting into peril. I pour over the ins and outs of everything I can control, looking for an advantage or any insight...

A couple months ago, I wrote a post describing what people could expect from our first Apocalypse Series beer, Conquest.  Being that our 2nd Apocalypse beer has just gone into inventory at our distributor (in Boston at least), I thought it would make sense to do the same for it. Ladies and gents, I introduce War: As it goes, War is the second horseman of the Apocalypse.  With man’s desire to conquer his fellow man (aka Conquest, the first horseman) set firmly in place, the outcome is almost a foregone conclusion: War. In the spirit of the horseman, I wanted to infuse this beer with an element of conflict.  To get there, I pitted 3 yeast strains against one...