News Archives - Old Planters

January 4, 2022 By Ben Garry in Beer-Descriptions, News, Releases, Uncategorized Comments Off

Endangered Ale Beer Collaboration

In collaboration with True North Ales and The Ipswich River Watershed we have released our version of ENDANGERED ALE, a limited-edition American Pale Ale. The beer is aggressively hopped with Simcoe, Amarillo, Chinook, and Ekuanot to provide flavors and aromas of pine, bright citrus, and tropical fruit.

The Ipswich River, the source of brewing water for ten other local craft breweries, and 350,000 residents in the watershed’s thirteen cities and towns, was designated one of the Most Endangered Rivers in the country by the national group American Rivers (endangeredrivers.americanrivers.org).

To learn more about the conservation efforts that IRWA has directed to support our river, visit ipswichriver.org/endangered/#state-solutions.
#oldplantersbrewing #232rantoul #endangeredale #ipswichwatershed

March 19, 2021 By Matt in News Comments Off

OPBC Taproom re-opening April 9th

Blue skies are ahead! One year ago today we announced that we were closing the taproom for inside drinking and today we’d like to announce our plan for re-opening! 😁 yay!

Starting on April 9th, we will be opening the inside of the taproom for beers, food, and music. Things will look a little different with distanced tables and all the regulations that still apply, but boy are we excited to share our space with you again! For our first weekend back at it we will be joined by our friends at Chicken and Rice Guys and Just Wingin’ It Boston!! We’ll leave it at that for now, but we can’t wait to share more details with you over the coming weeks!

Last but not least, thanks for hanging in there with us over the past year, your support has meant the world to us. Now let’s take one step closer to normalcy, we can’t wait to see you soon!

-Ben & Matt

March 2, 2021 By Ben Garry in News Comments Off

Mass Beer Week 2021

As you may know, Massachusetts beer week is coming up soon (March 6th-13th) and we wanted to take a moment to tell you how we plan on celebrating over at OPBC. If we didn’t know before COVID, we certainly know now that the beer community is stronger when we work together with a common goal in mind. And it’s with that spirit in mind that we are happy to announce two great collaboration projects that we’ve started with some of our local brewery friends.

Over the course of March we will be releasing two amazing and ongoing collaborations with our friends at Wandering Soul and Channel Marker Brewing Co. We are very proud of these beers and can’t wait to share them with you soon. See below for more details:

Sons of Beverly/Rantoul Originals: Episode One

For a while now, we’ve had ongoing discussions with the crew over at Channel Marker Brewing about doing a collaboration at some point. Once the pandemic hit it made things difficult to align schedules, but we finally got it done. In the end, we decided to create an ongoing collaboration where we trade off brewing at both locations with the goal of creating various beer styles and the flexibility to experiment along the way.

For our first “episode” we chose to brew a West Coast IPA as an ode to a style that greatly contributed the craft beer movement over the past decade. We modeled this beer after some of our favorite West Coast IPAs that we’ve had the pleasure of enjoying over the years. This particular brew will be clocking in at 8% abv and is dry hopped with CTZ, Centennial, and Simcoe hops. So you can expect to enjoy all the amazing qualities that come with a great West Coast IPA including: amazing hop aromas, notes of pine/citrus, and a clean bitter finish. Stay tuned for an exact release date!

Old Soul (Version 2.0)

Our next collaboration project this month is Old Soul version 2.0. A couple months back we collaborated with our friend Matt Smith from Wandering Soul Beer and created a New England IPA dry hopped exclusively with Nectaron hops from New Zealand. We loved the results so much that we decided to make this a continuous collaboration where we spotlight one hop variety for each batch.

For version two, we chose to focus on Strata hops. Originally known as X-331, this was the first hop released from The Oregon State Aroma Hop Breeding Program. This variety has dank flavor and aromas with undertones of Strawberry, Passionfruit, and citrus. We are very excited to share this with you in the month of March as a part of Mass beer week. Stay tuned for our exact release date!

December 31, 2020 By Ben Garry in News Comments Off

2020 Top Five

Our first thought for this blog post was to gripe about 2020 and give our Top Five list about how 2020 negatively impacted our business. It would be so easy. But on second thought, it felt selfish. With so many businesses closing or closed, how could we utter a single complaint? Instead, we decided to highlight our special moments, spread some love, and express gratitude. So without further ado, here is our “Top Five List of Positive Things That Happened at Old Planters Brewing Company During 2020” (we know, it’s a catchy/concise title that rolls off the tongue.)

Positive Thing #5

We had music, art, and, exercise in the taproom

Before COVID hit, we had: Iron Village, The Energy Barre, RECK Fitness, Sweat Fixx, and The Moon and The Mat for Sunday exercise classes inside the taproom. These classes were great, we can’t wait to do them again! We also had numerous local artists and bands come through and share their talents, they’ll be back in 2021!

Positive Thing #4

We had food trucks and pop-ups throughout the whole year

Whether it was pre-COVID or not, we had a bunch of food trucks/pop-ups come to hang with us. During our outdoor seating phase, we LITERALLY could not have operated without the consistent support of our food partners. So it’s with much love and respect that we give thanks to: The Castle, Butter Ur Biscuit, Empanada Dada, Crepe Du Jour, Chicken and Rice Guys, Rusty Can, JaJu Pierogi, Po Boys and Pies, Sacred Cod, La Fronters Sabrosa, Rolling Gyros, Pop-Over Grove, Just Wingin’ It, Bonetown Burgers, and The MELT Food Truck, Cheese Please Mobile, Big Pig BBQ, and Boston Hill BBQ.

Positive Thing #3

We were deemed essential!

Luckily, when the pandemic hit we were deemed essential by Governor Baker. During the lockdown, this time allowed us to continue operations and work on our shift from on-site drinking to beer to-go. While this wasn’t in the plans, we took it in stride and figured out our process. We will always be grateful that we were able to operate during the lockdown and that the best customers/community came by for some beer!

Positive Thing #2

Collaborations with our Beverly friends and beyond

Throughout 2020, we were fortunate enough to collaborate with some of our friends on some great beers. Much love to all our co-conspirators including Crave, FRANK, Fat Tuna Charters, Loma Brewing, and Wandering Soul. We also collaborated with some other local businesses on various projects including Crossfit Variance, Inner Cycle, Cape Ann Botanicals, Beantrust Coffee, The Cheese Shop of Salem, and Oceanside Sailbags.

Positive Thing #1

We were able to give back during tough times

As we all can agree, 2020 was an absolute dumpster fire for so many reasons. And with that dumpster fire came a lot of problems, stress, and pain for so many people throughout the entire country. As a small business standing back and witnessing this landscape, we were honored/proud to do our small part to try and ease some of that pain. Here is a list of the various charitable projects we were involved in during 2020:

Pink Boots Society Beer Collaboration
All Together (Worldwide Beer Collaboration started by Other Half brewing)
Black Is Beautiful( Worldwide Beer Collaboration started by Weathered Soul Brewing)
Pete Frates Beer Collaboration with Loma Brewing & Kevin Youkilis
Rhino Running Club Virtual Relay

(Charity recipients included: Behind You Inc., NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Pete Frates Family Foundation, ALS TDI, and Beverly Hospital)

March 5, 2020 By Matt in News Comments Off

BONS 2020 – Vote for OPBC

Hello Old Planters faithful!

We wanted to let you know that voting has begun for the Best Of North Shore 2020 (BONS) and Old Planters is nominated in a few different categories! Please consider voting for us for best taproom, best brewery and best after work drink under the “Drink” category and also vote for the Rhino Run Club under the “play” category in community walk/run. Please feel free to share and spread the word! Please follow the link below:

North Shore Magazines BONS 2020 Readers’ Choice awards.

Old Planters has been nominated for:

Taproom
Brewery
After work drink
Run for the Rhino Run Club

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