Jack’s Abby Springdale (Framingham, Masss.) Pearly Wit from Half Time, Poughkeepsie
Date: Sept. 22 , 2018
The Story— Jack’s Abby is full of contradictions. It’s a lager brewery in an age of ales and the Abby is Jack’s girl, not his religious order. Recently, Jack threw in the lager towel. Jack’s Abby beers are still well-brewed and occasionally world-class lagers, but he’s joined the ale word with his Springdale spinoff.
We usually pick up a bunch of Jack’s Abby’s extensive range at the brewery or at Julio’s in Westboro, Mass. Julio’s is one of the best beer stores in the east, but one of it’s most impressive rivals, Half Time, in Poughkeepsie, New York, saved us hours or driving and provided us with a good selection of the Springdale beers among their thousands of choices.
We tasted our first Belgian Wit at Pierre Celis’s Hoegaarden brewery — the one that brought back the style from historic obscurity. Pierre taught us that ales can benefit as much as lagers from weeks of maturing in the tank and was a significant influence in the way we created our Hop Pocket Ale. We had another chance to try it at a businessman’s hotel in nearby Teinen, where it came with a silver dish of salted peanuts. It has been a hot day, and we thought the beer was getting us about as close to heaven as we needed to get at the time.
So we’re pretty picky about wits. There are a bunch of them which we describe in a rhyming way we won’t discus further here. But overall, since Hoegaarden is now an AB InBev rush job with at best a pale resemblance to its regal predecessor, we’ve found the best wits are coming from outside Belgium – especially the US.
The Beer– Unusually good and echt wit if just a bit tart at the end Lemony taste comes from the wheat malt. Mild spice but it never takes a vacation and there’s a chalky astringency that recalls Hoegaarden well. We tasted it twice — I like this much better the econd time around when it was the first beer of the evening, but another one later was just as good. Ellie was consistent and spot on both times.
Value — Good. Maybe very good if you figure you might have to fly to Belgium to do much better.
COMING UP NEXT– More great American beers. Later, we’ll return to HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE 2018– Surprisingly good beer in “bad beer cities.” The best we’ve found in researching our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.)
About these posts: We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year. The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings. Values: “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.
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