Wednesday gold for Iron Goat

The hottest beer ticket in town is Iron Goat’s weekly Wednesday small-batch tappings.

To celebrate the Chinese Year of the Goat, the brewery is serving up a 10-gallon batch (two 1/6-barrels) of a different specialty “prototap” beer each week – and the response has been rabid.

“It’s been well beyond our expectations so far,” says Greg Brandt, co-owner and brewer.

The beers started selling out within a couple hours after the Goat opened its doors at 4. So beginning last week, they were limited to one pint per person – and still were gone by 6:30.

In all fairness, that had a little something to do with the #SpoBU online beer group making it their monthly meetup with the local Yelp chapter.

But be forewarned: If you want a taste of tonight’s offering – a big, rich, fruity Baltic Porter (7.5 percent alcohol by volume, 35 International Bitterness Units) – get there early.

The Goat is planning prizes for people who sample the most prototaps. “I’ll be surprised if somebody gets them all,” Brandt says.  

So far, 20 diehards have made it all four weeks. They’ve been treated to an imperial rye IPA, a Belgian wit with juniper and lime, a traditional British extra special bitter and a hoppy oatmeal pale ale (pictured above).

Future releases are “going to be kind of all over the place,” Brandt says, allowing: “I imagine there will be a few down the road that aren’t so great. When you’re doing 52, that’s bound to happen.”

But there’s one sure-fire winner in the works, based on events of the last few days. Says Brandt: “It sounds like we’re going to have to do a pumpkin peach ale.”