EASTHAMPTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Inside the mammoth red-bricked Eastworks building, a 500,000 square foot converted mill on the outskirts of Easthampton, ABANDONED BUILDING BREWERY occupies a mid-sized back space since May 2015.
A wood-floored warehouse pub with maroon-butterscotch walls, high ceilinged exposed ducts, strewn rustic furnishings and centralized modern art design, its steady influx of people comes from the restaurants, shops, arthouses and marijuana dispensary inundating Eastworks multi-floored complex (as well as the local bike path riders).
A small wooden serving station features ten draught taps emanating from the rear brew tanks.
For starters on this sunny Saturday afternoon in February ’19, I went with all the IPA permutations for comparison and contrast.
Abandoned Building’s most popular brew, Dirty Girl IPA, spread spicy grapefruit juice all over earthen pine oiling and French-breaded pale malts in a pleasantly straightforward manner.
Summery tropicalia informed juicy yellow-hazed New England-styled Pan Galactic IPA, letting zesty lemon, grapefruit and pineapple tanginess gain New Zealand-hopped limey gooseberry souring.
Bolder and more stimulating, busy New England-styled The Other End Double Dry-hopped IPA brought dewy spruce-tipped earthen tea moisture and resinous hop pining to bittersweet lemony grapefruit, orange and mango tanginess above bready pale malting.
Another hazy dry-hopped medium body, Temporary Sanity IPA, left rustic herbal barnyard acridity to temper its juicily hop-embittered yellow grapefruit tang.
Creamy vanilla-spiced Shake IPA went after the milkshake dessert crowd with its sweet citrus-candied strawberry glaze contrasting mild plain yogurt souring. In its nitro version, the berry-citric nature gets downplayed as soft-toned yellow grapefruit bittering picks up recessive pine tones.
Underwhelming fruit-caked Odin Quad stayed crystalline, but its dried-fruited cherry, plum and raisin sweetness and dark chocolate malting lacked determination.
Stylishly mild Night Shade Stout casually spread coffee-roasted dark chocolate bittering across cola, walnut and hazelnut Nutty dark-roast coffee enriched java-enhanced Coffee Night Shade Stout.
Four Roses bourbon informed excellent Bella Donna Bourbon-aged Imperial Stout, where soothingly comforting whiskey-dried port wine warmth caressed syrupy chocolate-draped vanilla sweetness, mild molasses sapping and dry cherry snips.
abandonedbuildingbrewery.com