Athletic Brewing Company - straight out of Darien

 Athletic Brewing Company

Gotta start with a shoutout to Fairfield County's Athletic Brewing Company, brainchild of Billy Shufelt, who I used to have an enormous crush on back in high school.  This brand is my absolute favorite to find at bars and it's recently expanded to have an absolutely amazing line up of brews.  

When N/A beer was first introduced, it was all the same watered down lager-esque style beer.  Then a few brands came out with hop forward IPA style beers, which is not my style of beer either.  Athletic Brewing Company, on the other hand, now has a complete line up of beers and seltzers which are perfect for the summer.  As a hard seltzer lover, you would think a seltzer line up would be identical to just drinking seltzer water, but it's not, these have a hops oil in it that gives you the mouthfeel of drinking an alcoholic drink, along with a no calorie, no carb, mild seltzer flavor that absolutely hits the spot.  I can go through 8-10 hard seltzers pretty easily and these are no different.  Of course, you say, they go down like water.  But I can usually just drink one or two regular seltzers before I'm kind of water-ed out.  Unlike water, these go down like beers, which is way faster than water, despite the common phrasing.  

Right now, in addition to the seltzers, they've also put out an amazing pilot program with a whole line up in addition to their standard beers - right now, in my fridge, I have a standard sour, a raspberry sour, and a blackberry berliner weisse with a gose headed my way.  I am completely bummed to see that the sours are already all sold out as I try to reorder and I hope they bring them back.  A complete surprise was finding the gose at an actual bar around Philly (Sidecar)!  I love them all, even though they are a little carb heavy for what I would usually drink.

I'm very bummed that these pilot flavors may not be around for long but very happy that they're available now, right as I need them most.  The beers aren't cheap at $13.99 for a 6 pack but with free shipping and convenient amazon pay, it makes it worth it to have so much variety and so many flavorful options.  Considering Philly's big BYOB scene, these are always great to have in my fridge as a way to unwind after the day or to take out for a nice dinner.  And luckily, the seltzers appear to be a staple of the lineup and don't seem like they will be disappearing anytime soon!