Beer Nut: New brewer’s first beer is a home run

Meghan Leahy, assistant brewer at the Northampton Brewery, serves a pint of her new Seal Point Porter. (George Lenker photo)

When the Northampton Brewery’s former head brewer Boog Pacher left the area, there was no doubt that the brewery’s beers were in good hands, as assistant brewer Steve Bilodeau took the reins.

The only question was who would slide into Steve’s slot as assistant brewer. As I wrote back then, the powers that be decided to take a chance on an unknown quantity and hired a staff member, Meghan Leahy, who had no brewing experience. Although the brewery could have hired an outsider who had some brewing acumen, the brain trust, including Steve, decided that Meghan’s energy, enthusiasm and willingness to learn was enough to give her a shot.

Man, were they ever right. And clearly Steve is a great teacher, judging by Meghan’s recent results.

Meghan just brewed her first beer, (that is, one she created the recipe for), Seal Point Porter, and she knocked it out of the park (to use an apt metaphor for the new baseball season).

It’s a delightfully smooth porter underpinned with chocolate notes and featuring subtle hints of vanilla and blackberry. The body is right down the middle for a porter and the mouthfeel is just creamy enough. It’s comes in at 5.4% ABV.

I was thrilled to see Meghan tackle a porter, a style that often gets somewhat ignored in this heyday of juicy IPAs and imperial stouts.

“Porters are my favorites,” Meghan said after she served me the first-ever pint of the stuff ever pulled. (Hey, this job has some perks.) “I love IPAs, but there are so many of them, and there aren’t that many porters.”

The Northampton Brewery has another somewhat recent porter named Some More Porter – a slightly smoky beer brewed with vanilla beans – and that porter served as an inspiration for Meghan.

“It’s my favorite beer, but I wanted to make my own,” she said.

The beer is named after Meghan’s seal point Siamese cat and it is just as pretty as that breed. It’s brewed with chocolate and German black wheat malts, a blend that works splendidly in this brew. Chocolate is the flavor that lingers on the palate, but who can complain about that? Not me.

Meghan told me there was some consideration of putting it on nitrogen for carbonation, but she decided not to.

“I don’t know why I decided that. Maybe next time,” she said with a shrug.

I hope she does, as I’d love to experience how the tighter bubbles, creamier mouthfeel and more stable head would work with this beer. Either way, I’ll be drinking plenty of it whenever it’s on tap.

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