The crew here at OTW got nice and primed up for the weekend with a few Rise APAs from Whalers Brewing Company during Beer:30 a few Fridays back. Word spread quickly through the office when a package with the iconic whale logo showed up on Friday afternoon. My co-worker Jonathan Rust and I iced them down ASAP to get them nice and cold in time for our weekly Friday office hot stove.
Don’t let Whaler Rise’s classification as an American Pale Ale scare you off, it’s a perfect beer for trading fish tales with friends. It’s not too heavy or overly hoppy like some other APAs, firmly earning its spot in the “crushable” category. You can tell it was brewed with drinkability, rather than overpowering flavor, at the forefront. That said, it’s far from a plain Jane beer. Rise has just the right amount of citrusy, summer sweetness to elevate it without overdoing it. It’s flavorful, but not overwhelmingly hoppy, and for those reasons it sits at the top of the rotation in my summer bullpen of beers. It’s incredibly refreshing after a sweaty day in the bibs or a long week in the office. Poured into a frosted pint glass, it’s one of the best-looking beers on the market, with a deep golden body capped by a thick, frothy white head. Very appetizing.
They say when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Well, a few months back in Newport, on a snowy Sunday with Bruins hockey on deck, my brother and I elected to do as Rhode Islanders do and order a few Rise APAs. As the snow and wind picked up, they started going down even easier. Outside, sideways snowfall and howling wind kept things pretty gnarly; but inside the walls of a Newport pour house, the beers were surprisingly smooth, proving that while Rise is crushable, it’s still a true craft APA with some weight behind the flavor, and it’s more than capable of providing a nice internal warming effect during the chilly winter months.
Rise will be a go-to here at OTW through the rest of the fishing season. During one of those aforementioned Beer:30 fish tales, Matt Ryan exclaimed, “This is one of the freshest tasting beers I’ve ever had.” After a little investigation, we found the canned-on date printed on the bottom of the cans—fresh indeed, canned just the day before. Big thank you to Whalers Brewing Co. for sending us brews right off the line.
Anytime I’m packing a cooler, whether it’s for a summer sharking mission with my college buddies, an offshore tuna trip, or even a snowy Sunday during the offseason—I’ll be tossing a few of those iconic whale cans in there.
Whalers Brewing Company
Rise APA
ABV: 5.5%
Homeport: South Kingstown, RI
Official Score: 8.4/10
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