For the past few weeks, I’ve been running into the beers of Butternuts Beer & Ale Company just about everywhere I go, so I figured it was time to write about it.
The names and packaging — only cans — are creative, and while they aren’t from Maine, they are from the Northeast. They are located in a farmhouse in Garrattsville, N.Y., about 20 miles west of Cooperstown (if you are big into baseball) and 60 miles southeast of Syracuse (if you have any ties to the Big East).
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Son-in-law Christian brought all of the company’s offerings home well before I started writing this column. I liked the beer then. I didn’t study it, but uneducated as I was at the time, I had a beer snob’s aversion to cans.
Since the arrival of Baxter Beer Co. in Lewiston, I have fallen under the influence of Luke Livingston and like cans as much as bottles — all that matters is the beer.
Butternuts is small enough — 5,300 barrels last year but on track to do 9,000 barrels next year — that when I called up last Friday, founder and owner Chuck Williamson answered the phone himself.
“I more or less just want to produce a quality ale for an affordable price,” he said. “I want to design a beer that has good marketability and good drinkability.”
Williamson said selling in cans allows him to keep the price low, and a 12-pack of three each of the Butternuts four brands was less than $14.97 before tax and deposit at RSVP on Forest Avenue.
The company makes Porkslap pale ale, its signature brand; Hennieweisse wheat beer; Moo Thunder stout and Snapperhead IPA.
The company also occasionally brews seasonal or specialty beers, but so far, they have been sold only close to the brewery.
“We think we have created enough of a lineup to cover an entire flavor profile with our four core brands,” Williamson said. “We have flavor, effervescence, sweetness, bitterness and roasted malt.”
Nancy and I tasted all four of the core brands last Sunday.
The Porkslap is brewed with two-row North American barley, English crystal malt, Crystal hops and a touch of fresh ginger, and comes in at 4.3 percent alcohol.
I didn’t tell Nancy about the ginger, and asked if she detected any adjuncts — a fancy beer word for fruit, spices and similar stuff. She did not. I knew the ginger was there, and I couldn’t taste it. Porkslap had a fairly thin body, but a good ale flavor.
The Hennieweisse poured cloudy and had a strong yeast aroma (as with most wheat beers) and a really strong wheat flavor. At 4.9 percent alcohol, it had just a bit of sweetness.
The Moo Thunder stout uses lactose sugar for sweetness, a tribute to the Butternuts Brewery’s former life as a dairy farm. It has a strong malt and roast flavor (but not as strong as a lot of other stouts), a good body and 4.9 percent alcohol.
The Snapperhead India Pale Ale is the strongest of the four beers at 6.3 percent alcohol, but doesn’t have the overpowering hops of a lot of American IPAs. It has a good, strong flavor.
Of these beers, I probably liked the Hennieweisse best — and not just for the can art featuring an alien-looking hop head with wheat-flower ears on the side.
Tom Atwell can be contacted at 791-6362 or at tatwell@pressherald.com
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