12x12 Woodstock Inn Variety Pack

Beers included: Pig's Ear Brown Ale, Lost River, Peachy Wheat Ale and 4000 Footer IPA

Purchase date: 6 September 2025

Purchase price: $16.99

Brewers choice is always fun.

Initial Impressions

Woodstock Inn is the first one of my former accounts to be reviewed in this series. When I worked for Muntons, Woodstock Inn was a steady, if not particularly huge customer. They'd buy a pallet of torrefied wheat per month, and specialty malts including 40L Crystal and Chocolate Malt a little less frequently.

I was excited to find this sampler when I was up in New Hampshire for Jamboree. Having the flagship Pig's Ear Brown Ale included also gave me a great commercial beer for my side-by-side with my Long Leash Brown Ale 

Beer Reviews

Lost River:

Package date: 19 June 2025

Aroma: Sweet malt and some toffee.

Appearance: Gold with good clarity. Thick, foamy white head with good retention. 

Flavor: Non-descript malt flavor, light and grainy  Low hop bitterness and citrusy hop flavor. Diacetyl the most noticeable flavor overall  

Mouthfeel: Medium body and carbonation. Finish fairly clean. 

Overall: To say light beers give nowhere to hide flaws is a bit of a cliche, but it rings true here. This beer tastes like it needed more time on the yeast to allow it to clean up diacetyl below the flavor threshold. Maybe they dumped the yeast too soon to re-pitch into another batch. 

Not undrinkable, but this beer should be cleaner. I'd whack it down several points if I were judging this in a competition as an American Blonde Ale.

Peachy Wheat Ale

Aroma: Peach and not much else. For a beer like this, that’s ok

Appearance: Hazy gold, like a NEIPA. Thick, foamy head  

Flavor: Malt is very creamy and silky. No hop flavor, but sufficient bitterness. Both stay out of the way of the peach flavor. I enjoyed the peach flavor, tasted authentic while not dominating the base beer or tasting like a seltzer.

Mouthfeel: Medium-full body and creamy. Carb is medium-low. The peach actually balances out the finish so it’s not too sweet.

Overall: I really liked how smooth and soft the mouthfeel was. It was a little like drinking a New England IPA, but with fruit instead of hops. I can see this as an approachable option at the Woodstock Inn brewpub for people that are new to craft or not craft drinkers at all.

4000 Footer IPA

Package date: 22 July 2025

Aroma: Tropical fruit

Appearance: Gold, some haze but not opaque. Big frothy head.

Flavor: Slightly bready malt - like there’s a bit of Vienna or Munich in the grist; maybe a very small inclusion of Caramel Malt. Medium-high hop bitterness. Hop flavor feels like El Dorado, but I could be wrong  

Mouthfeel: Medium full-body, somewhat creamy. Hop bitterness dries out finish as some resin lingers. Not super soft like a New England IPA  

Overall: Reminds me of some of the New England IPAs I used to brew in the mid to late 2010s where I used a large percentage of wheat, experimented with yeasts and used a little Caramalt for color and malt flavor. 

To be fair, this beer doesn’t call itself a New England or Hazy IPA. If I homebrewed this, I’d enter it in the American IPA category. The box does indicate the brewery also makes Mountain Haze which is presumably a New England IPA.

Overall it’s like a smoother Bent Water Thunderfunk. Also reminds me a little of Harpoon Day Drifter. 

Pig's Ear

Package Date: 14 July 2025

See side-by-side with homebrew English Brown Ale. 

Overall impressions of the 12-pack

The 4000 Footer IPA was okay. Not something I would go out of my way for, but If I was at the Woodstock Inn brewpub and was in the mood for something hoppy I'd order it. I feel the same way about Peachy Wheat as the fruit beers in my recent Wachusett 12x12; I enjoy one or two, but it's not something I'd seek out our stock my fridge with. 

Pig's Ear was my favorite beer here. That's a beer I've bought on its own as a four pack in the past. If I didn't just brew a brown ale, I could easily have just bought a 12-pack of Pig's Ear. I love how New Hampshire has three large brewers that produce year-round Brown Ales: Woodstock Inn, Moat Mountain with Boneshaker Brown and the venerable Old Brown Dog from Smuttynose. I can't think of a brewery in Massachusetts with a core brown ale anymore.