Positive Friday - Absolute Saturday

This red ale presents an attractive medium red-amber hue that glows nicely when held to the light, capped by a light beige crop of foam. In the aroma, look for caramelized malts to lead the way, augmented by a lightly honeyed impression. The hops bring additional intrigue, offering a lightly fruity impression along with a touch of spice and hints of woodiness. Deliciously rich caramelization forms the central note in the flavor too, hitting up front right away and cascading across the palate. Some Irish-style red ales are brewed with roasted barley to bring forth a roasty impression, but the brewers of Absolute Saturday eschewed this approach to focus more on the caramel notes. The hops offer a prominently spicy and moderately bitter character here too, creating a nice balance to those sweeter malts. Additionally, a touch of spicy alcohol helps thin the body while joining with the hops to provide balance, keeping this brew rather nimble and never feeling heavy. In fact, though the brewery described this to us as an Irish red ale, the elevated 7% ABV is much higher than the style’s more typical 4-5%, and we could perhaps think of this as a somewhat imperialized version – and we really dig it. For pairing options, roasted and grilled meats and veggies are a good call. A burger with smoked gouda and barbecue sauce sounds good to us too, as does a rack of baby back ribs. Additionally, a snack of Cheddar, Dubliner, Caerphilly, Cotswold, or Gloucester cheeses sounds good, as well. Cheers!

The story of Positive Friday is intrinsically linked to the venerable Millstream Brewing Company in Amana, Iowa, which opened in 1985. In March of 2021, Millstream was acquired by Steve & Susan Charlier and their business partner Justin Cohanim while the previous owners, Tom & Teresa Albert, continued as owners of the adjacent Millstream Brau Haus. The new owners sought to maintain the brewery’s core, often traditional German-style beers while expanding the lineup to include more contemporary styles. They also added a canning line to adapt to the modern demand for this packaging format.

Tom, Teresa, and Justin launched the Positive Friday brand in 2021 to provide an avenue to their brewers for experimentation into new styles and a more nimble vehicle for them to get these new creations into the hands of beer lovers much faster, and to a larger audience than the more local-centric Millstream brand. As Justin explained to us, at Millstream the process to introduce a new beer can take months, with multiple pilot batches sold largely out of the taproom. With Positive Friday, they’ve created a separate entity, one in which they hand the reins entirely to their very experienced brewing staff and tell them to come up with something new and exciting – which immediately gets created and distributed within just a few weeks, and to a broader market at that.

As of this writing, they’ve released several new beers including both West Coast and New England Hazy IPAs, Wheat Ale, Vienna Lager, German Pils, and a rather bold Irish Red boasting a stronger than normal ABV. We’re looking forward to seeing what they come up with next.