Some faint crackers and wafers added a little “smoothness” to the taste. A minute amount of sourness was noticed and I did find that it lingered into the aftertaste a touch longer than I tend to like. The taste revealed a nice, light lemon grass flavor with a small hop bite and bitterness. The overall fragrances were balanced pretty well, however I thought them to be a little complacent. After it warmed a bit, the sweetness from the citrus began to die down and the maltiness started to stand out a touch more. The background presented a light flowery hop profile. In the nose, I picked up on some mild lemon citrus hints, fresh green apples and a grainy/biscuity malt. I did find a few bubbles rising to the top to create a nice aesthetic appeal. It had very nice size, however the retention time was limited and the lacing was only average in my opinion. The appearance on the Harpoon Summer Beer was a clear, golden/straw yellow color with a bright white, soapy, fluffy head. Currently you can follow Harper Lane Brewery on Facebook and Instagram.This beer has an ABV of 5.5% and comes in a 12 oz. For now, he’s working on a website and social media while he waits to get his first batch of beer in the tanks, and into the hands of thirsty Middleboro craft beer drinkers. Pasalacqua says he’d love to make a career change and start working full-time as a brewer, but realizes it will take time to get things up and running, and then to develop his brand in a fast-growing industry. And he’s working on names for those beers too. He’ll brew several IPAs, an absolute necessity these days, but lots of other styles that he loves will figure into his regular rotation as well. “It’s a little different from your typical farmhouse style, but it’s pretty tasty,” he says. First up is an unnamed (he’s working on that) Farmhouse Ale made with a non-traditional yeast. And before that, he was a customer at the brewery’s home brew shop. It shouldn’t take long for Pasalacqua to dial in his recipes on IndieFerm’s brewing system, he’s been working there part time for a couple of years. “It’s been nine months since I applied for the license, now that it’s finally approved I’m pretty excited to start brewing,” he told us. If all goes as planned, he might have beer ready for the public by the end of January. Eventually, he’d like to do some canning and get it out to liquor stores as well. When the beer is finished, Pasalacqua will have to transfer it to kegs and schlep it around to craft beer bars and restaurants in the area, like Buddy’s Pizza Pub in Middleboro, where he hopes to be on tap regularly. Harper Lane Brewery has its own modest hop farm, and plans to brew a variety of beer styles. In essence, he’s paying for use of the brewing system when it would otherwise be dormant, and then renting space at IndieFirm’s brewery to store his own fermenters, bright tanks, and kegs. Not to be confused with contract brewing, which Pasalacqua says he isn’t interested in, tenant brewing, or sometimes called an alternating proprietorship, allows him to be hands-on throughout the brewing process. Instead, he’ll operate as a tenant brewer at Independent Fermentations in nearby Plymouth, where he’s forged a relationship with founder Paul Nixon. That’s because Pasalacqua, an auto body mechanic by trade, doesn’t have his own commercial brewery space. The only thing that isn’t going to happen in Middleboro is the actual production of the beer. After perfecting recipes on his stove top on Harper Lane, hence the name of the brewery, and convincing his next-door neighbor to let him use some of his land to start a hop field, he’s finally ready to deliver local beer to his home town. Lifelong resident Mike Pasalacqua recently received approval from the state to take his home brew operation commercial. MIddleboro is about to join the growing number of cities and towns throughout the Commonwealth that have their own craft brewery.
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