Milling Around Milly's Tavern

(Blogger's note: After five days of photos, my camera battery lost all its charge, so no photos of Manchester. I left the charger at home. It's a drag, I know).

For local beer in Manchester, I had only one choice. After dropping off my rental car, a taxi took me from the airport to Milly’s Tavern, the only brewpub in Northern New England's largest city. It sat in the basement of a restored building along the Merrimack River, among the former mills that cut a marvelous image for the city.

Its innocuous entrance gave no indication of the bar inside. It was a monster, capable of holding a few hundred people without violating fire codes. The gargantuan bar had more than a dozen taps and some of the brewing operation directly behind it.

For all their handles, I started with Manchester Mild. If a brewer can master this underrated, poorly named style, they can product almost anything. To me, mild is the ancestor of porter and stout; it usually has a dry, roasted character, dark malts and a low alcohol content. Manchester Mild crests at 3.7 percent ABV. Slightly bitter, its dry creaminess almost turns sweet before finishing smooth and viscous. Milly's went for authenticity, brewing with East Kent Golding hops and London ale yeast. If I could drink it regularly, this could have been my dark session ale of choice.

After Manchester Mild, I waded into General John Stark Dark Porter. The mild skewed my sample General Stark; it tasted like a heavier, less carbonated version of Manchester Mild. It had a more prominent molasses character on the front end, a gentle creaminess, and almost no bitterness on the finish. Which one to choose is a matter of individual tastes. I’d go mild, because you could still be drinking it long after burning out on porter.

Amoskeag Harvest Ale was a copper/amber ale, comfortably bitter with a hop profile that barks but never bites. The malts don't aspire to change the world, but they don't have to. At 4.8 percent ABV, it could please the taste buds thought a few sessions.

At this point I entered the experimental part of the visit. Milly's brewed three lambics that bore little resemblance to the ultra-fruity Belgian classics.

Blueberry Lambic was the clear winner at Milly’s, and quite possibly the fruit beer I've wanted my whole life. Wheat malt based with a wild year, the Blueberry Lambic takes an undeniably sour twist as it finishes. The sour character rattles up, disrupting the smooth blueberry landscape. Muddy pineapple in color, it’s loosely lambic, but mostly great beer. On a bet, I would drink nothing else for an entire summer.

The Raspberry Lambic bore no resemblance to Belgian framboise – here, here! It pours paler than the blueberry and aside from a deviant year, has little to link it to any lambic. The sour conclusion owes a debt to the yeast, and a far more conservative use of raspberry produces a drastically different ale. The wheat creates a fine lemon-orange citrus to push against the raspberry, pushing it further down the spectrum from Purple Haze and other raspberry beers. The ale has a raspberry boost on the finish that complements the sour tang.

They had a cranberry lambic in honor of the region’s other famous fruit. After years of watching Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic outlast the rest of the Holiday Classics by weeks and months, I had little desire for another, no matter how different it might have been.

By brewing Northern New England lambics, Milly’s served as the right capstone to five days of local beer and small producers.