Beer Adventure :3/25-3/27: Part 1

I have lots of beer news this week.  I tried new beers all weekend.   After 3 months of (mostly) limiting myself to one day of beer this was like a dream come true. 

Friday I was at Harrington Wine& Liquors in downtown Chelmsford and was excited to see the beer isle stocked with lots of new options.  There were far more choices than my wallet could afford so I limited myself to a couple of four packs:  Harpoon Leviathan Quad and Holy Mackerel Panic Attack.

I really want to love Harpoon beers; they're home state boys and Harpoon IPA was one of my earliest craft beer loves but the more I try their Leviathan series and their 100 Barrel series the more I think the accountants are running that ship and not the brew master.  You just can't taste the passion. ( If that's not the case I apologize to whomever I just offended but that's the way it looks from my seat.)  The Quad was very nice and drinkable but it lacked any character.  It didn't sing.  In a word it was dull.

Contrast that with the other four pack: Holy Mackerel Panic Attack.  This powerful Belgian gold ale was all character.  It was slapping me in the face with yeasty goodness as I drank it.  It was probably too sweet but who gives a fuck when you know you're tasting the work of an artist.   One sip in and you know there's some guys who loves beer as much as you do making the choices; not some accountant who rejected a recipe because the taste profile ranked poorly with a target demographic. 

This didn't start out as a rant about Harpoon but it certainly ended that way.  I just wish they made better beer.

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