Cask x Pizza Thursday: Bullhead Vienna Ale w/Rakau

Cask ale is a traditional British style of serving beer; beer is drawn out of the keg by hand and served at a slightly different carbonation level and temperature than normal draft beer to bring out new flavors and aromas.

Every Thursday, we tap a fresh pin (keg) of this deliciousness and serve it up alongside heapin' Sicilian slices from Sillari's Pizza in Malden!

This week, we're pouring:

Beer Name: Bullhead
Style: Vienna Ale
Cask Addition: Rakau
ABV: 5.0%
IBU: 31
Color: A shade of gold that draws you in like a tractor beam and demands you drink it

Cheese Pairing: Petit Basque.
Food Pairing: Bigass hot dogs.
Music Pairing (Jimbo's Choice): "June Bug" by the Melvins
Music Pairing (Jared's Choice): "Bar-X the Rocking M" by the Melvins or "Prig" by the Melvins (but only the first like two minutes)
Best Occasion to Drink: Before, during, and after getting lost in a corn maze for like three hours.

Brewers' Notes: Bullhead. Our unicorn. This beer was originally created to be a wet hop beer way back in 2016! We partnered up with* our friends at Four Star Farms in central Mass and Blue Ox Malthouse outta Maine to make a malty, lightly bready base beer that would really let them some wet-hop Rakau shine! ...but the fates conspired against us and there was an issue with hop harvesting (it rained on our brewday and you can't harvest on a rainy day) so it ended up being a beer made with normal hops like how chumps do it.

But there was a silver lining! We ended up liking that beer so much that a few months later we decided to use the same recipe to test the mettle and the merits of a new (to us) maltster! That was also quite delightful, but it left us with a cold hankerin' for the original idea that birthed this beer...

Turnin' the clocks forward several more months, we entered hop season again! And then as we stood at the ready with mash paddles in-hand, Problems arose. The nice folks over at Four Star Farms weren't able to harvest any Rakau this year for Farming Reasons that we don't entirely understand. It's a huge bummer, to say the least, underscored by the fact that we - once again - had to make another batch of regular ol' delicious Bullhead instead of the wet hop one (I mean, we had all the other stuff on hand). So we did! And it's so good, you guys.

*Bought stuff from

BONE UP BREWING COMPANY //
A Small Brewery Making Beer For Your Mouth in Scenic Everett, Massachusetts.

Bone Up Brewing is the Boston area's smallest brewery! Husband-and-wife brewing duo Jared and Liz Kiraly crank out fresh new beer every week from their 3-barrel nano brewery and taproom. Inspired by old-school Belgian farmhouse brewing while celebrating American styles, their ales combine the heart and soul from each of these beloved beer cultures. Four year round beers are always available, but the gears of Bone Up are always turning, so you can expect an ever-changing array of one offs, seasonal releases, and experimental batches.

Located in the heart of Everett's budding Fermentation District, the taproom is open Wednesday through Sunday and features full pours, flights, and growlers from ten rotating tap lines. In addition to a weekly cask, the taproom hosts games and an ongoing series of food trucks and pop ups. Outside of the occasional tasting, the best place to find Bone Up is right at the source!

Bone Up Brewing Company, 38 Norman Street, Everett, MA
Taproom Hours: Wed 3-11, Thu-Sat 12-11, Su 12-8
www.boneup.beer // @boneupbrewing

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