MARTHA’S VINEYARD, MASSACHUSETTS

One block from the center of town in Martha’s Vineyard village, Oak Bluffs, OFFSHORE ALE CO. opened in ’97 and remains the island’s only year-round brewery.

Inside a rustic barnhouse built by the Amish, this sizable one-room pub features a half-covered front patio leading into the tile-floored high-ceilinged interior. Brewtanks are stored in the balcony and several local nautical items (steering wheels, buoys, lanterns, rowers) line the walls.

I sat at the oak-topped bar where twelve draught handles reside. A large stone fireplace to the left adds warmth to the booths and tables across from the bar. An open kitchen serves wood-fire pizzas, burgers and casual pub grub.

Long-time head brewer, Neil Atkins, crafts some fine, mostly dry, beers for the local islanders and visiting landlubbers. I sojourned late April ’24 on a crowded Friday evening to down a few previously untried suds.

Lemon-peeled ruby red grapefruit grappled Islander Double IPA, leaving slight grassy astringency upon its dank pine resin.

Blending candi-sugared Belgian ale sweetness with sharp West Coast-styled IPA fruiting, Hop Goddess Belgian IPA let lemony grapefruit and orange rind dryness slip into the mild tea-like midst.

A bold West Coast IPA, Lazy Frog retained a fruitier profile than Hop Goddess as grapefruit peeled orange and tangerine tanginess plus pineapple-guava tropicalia settled alongside juniper-tipped blueberry bittering.

Daintily figgy plum-spiced winter warmer, Miss Behavin,’ let dry ginger, birch and sarsaparilla niceties reach its chalky cocoa bottom.

Dry Irish stout, Steeprock, melded its dark chocolate bittering to milk-sugared coffee plus walnut, cola and Brazil nut snips.

Dark chocolate penetrated Inkwell Imperial Stout, picking up hop-charred black coffee and Blackstrap molasses bittering.