Rising from the Ashes
Revival Brewing has taken over the Brutopia restaurant area upstairs at its brewing and tasting room location in Cranston. All tasting room activities, including can sales, taps, games and merchandise, have moved from downstairs into that recently vacated area. Brewmaster/owner Sean Larkin, who began his career in the kitchen at Trinity Brewhouse, has expanded Revival’s interest into kitchen activities with an initial limited menu.
“2019 is going to be an exciting year for us with this new venture providing the opportunity to host some great events, new beer offerings and more possibilities than ever before,” said Sean.
The operation has been rebranded Revival Foodworks and Brewery. Jenn’s Mocha Stout, a Revival/94HJY collaboration beer, has returned. New beers include a blood orange version of Bushido Pumpkin Ale (9.0% ABV), and Wafel, a Belgian-style tripel ale brewed in collaboration with Burgundian Waffles.
Long Awaited Beerworks
“Things are moving along at full steam here,” said owner Armando DeDona on the long-awaited move to Long Live Beerworks’ new location on the west side of Providence. “We’re still enjoying the current space, but we’re eager to roll out to the new space. Hopefully, that’ll happen in the next month or so. It’ll afford us a lot more room and bandwidth as a brand.” Which leads us to….
Beer in Providence
…a lot of local folks are anxious for Long Live Beerworks (LLB) to move to its new facility, but possibly none more than Beer On Earth (BOE) owners Adam Henderson and Paul DiBiase.
“We’re beyond excited to announce that we’ll be moving to the space formerly occupied by LLB this spring,” said Adam. “Our plan right from the beginning was to start out in the shared space in North Kingstown with the ultimate goal of eventually moving BOE to its own location. We saw this opportunity as too good to pass up. We feel like we gained experience and confidence brewing on our professional system in North Kingstown, and we’re prepared for the challenge of increasing production and starting to can some of our bigger selling beers, particularly popular DIPA Double OT (7.0%).
Paul and Adam have purchased LLB’s existing equipment and signed a long-term lease for the space.
“We look forward to making the West End our home for a long time to come, and we’re forever grateful to all of the folks in North Kingstown who supported us since the beginning,” Adam added. “We hope they continue to come and visit us in our new spot.”
On the beer front, the pair recently released Salut, a Brut IPA, and a chocolate peanut butter stout. March should see the return of Berliner Weisse I Am A Donut, and lighter ABV options as BOE gears towards its spring beer lineup.”
A Homecoming of Sorts
Providence’s Union Station has a new head brewer: Dave Kenney spent two years brewing at Boston Beerworks, followed by a short stint at Newport Craft Beer and Distilling, and he’s quite happy with his new home.
“I like being able to oversee the entire process, make my own beers and get involved in recipe design,” Dave said.
He’s quickly made his influence felt. Long staple Northern Light has morphed into Lighthouse Lager.
“I tweaked it a little bit. I wanted to keep one previous beer on and pay homage to the previous brewers.”
Other recent beers include DIPA Powdered Mistletoe (8.0%), Belgian-style witbier The Nit Wit and English-style barleywine Liquid Ledger (8.6%).
“I like to do coffee beers too, so look for a lot of coffee stouts down the road,” Dave continued. “I really like this place. I came here a lot as a lad, back when I was getting into beer. I never would have thought I would’ve ended up brewing here, but here I am.”
From Shell to Shelf
Westerly’s Grey Sail Brewing has released The Pearl, the latest in its Wheelhouse Creative Ale series release, available in the taproom and at retail.
“It’s a white chocolate oyster stout brewed with vanilla beans, cocoa nibs and oysters from our friends at Watch Hill Oysters,” said co-owner Alan Brinton.
Grey Sail has added a beer engine to the taproom and taps a new cask weekly. Thursday nights are Thirken Thursdays with cask tapped imperial pints at a discount.
Maple Tapping
Brewer Kevin Beacham has been experimenting with some new styles at Taproot Brewing in Middletown.
“We have a Scotch Ale (8.4%) where we racked half away into maple syrup/rye whiskey barrels to age,” Kevin said. “We also have a smoked helles — all the malt came from a maltster out in Wareham, Mass. We naturally carbonated that one in the tank.”
Regular rotation beers include a dunkelweizen brewed with a decoction mash, a porter, a pilsner and an assortment of IPAs and DIPAs.
Reason to Be Cheerful
Well regarded as a spot for good food and good beer, What Cheer Tavern in Providence has new ownership and a new chef. The latest incarnation may be the best version yet. Mike Delehanty, who also books bands at The Met, is the new owner along with two partners.
“We were looking for a spot for about a year, found out this became available and swooped in pretty fast,” said Mike. “It’s exactly what we were looking for, a neighborhood bar we would want to spend a lot of time at.”
Mike brought in a handpicked bartending staff, some new furniture and applied some fresh paint with a goal of creating a communal tavern with a hangout feel to it. The beer menu has remained strong, with ten taps and a curated cooler.
“I try to have one lager, one pilsner, one cider, one dark beer, one sour and the rest a mix of IPAs and seasonal beers,” said Mike.
The kitchen is where What Cheer has really risen the bar (pun intended). Chef Alberto Lopez brings 30 years of experience including ten years at Venda Ravioli, as part of the opening team at Chapel Grille in Cranston and most recently as head chef at The Dorrance in Providence. The result is gastronome-worthy menu items.
“My goal is to provide a friendly atmosphere with great food, gourmet pub food with an emphasis on local foods and businesses,” said Alberto. “I cook from the heart.”
Wet & Wild
Last year, Apponaug Brewery’s (Warwick) brewer, Justin Tisdale, was involved in a local charity beer effort raising money for the Houston Hurricane relief fund.
“A few of us were talking recently how well that worked and was generally a good idea,” said Justin. “The idea was thus born to raise money for local non-profit Save The Bay, with local brewers willing to put themselves on the line for a drop into a dunking booth — on an outdoor patio, in the middle of winter. As of mid-January, we have 17 Rhode Island breweries committed to participating. People can buy a chance to dunk their favorite (or least favorite) brewer.”
Justin is brewing a one-off hot chocolate stout with chocolate and marshmallows. All proceeds from that beer and dunking activities go to Save The Bay. Other raffle prizes and swag are going to be on hand from 2-5 p.m. on February 2.
Apponaug is also in the process of rolling out a new menu, with “… a bunch of new food items. Also, I have a couple of oak barrels filled with stout I’ll be looking to blend for release mid-February,” said Justin. “It’s at 10.4% right now.”
Isn’t it Good, Norwegian Bier
Last issue cover stars Shaidzon Beer in West Kingstown recently released a collaboration with Portland, Maine’s, Novare Res Bier Café.
“Ode to Aegir, is a Norwegian-style farmhouse ale brewed with juniper boughs and a Norwegian yeast strain,” said co-owner Chip Samson. “We were excited to try it ourselves and definitely excited to get it out and available to everyone.”
A dry-hopped variation of flagship Buffalo Czech Pilsner is planned for late February.
Lucky 13
Portsmouth’s Ragged Island Brewing wards off bad luck with a double bottle release on February 13.
“We’re releasing a raspberry chocolate stout in small-bottle format, and a large bottle-format of a barley wine (11%),” said Brewer Tony Barber. “400 bottles per style.”
A big canning run March 13 sees six different styles packaged into 16-ounce cans.
“We’re canning DIPA Liquid Hugs (8.0%) featuring Citra hops, American pale ale Aquidneck Ale, NEIPA Surfer’s End (6.0%) dry-hopped heavily with Galaxy and Vic Secret hops, porter Baulston Porter (6.5%), dry Irish stout 5th Ward Stout and Vienna Lager Old Boys,” Tony said. The tasting room will be open for sales that night.
Sour, Not Seedy
Pawtucket’s Smug Brewing has quickly established itself, with multiple beers available at the brewery, at retail and in bars. Blackberry sour ale Be Fruitful and Multiply will be available through February on draft, with cans of IPA Driving Miss Hazy (6.5%) and vanilla chai milk stout Short and Stout (7.0%) available at the brewery and at retail.
“We’re releasing a new IPA brewed with Neomexicanus hops, a native American hop recently discovered within the last five years,” said owner Rob DaRosa. “It’s a very fruit-forward hop with a ton of aroma. I’m excited to see how this beer turns out. It’ll be a regular IPA, so expect a little bite at the end.”
Better than a Whitman’s Sampler
Crooked Current’s (Pawtucket) brewer Nichole Pelletier celebrates February and Valentine’s Day with her annual chocolate-beer celebration: Chocolate Orange Stout, Chocolate Mint Stout, Chocolate Habanero Stout and Chocolate Cherry Stout. All are available at the taps and for crowler/howler fills.Irish Red Ale returns in honor of St. Paddy’s Day, and Horchata Cream Ale, Hawaiian Robust Porter and Neapolitan Brown Ale round out the offerings. A collaboration with White Dog Distillery is currently baking in barrels (yes, that’s a hint) for a tentative spring release.
