Strike Mash Boil

It is just a few short weeks before one of our favorite Beer Festivals of the year kicks off. The New England Real Ale Exhibition, or NERAX, is a celebration of Real Ale or Cask Ale. With 110+ casks and half of those sourced directly from the UK, this is the largest Cask Ale festival in the USA.

We sit down with Mark and Gary from NERAX to ask a few questions and talk about Cask Ale. Cheers!

For information and tickets : https://www.nerax.org/

It's been a minute since we've recorded, so we decided to come back in style by blind tasting Nitro Dry Irish Stouts. We've got 8 to go through : Guinness, Sullivans, O'Hara's, Murphy's, Forged, Guinness Zero, Zero Gravity and Lawson's.

Does Guinness hold the top spot? Or do the American craft brewers make a better beer than the Irish? And, which of these bunch do you try to emulate if you want to submit your home brew to a competition?

1 Year Ago : Switzer, the Doc, Marco and Phil got together to make some predictions about craft beer in 2022. Now that it's 2023 we get back together to chat about each of our predictions and look at some industry data to see who was right and who was wrong and maybe who was kinda also right but also kinda wrong... 

We brought together 18 Non-Alcoholic craft beers and 1 hop tea to see which is worthy of your time and money. 

Switzer, the Doc, Marco and Phil score each one and then we tell you what to stay away from, what to maybe give a try and what to definitely buy - if you choose to have a Non-Alcoholic beer. 

MVHBC heads into the big city for a Friday Brew Day at Dorchester Brewing Company. Head Brewer Andy Johnson and Brewer Mandi Paine join us to discuss their careers in brewing and the beer we brewed. 

We set up the mobile recording rig in the middle of our pouring tent at the New England Homebrewers Jamboree to bring you all the action. 

Scott from the Knights of the Mashing Forks sits with us to talk about his homebrew club and his first experience at Jamboree.

The Doc jumps in to go through some of the unique and imaginative offerings from the 16 homebrew clubs and 150+ beverages on draft/cask.

Lastly, 7 hours after first recording we jump back on the microphone with Doug, Mr Lactose, Switzer and the Doc to celebrate some pretty awesome awards we received. 

We revisit a topic that Triggered Marco in Season 1... Cold IPA. 

This time, Switzer is here with the background and a homebrewed version. Maybe we can get on board with this style? Maybe not? 

We comment on the news from Night Shift Brewing about CO2 Shortages and Production Changes. 

The Doc judges another Irish Red. 

And, Switzer is back to deep dive another classic lager style - the Vienna Lager. 

When our Club Meetings end, it kind of turns to a free-for-all of commercial beer. New and interesting things, whales from the other side of the country, some old beer collecting dust in the cellar that still tastes amazing... you get the idea. 

We thought we'd bring a little bit of that part of our meeting to the show. Marco, the Doc and Phil each brought 3 beers and kept them a secret from the others. We dig in and taste them, chat about what makes the beer and that brewery special and generally have a good time. 

Enjoy! Cheers!

We get together for a roundtable discussion of the latest beer and brewing headlines