
MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Featuring a full spectrum of ‘hop-noxious’ brews in Manchester’s modern commercial-university district, cavernous lower level pub,
MILLY’S TAVERN, resides in a bridge-shaded tall red brick building, visited New Year’s eve ‘05. Located along the riverside, the former Stark Mill Brewery (re-christened Milly's Tavern in 2002) is a mere fifteen minute drive from Nashua's friendly brewpub competitor, Martha's Exchange. Exposed ducts, right and rear dining, and local nighttime entertainment mark this ample half-basement lair.
Brew tanks located behind centered Formica-topped bar served cornucopia of brews. Palest straw-hued hop-tingled lemon-tweaked lo-carb Euro pilsner-styled
Fisher Cat Ale, wheat-husked hop-spiced spritzer
Amoskeag Harvest Ale, vacuous lemony respite
Mount U. Golden Cream Ale and thinly fruit-spiced
Tasha’s Red Tail Ale will please lighter tastes.
Better were exquisitely-detailed, brown-sugared, pumpkin pie-like, cinnamon-allspice-glanced
Pumpkin Ale, dry piney-hopped citric-embittered alcohol-sharp
Manch-Vegas IPA, resinous coffee-dried caramel-burnt black chocolate-y
General John Stark Porter, butterscotch-hazelnut-sweetened
Brownnoser (Brown Ale) and robust oats-toasted, anise-lingered, black chocolate-reinforced
Milly’s Oatmeal Stout.

Revisited Granite State’s centralized Merrimack Valley corridor during snowy January 2010 sojourn. At Milly's my wife and I enjoyed flatbread pizza, soup, and salad while sitting at open L-shaped bar mid-afternoon trying brewer Ron Gamble’s latest elixirs.
Mugs hanging from ceiling pipe ballast set the stage for two-hour beer blitz starting with mild yellow-fruited green-hopped soft-spiced
Fisher Cat Ale and molasses-sapped honey-spiced corn-syrupy lemon-dried
Buzzin Bee Honey Wheat. Berliner Weisse-styled
Bold Horizons placed mildly spiced lemon-soured apricot-peach tartness next to tangy tangerine-orange undertones.
Peanut, macadamia, and walnut saddled affable black coffee-spiced
Castlefield Northern English Brown Ale as well as tart black cherry-fronted dry-malted coffee-burnt
Ploughman’s Cherry Porter.
Hop-roasted chocolate-soured prune-dried blood-like
Li’l Ivan Foreign Extra Stout was outscored by old standby,
Milly’s Oatmeal Stout. Savored
Man In The Moon, a dry-peppered Belgian-style Saison working lusty alcohol influence into vanilla-malted yellow fruiting and receding banana-clove sweetness, as a digestif.
www.millystavern.com