Bruins legend Ray Bourque has teamed up with two local brands on the release of a namesake beer.
Bourque’s Brew was brewed by Jack’s Abby and in collaboration with Legal Sea Foods. As is customary for the Framingham brewery, the beer is a golden lager, brewed to be crisp and refreshing.
“It’s what they are known for,’’ says Christian Giannaris, beverage director of PPX Hospitality Brands, which includes Legal. “And for us at Legal Sea Foods, we wanted a crisp and clean lager that would appeal to a broad palate range and pair well with our shellfish and seafood menu.’’
Bourque’s Brew has been in the works for more than a year, and the 64-year-old spent a brew day with the Jack’s Abby crew diving into the beer-making process. The former defenseman joins current Celtics guard Derrick White and US soccer stars Sam and Kristie Mewis as athletes to have a beer officially named after them by a local brewery. (Other beers, like Samuel Adams’ GOAT double IPA featuring a goat in a Tom Brady uniform, are not-so-subtle unofficial nods to New England sports legends.)
Bourque’s Brew is available starting this week at all Massachusetts Legal Sea Foods locations. A dollar for every beer purchased will go to the Bourque Family Foundation.
A Lawson’s Finest Liquids legend is back
This week on social media, Vermont brewery Lawson’s Finest Liquids began leaving Easter eggs in the form of posts featuring beer bottles with necks wrapped in gold foil. Any hard-core New England beer fan who’s been doing this long enough will remember those bottles as Double Sunshine, a double IPA that cultivated intense interest in Vermont and beyond in the early 2010s. I made the drive to snag a few bottles of Lawson’s myself then, and I wasn’t alone.
“They’d line up on the porch right here on Thursday mornings when I’d make deliveries out of the back of my Prius,’’ Lawson’s founder Sean Lawson says in a video from the Warren Store, Double Sunshine’s original drop point. “One day, I chatted up the guys in the front of the line and asked, ‘Where you from?’ They’re like, ‘Chicago!’ I’m like, ‘you guys are crazy.’’’
Double Sunshine has been available at the Lawson’s taproom in Waitsfield, Vt., for some time, but those Instagram previews led to an announcement that the beer will soon be hitting other accounts where Lawson’s beers are available. Expect to see Lawson’s Double Sunshine in a store near you in the next week or two, for a limited time.
Gary Dzen can be reached at gary.dzen@globe.com. Follow him @garydzen.
