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Nicole Simeone
Medusa To Go
Since the stay at home order has been in place, my beer purchasing has been from local breweries. A vast majority of those purchases being at Medusa in Hudson, Massachusetts, which shouldn’t come as a surprise, really. The Hudson taproom is one of my absolute favorites.
I’ll be honest, the only spring cleaning that’s gone on in this house is dusting off our growler collection so we could put them back into action. I can’t tell you the last time before this pandemic we snatched the glass containers to go for a ride with us. With cans becoming so ubiquitous, four-packs to take home are readily available.
Medusa is still canning, and we are still taking advantage of said products. But the options for growler fills are too tasty to ignore. Our go-to fills are No Prison Can Hold Me and Island of Misfit Hops.
The latter being a rotating recipe based on the remnant ingredients hanging around the brewery waiting to become beer. I am always excited to see it come back on to their menu. This iteration is classed as a Hoppy Amber Rye. Here’s a photo from our first pour back before COVID:
They weren’t kidding on the amber part.
Island of Misfit Hops is malt forward, so much so that a dry, grainy fragrance wafts up along with a faint piney assist from the hops as you raise your glass to your lips. Sipping the beer, delicious caramel flavors swirl over the palette. The bitterness rising up from the hops balances the scales, keeping the beverage from being too sickly sweet.
An absolutely delicious beer from start to finish and not something you find everywhere. Seeing as this beer doesn’t come around regularly, I don’t think we’ve put in an order that hasn’t included a growler of it for us to enjoy. In normal circumstances, I feel like Island is on tap one minute and gone the next. This time around, we’ve been able to enjoy it for several months now. Perhaps a small silver lining in all of this for Misfit Hops fans?
Growlers aren’t the only purchase, though. The brewery recently canned another of my favorite beers, Space Poet.
This beer pours out into a hazy, pale golden color. The carbonation lazily bubbles up to the top of the pour. As you can see from the picture, it’s quite pretty to look at. Some might think this beer is an IPA, but no, Space Poet is a Belgian Pale Ale hopped with Galaxy.
There isn’t much of a nose on this beer. Hints of wheat and lemon but not much more. Lemon pulls forward once you take a sip and flows down through to the end. For this beer, the bitterness rises up in the middle rather than at the end. The beer finishes with a subtle wheaty punch.
This is a great summer beer. Ok. It’s a Belgian beer. I think it’s good all year round. But the flavors compliment a sunny, warm day. From the picture, you might think I’ve got one of those days as I review. Nope. It’s sunny but sporadically snowing. I am so glad I spent last week planting flowers. They are not pleased with this strange turn of events.
Back to the beer. Space Poet is acting as a delightful respite from the morning’s sewing endeavors. Don’t let the word Belgian deter you. There is a spicy kick from the yeast, but I think it’s tempered by the addition of Galaxy into the brew. The hops augment the lemony characteristics found in many Belgians.
CJ is reading this calling bullshit. But, I am not letting my preference for the style sway me. I promise. I would even go so far to say she would enjoy Space Poet with her leanings and affection for lemon flavors. And that’s all I have for you on this Thirsty Thursday.
Cheers, Nerd Girls!
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