A Contest! and Brew England Visits: Cape Cod Beer

When Sarah and I decided we were going to bring Brew England to Southern New England, ie: Providence for the hockey game and Trinity Brew House, we were thinking “why not make this a weekend?” Originally, our plans were to head down to Providence on Friday, then the Newport, RI area on Saturday to visit the Coddington Brewing Company , Newport Storm Brewery , and Buskers Pub . As fate would have it a coworker of Sarah's remarked to her on Friday that the Newport St Patrick's Day Parade would be happening that Saturday and thus downtown would be packed, no parking, the bars would be overflowing and impossible to get into....with this new information we decided to save Newport for another weekend.

We decided to head to the Cape instead and as luck would have it - a quick Google search found us Cape Cod Beer , located in Hyannis, MA, so our brew-trip weekend was not a lost cause! The ride down was pretty crazy, but we were able to make it to the hotel safely. We quickly checked in, and thankfully for us Cape Cod Beer was right down the street, so we were able to make their 1pm tour and tasting with time to spare.



If you haven’t been to Cape Cod Beer, or have even heard about it (as I hadn’t until last week), you definitely should check it out. To date, this is Brew England’s smallest brewery visited; however, it was one of the most informational micro-tours we’ve been on. While we didn’t get to walk through the entire facility, due to the tightly packed mash tun, kettle, and 11 fermentation tanks, we certainly learned a lot about this small commercial brewery. For instance, Cape Cod Beer is the only brewery on the Cape, their beers are found in over 200 restaurants (only on the Cape as they do not have refrigerated trucks), and the only other way for customers take these beers home is in a growler from either the brewery itself or a local package store.



The brewery is also doing their part to be environmentally green by donating their spent grains to local farmers. In addition, they encourage their patrons to reuse their growlers- one woman has been using the same growler for over five years now!

After the tour began our favorite part of the visit, the tasting!

We were able to try the following beers:

1) The Beach Blond - a light and refreshing beer),
2) Red (their flagship beer) - smooth and malty
3) Cape Cod Porter - dark, malty, with a subtle kick of chocolate
4) Old Man Winter (seasonal) - which was heavy and helped battle the torrential rain that was falling - this was my personal favorite!
5) IPA - this was on the sweeter side but had a nice soft balance of hops





We were also lucky enough to snag their last bottle of Cherry Porter, which was incredible! It was equally as smooth as their porter, with the added blend of cherries, which gave the beer a nice tart and sweet balance.

Cape Cod Beer is definitely worth the drive. You’ll enjoy their selection, learn a few things about the industry you may not know (such as the incredible excise tax charged per barrel of beer- more to come on that), and perhaps even pick up a few home brewing supplies (sold on premises).



The staff is quite friendly, answering any and all questions you may have and of course supplying you with delicious beer.

Visit Cape Cod Beer at 1336 Phinney's Lane in Hyannis MA.
Tours are EVERY Tuesday and Saturday @ 1am



After the tour, we asked one of the brewers where we should go to lunch and he not only highly recommended the The Barnstable Tavern, but he gave us a coupon too! So we headed down the street to the Tavern and enjoyed a few Cape Cod brews over lunch



Which brings us to what you are probably here for - the contest! In honor of the re-launch of BrewEngland and the good time we had at Cape Cod Beer - we are hosting a contest.


The prize?



Two Cape Cod Beer "Tervis Tuumblers". Have you used these kinds of tumblers before? They are PERFECT for beer because they keep beverages cooler longer than regular glasses, are virtually indestructable and will not leave rings on your table. Pretty neat. On top of these two tumblers we will also send you a $20 visa card to use towards filling your Cape Cod Beer Tervis Tumblers with your favorite beer!

To enter this contest - just leave us a comment. If you link to us on your blog you'll get another entry. If you Twitter about the contest you'll get yet another entry. And if you Facebook about you get one more! That's four chances to win just for commenting and telling people about the contest. Not a bad deal.


The contest ends this Sunday and we will be announcing the winner at NOON (Continental US residents only, sorry!)


Good luck!