Harpoon Brown Ale release

An email arrives to my inbox (that’s rather odd.. where else is an email going to arrive? Well….. who cares. ). It’s from Harpoon. There’s great news. They are releasing a new beer!!!! Here’s how it went.

HARPOON BROWN IS HERE! Whoa - I've been holding that in for way too long. I know - usually I give you this kind of monumental news with some sort of clever, funny, undeniably brilliant introduction. I just couldn't contain my excitement this time. After all, this is the FIRST HARPOON YEAR-ROUND BEER we've introduced in over 9 years. 9 YEARS! It's a big deal. You know what that means? That's right - it's time to party.

Thursday, March 8th, join us as we celebrate the release of our newest offering, Harpoon Brown. Be the first to try a taste of Harpoon Brown Session Ale at a special Premiere Party

About Harpoon Brown Session Ale

We brewed our Harpoon Brown to accentuate the sweeter, rounder notes derived from six different malts, including a de-husked chocolate malt that adds a hint of chocolate. The blend of these malts produces a beer that is complex and delicious without being heavy. Harpoon Brown is a perfect session beer for spending time with your friends.

Style: American Brown Ale
Original Gravity: 12.6
ABV: 4.3%
IBUs: 22
Food Pairings: nuts, sweet desserts, grilled chicken, BBQ

What is a "Session" beer?:

"Any beer that contains no higher than 5 percent ABV (alcohol by volume), featuring a balance between malt and hop characters (ingredients) and, typically, a clean finish - a combination of which creates a beer with high drinkability. The purpose of a session beer is to allow a beer drinker to have multiple beers, within a reasonable time period or session, without overwhelming the senses or reaching inappropriate levels of intoxication. (Yes, you can drink and enjoy beer without getting drunk.)"

Well, I got an invitation to the premiere party at Rockafella's, in Salem, Ma from 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM. Strangely enough, Ian got an invitation and it was at the Harpoon Brewery in Boston from 6:00 – 8:00.

Have our dreams come true? Was this an opportunity to hit two different locations on the same evening to get some beer? Say it ain’t so.

On Thursday, Ian and I met in Woburn and traveled to the Harpoon Brewery. We were curious how this event was going to take place. One of our first events was the UFO Raspberry release at Rockafella’s. Now we are coming a full circle only a year later.

We arrive at a packed event, held outside in a LARGE tent (which was setup for the St Patty’s day festival). The tent was partitioned off into a smaller section for this event. After having the typical ID check, we picked up our souvenir glass, free beer tickets and headed into the long line. Unfortunately, only 4 taps were available, so it took a little longer than normal.

We did a quick review of the beer and headed into the food line. Fortunately enough, the Harpoon BBQ team was serving free pulled pork sandwiches. They were quite tasty.

The line for our second beer was much longer than the first. While waiting in the line, we saw the two gentlemen from Beer Advocate arrive. They arrived about an hour and a half after the event started and they weren’t too happy that they ran out of the complimentary glasses. Oh…

Being a fellow beer reviewer, I wondered what they would do. Would they stand in this long line? Would they be respectful to the other beer fanatics that are friends of Harpoon? Well, you can guess where this is going. They went through the crowd to where the MGMT was and pulled some strings to get to the head of the line. Oh well…

Ian and I were very happy with this jaunt into Boston and make the journey to Rockafella’s to meet up with Hefeweizen_hunny (Lisa), Wood (George), and Meow (Kat). They were already there talking it up with Kyle.

We learned while at the Boston review, that Niles, our North Shore sales rep had left the company after 7+ years. His replacement was Kyle. We were exited to introduce ourselves to Kyle and see how we could help him in our backyard.

We make it to Rockafella’s, chatted it up for a while with Kyle and enjoyed the Brown Session Ale. The band playing wasn’t that good, but we enjoyed the night, since we were with friends and trying a new beer.