Name: Rattlesnake Rye-P.A.
Brewery: Squam Brewing (Holderness, NH)
Style: Rye IPA
Price: $6.50 per 22 oz.
ABV: 7
Final Grade: C-
Score: 28

If Squam Brewing is representative of what we’re going to get with the nano brewery trend, then I weep for the future. We may see a repeat of the microbrewery bust that happened in the late ’90s.

I don’t want to write off this new brewery yet. Founded in August 2010, it has had barely a year to work through its processes and the Rattlesnake Rye-P.A. is the only beer I’ve tried. Still, this is straight up homebrew. I definitely have produced equal or superior beers to this in my closet, and I’d be hesitant to serve this to unfamiliar company.

This is an ugly beer, and while its cloudiness can be excused because of the use of rye, the peppery spice was beat down beneath layers of green apple and lemon sourness. I also detected some oxidation, making this taste like a stale key-lime pie.

You hear the word “Czech,” and it evokes all kinds of sensations, depending on your world view.

Saisons are the perfect blend of sophistication and drinkability.

IPAs can be so messy and fun. So I went for double the pleasure.

I doubt I’d ever open my own brewery, but I love to fantasize about it and dream up new ways of carving out my market niche. I could go with my German heritage and focus solely on Bavarian beers. But I could never go without brewing a Belgian for too long, so scrap that idea. Perhaps I could do big beers — oh wait, one New Hampshire brewer is already doing that, with mixed results.
But more than anything, I just can’t commit to brewing the same beer twice. I’m driven …

“Stop picking at it,” my mom would say when she caught me poking at the edges of a scab. Who knew the advice would hold true for hop growing, as well?
After a month of watering, watching and poking around in the soil, my hops chose the week I was gone in Bamberg to break through the surface.

Lesson learned. These are resilient plants and will find a way. I was probably hindering their growth, before, blocking out the sun as I hovered over the mounds. The one shown above is a …