Brewery Review: Spyglass Brewery

Brewery: Spyglass Brewing

Location: Nashua, NH

Date Visited: 2/5/2023

Main tap room and bar.

I finally got to visit the new location of my favorite NH brewery, Spyglass, on a Sunday morning/ early afternoon. They have been around for quite a few years now, and recently moved into a new taproom in Nashua off of Exit 1. This new taproom at least quadruples their previous capacity. This is huge because their old taproom was pretty small so when it got crowded it was tough to find a spot, let alone a table. The new taproom now offers a full service kitchen as well, something the old taproom never had. The old one only had snack offerings like nachos, pretzels, charcuterie board, etc. But now they have a full menu of nachos, wings, smash burgers, tacos, hot chicken sandwich, salads, and other delicious foods that will satisfy your hunger when you visit. One thing that went away with the full kitchen is BYOF - bring your own food. This is not allowed anymore. But the same great beer stayed.

Main tap room and brewery

ATMOSPHERE

I arrived at Spyglass with my girlfriend and our good friend right when they opened and there were already some people waiting in the parking lot. As we walked in, we walked around the place to check it out and were very impressed with the new setup. The new taproom is very spacious with lots of seating on the main level, as well as an upper mezzanine. I expected the mezzanine area to be much smaller, but it seems like it could seat at least 60 people. This could be a great area for private events, if they offer that.

Tap room upper mezzanine.

The mezzanine and some of the lower level seating overlook the tanks and brewing area, which is a really cool feature. You see this in other breweries like Definitive, Treehouse, 603, and Kettlehead, to name a few. It makes the area feel a lot bigger than it actually is, though it is a big taproom. The lower level has a big bar with seating all alongside with 20 taps behind, and numerous tables. If my memory is correct that is at least double the amount of taps they had at their old location. Unfortunately, at the time of our visit, not all taps were being used. About half of those taps were closed and instead, they had can pour offerings of different beers. I hope this changes in the future because when I go to a brewery, I want to have draft pours and not can pours. That’s kind of the point of going to the brewery. This is probably due to the recent move and settling into the place, so not the biggest deal. They have at least two service stations at the bar, I might have saw a third, but I could be wrong on that, one at each end of the bar. I noticed that the line to order beer and food doesn’t move as quick as it probably should, but that could be due to the brewery now offering food, the new system they’re using, new people behind the bar, or people not making up their mind due to the big tap list. Again, not the biggest deal but if the place is slammed, expect to wait a few minutes to order. During our visit, the place got very busy and it looked like every table was taken, so the lines to order beer and food were very long. Luckily, we ordered what we wanted at a good time.

FOOD

When you order food, you get a buzzer and the food pickup location is right around the bar at a window. We noticed this buzzer is more so a beeper. It beeps pretty loud, so you will definitely hear that a lot when in the brewery. We honestly wish this just buzzed and not beeped, because the beeping can get kind of annoying if a lot of people order food. After a while you kind of drown out the beeps. My girlfriend and I both ordered the smash burger and fries, but she got truffle fries and I got normal fries.

Smash cheeseburger with truffle fries.

If you’re wondering about allergies with the food, my girlfriend has a severe peanut and tree nut allergy and she was able to eat the burger and fries. The staff just notified the kitchen about it. Our friend decided to order the hot chicken sandwich and fries. It seemed like our food came out pretty fast, but we also ordered kind of early in the day before it got really busy. The smash burger was delicious, so delicious I forgot to take a picture of it before I started to eat it. So the pic you see is my girlfriend’s burger with truffle fries. The truffle fries were on point, just enough of the truffle and on the thicker side of fries and crispy. The regular fries are seasoned well and again are thicker and crispy. Definitely not your thin McDonald’s fries. The smash burger was well cooked and had really good flavor especially with the burger sauce they put on it. I can’t say what’s in the burger sauce, so you’ll have to just try it out yourself. I would definitely get the burger again in a heartbeat.

The meal was also very filling so it was a good thing we didn’t order appetizers. Our friend liked her hot chicken sandwich but she made a few comments about it. The scallion biscuit bread that it’s put on falls apart a little bit when eating it, and the chicken was a tad dry, but there was also a good amount of sauce on it. Because of this, she had to bring out the fork to finish the sandwich. She also said it was not too spicy but there’s definitely some spice there. And this one isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is a big piece of chicken, not your average thin chicken sandwich. Just a couple things worth noting but it didn’t make the sandwich bad one bit. Overall, she said she would order it again since it was still so good. All the food we saw come out during our visit looked amazing so we will definitely be trying other food items in the future.

BEER

I have been to Spyglass many times so I have tried mostly all their beers, and decided to go back to a couple favorites of mine. I ordered half pours of Spatial Proximity, Depth of Field, Aspect Ratio, and Citra Singularity. I won’t go into too much detail on the beers, but I will say I’ve never been disappointed witha Spyglass IPA. In my honest opinion, they make the best IPAs in the state, if not one of the best. Spatial Proximity is a very smooth, creamy, drinkable Double IPA with just a little bit of hops. Depth of Field is also creamy and smooth, but it’s a triple IPA so it will have more hops to it. Though this one will not drink like a 9% triple IPA because it is so drinkable. Aspect Ratio is very well balanced with hops and tropical notes, it’s another great double IPA. And last but not least, Citra Singularity is a double IPA only hopped with Citra hops so it will be pretty zippy with Citra and packed with flavor.

Spatial Proximity, left and Depth of Field, right.

Spyglass has so many good beers, I recommend getting a flight to try multiple. They even have good stouts, sours and German style beers. One thing I noticed about the flights though, is that they use sticky notes to write which beer is which on the flight board. This seems tacky to me, especially coming from a place that is one of the best in the state. I hope they find a new way to display the flight beers in the future. But this surely won’t deter me from ordering flights and enjoying the beer.

From what I’ve heard, there should be some sort of outdoor seating once it’s warm out. Or at least the garage doors/ windows will open up. So I can’t wait for that to happen since that’s another thing they did not have at their old location. I’m sure more people will visit during the warmer months so this would create more seating and space. I was very pleased with my visit to Spyglass’ new location and will 1000% be coming back many more times to enjoy the great beer, food, atmosphere and company. I’m so happy to see how far they’ve come and grown throughout the years, and am excited to see where they’ll go. If you have some free time, check out the taproom off of Exit 1 in Nashua. It’s behind Pressed Cafe on Innovative Way up the hill. Keep driving up Innovative Way and you should not miss the sign to Spyglass Brewing. I recommend going as early as you can to grab a table because the place filled up pretty fast.

Address: 306 Innovative Way Nashua, NH