One of the best parts of any festival – and life, really – is the presence of beer.
We’re pretty lucky to live in a city that puts on so many big events every year, and with those big events typically come some special, one-off brews. Whenever the SNOB/New England Indie Fest comes to town, a New Hampshire brewer whips up a special concoction to be served throughout the festival. Same goes for the 1883 Black Ice Pond Hockey Championship.
Now we can add the Rock On Fest to that mix.
As you’ve just read on the previous four pages, the Rock On Fest, which begins Friday, has a whole lot going on this year. One of the highlights is the special brew created by North Hampton-based Throwback Brewery.
The brewery has created a saison called Master of Art, a tribute to a song by Laura Stevenson, who will be performing at the festival on Saturday. Lead brewer Christopher Naro is a big fan of Stevenson, so he thought it would be cool to name the beer after one of her songs.
We met up with Naro last week while he was dropping off some kegs to the Common Man, who, along with the Barley House, will be pouring Master of Art during the festival until it runs out.
Naro brought us a growler full of the beer to try out before the public would have the chance to taste it – just one of the perks of being an Insider.
The Master of Art is “a hazy, golden-colored, dry saison with a mandarin orange nose and flavors of peach, apricot and fruit cocktail – balanced by a kick of peppery spice from the saison yeast,” as described on Throwback’s website (throwbackbrewery.com).
After tasting it, we pretty much agreed with the entire statement, although we did find it a tad on the spicy side (not spicy like hot, just a strong presence of general spices). It was hoppy like an IPA, but not really as bitey. We definitely noticed the fruity flavor, too, but it wasn’t overwhelming.
At 5.4 percent alcohol by volume, it’s right in that Goldilocks zone – not too strong, not too weak.
The taps at Common Man and Barley House should be flowing by now, so stop in to either place and give Master of Art a try.
