There they are. See them at the top of Kinsale’s draft list? Four beers that quietly announce the opening of a mini-nano brewery in Norton called Bog Iron. With new craft breweries opening seemingly weekly around here, Bog Iron is special for two reasons.
First- in these growingly absurd times of extreme this and imperial that- Bog Iron launched with four fairly low alcohol brews, including a tasty, clean, gimmick-free mild properly served from the cask by hand pump. Bravo!
Second- full disclosure here- one of the three brewers is Brian Shurtleff. The same Brian Shurtleff descended from that early Massachusetts transportation cartographer you ask? Why yes! But that’s got nothing to do with beer. Back in 2008 when I was president of the Wort Processors, Boston’s fantastic homebrew club, he was the pres of another regional club of beer makers called South Shore. I’ve spent many an evening at his and wife Courtney’s splendid house bar- tasting batches of aptly named “ass beer” (he went through a nasty period of forgetting to bleed the last of the sanitizer out of the lines) to some really lovely one-offs. He and two others from the club (pictured below, Brian center) all with serious day jobs- decided to dump all of their free time, money, sanity, and talent (possibly in that order) into a brewery. My only contribution was to suggest the flame on the logo. Come on- it’s cool!
The other three beers were a refreshing black steam beer, an IPA, and a blonde. I am torn between the steam beer and the mild as my favorite- but it doesn’t matter because all four kicked on launch night. So if you want to try the beer, it looks like you’ll have to visit Brian’s too!
TravelSips 