Earth Eagle Brewings is leading a beer revolution focusing not on hops but gruits, and chronicling the journey in a new book.

Ask Earth Eagle Brewings co-founder George “Butch” Heilshorn about his business strategy for attracting a more traditional beer drinker into his Portsmouth gastropub, and his answer may surprise you. “The hardcore Bud Light drinker will likely be disappointed,” he says, sitting in the small bar a cafe-like seating area of his craft beer pub. “The people who come here, they are on a mission.”

That mission, as it turns out, primarily involves gruits—beer that has little to no hops and relies on forged herbs, spices and roots to give it flavor. In fact, so serious is Hailshorn and co-founder Alex McDonald about this style of brewing that the brewery contracts with a forager who collects the spices and herbs from New England forests, swamps, and the seacoast for the house brews. “If you look at the history of beer, it’s only in the last couple centuries that hops became a thing,” says Heilshorn, a former high school guidance councilor. “Hops have nothing to do with alcohol anyway.”

Instead, between March and October, Earth Eagle gets a weekly list of available herbs and spices, and the co-founders along with their brewers go through them to select that week’s brews. Their beer menu changes weekly and sometimes daily, with about a half dozen of their own brews and a half dozen New England-based brews available at any time. Recent featured gruits have included Queen Mojo, featuring mugwort and wild carrot flower, and John’s Cross, featuring St. John’s wort, ginger root, lemon grass, rue and bee pollen.

Earth Eagle Brewings co-founders Alex McDonald and George Heilshorn

Earth Eagle got its start in a backyard when McDonald married Heilshorn’s sister, and the two began home brewing on a backyard picnic table. “We started getting positive feedback, and people started talking about our brews,” Heilshorn says. “And through it all, we just brew to satisfy our own curiosity about all these different styles.” Some of those unique styles are on full display in the form of recipes and history in Heilshorn’s new book, Against All Hops: Techniques and Philosophy for Creating Extraordinary Botanical Beer (Page Street Publishing).

Between the book and the pub (and McDonald and his wife own A & G Homebrew Supply, a beer making supply store tucked into the other side of the building), Heilshorn is convinced the craft market can only grow. “Look, Portsmouth is just on fire. It’s a boom town,” he says. “And 80 percent of the beer market is still that yellow fizzy stuff. As long as those numbers are there, those customers are fair game!”

George “Butch” Heilshorn–co-founder, Earth Eagle Brewings
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
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All photos by Dan Szczesny

The post Doing Gruit Work appeared first on Take Magazine.

Lisa Teague began her design career as a decorative house painter. In time, her keen eye for color and instinct for space evolved into a full-service interior design studio. Of utmost importance to Teague is creating an environment that is reflective of the homeowner as well as comfortable.

Teague blends her flair for the artistic with thoughtful design choices that lend character and integrity to the décor. Teague is especially good at identifying existing furnishings or decorative items that can be repurposed with a touch of creativity and color. “My designs are a bit eclectic. I like to throw in something unexpected,” she says. “There is usually something modern in an antique home or something antique in a modern space.”

Teague’s aesthetic leans coastal in color and style, a nod to her seacoast community of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Although she works beautifully with any desired look, her own surroundings tend to influence her work. “I feel respectful of the environment I’m in and most of my work is on the seacoast and northern New England now,” she says. “When you’re doing a home, your interior landscapes, looking from room to room, are important, but you’re also looking at the exterior and it’s important to me to reflect that.”

Our New England climate also comes into play when Teague conceptualizes a room. She likes to layer textures and color that make sense whether it’s 90 degrees outside or a day suited to “reading a book with a warm comforter around you, drinking tea and watching the ocean turn gray.”

No matter the scope of project, Teague believes in making smart and sustainable design choices. This ideology led to the development of her own line of VOC-free, solvent-free and pesticide free organic paints. She and her daughter Andrea produced Quiet Home Paints featuring the popular Quiet Nursery Collection. This came in response to Teague’s own health issues suffered as a result of long-term exposure to toxic paints.

Quiet Home Paints. Photo courtesy of Lisa Teague.

The idea for Quiet Home Paints originated during one of Teague’s regular trips to Africa to help families in need. At the time, Teague was beautifying libraries and rooms for children and her idea for non-toxic paints blossomed. “I wanted it to be a healthy product that people felt comfortable having in their home,” she says.

Teague’s visits to Kenya and The Rift Valley Children’s Village in Tanzania are very close to her heart. She’s is also on the board of directors of Education for All Children, a non-profit organization providing education to Kenyan youth.

Lisa Teague with two of the many children she has worked with at The Rift Valley Children’s Village in Campi Nairobi, Tanzania.

Next up for Teague? Ongoing work with design clients as well as a fundraising trip to climb Mount Kenya. “You get a lot more than you give,” she says. “What you put in in pennies, you get back in pounds.”

Lisa Teague–Interior Designer
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
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Top image: a dining room designed by Lisa Teague. All photos courtesy of Lisa Teague

The post Designs for Healthy, Beautiful Homes appeared first on Take Magazine.

Ella McGrail’s reaction to being selected the first New Hampshire Youth Poet Laureate can be described as a fairly standard teenage reaction. “Oh, this is a joke,” the Portsmouth High School senior recalls in an interview about her new appointment. “Are you kidding me?”

But her tender age and surprise at the honor don’t do justice to her deep credentials in the New Hampshire writing community. She’s a published poet and youth activist who writes a blog called Civic Teen for Seacoast Online. She’s also a public speaker, and was personally selected by New Hampshire Poet Laureate Alice Fogel for the new post, which she will hold through August. Future Youth Poets Laureate will apply for the position.

Fogel says the idea behind the position was to pick a high school-aged student who has shown commitment as a creative writer and thinker, is an advocate for others, and can give a voice to the concerns of young people. “Ella is a remarkable young woman who fills all these criteria in her own unique, humble, and strong way,” says Fogel.

Given that McGrail has been writing “as long as I’ve been aware of myself” and wrote her first novel by the age of 13, she seems a good pick to provide direction for the program and give other young writers an example and role model. But her technique and work ethic could be an example for adult writers as well.

“The more you write, the better you become,” she says. “I’m largely self-taught, but I read a lot and love to read so I know how it’s supposed to sound. I write every day or at least journal every day. I carry a notebook everywhere.”

As a teenager, McGrail has strong thoughts about a writer’s life. Take writers’ block. “I’m skeptical of writer’s block; it seems like an excuse for people that just don’t feel like writing,” she says with a laugh. “I mean I love it, but you’re not going to always be in that golden stage. The rest of the time is slogging through what sounds right and that’s where the real mechanics come in.”

McGrail says her poetry—a cross between political activism and fantastical imagery—owes its style to New Hampshire. “I love living in a state where people care about big issues and defend them,” she says. “Much of my writing and definitely some of my poetry has been inspired by the passion of New Hampshirites defending their beliefs. It is also a state of incredible natural beauty. I spend most of my time on the seacoast and find a bottomless source of inspiration in both the ocean and the beauty of the Portsmouth area.”

While McGrail writes enjoys other kinds of writing, she finds poetry’s dual nature particularly alluring. “Wonderful poetry and fun poetry can be written about things that aren’t your beating heart in your hand,” she says. “But things we love and things that make us scared are likely the same things. With love comes fear. Along with something you’re deeply passionate about comes fear of having it taken from you. Pain and love can be interchangeable.”

“Watercolor”
I would have been an impressionist painting
Resting in a field, perhaps
Or looking out through a kitchen window,
Absent-minded
Fingers curved and head tilted
As I let myself slip from the task at hand
Into church bells and distance
I would have to be an impressionist work
Because I appear so unfocused to myself
Features and convictions unclear
Truth ripples from water lily into reflection
Much better then, to be unsure
Where my hair ends and the clouds begin
Where my apron melts into grass
Checkered cloth becomes shadow
Villages fade into light and mist
Yes, emotions are best described by these unsolid brushstrokes
But it is comforting
This message in the softly painted smiles of blurred women
That I may remain beautiful
A better artwork for my uncertainty.

Ella McGrail – New Hampshire Youth Poet Laureate
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
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The post Meet New Hampshire’s First Youth Poet Laureate appeared first on Take Magazine.

New Hampshire is the type of state where you tend to know your neighbors. So it wasn’t surprising for filmmaker Michael Venn to run into an old friend in downtown Portsmouth. Their conversation, however, was anything but typical.

Venn was shocked when his friend, a man in his 20s, shared his struggles with heroin addiction. “This is the type of kid you’d want your daughter to date,” he recalls. “Good looking, from a good family, seemed to have his act together.” That chance encounter, combined with myriad headlines about the state’s opioid crisis, inspired Venn’s film, The Heroin Effect. It had its inaugural screening March 30 to a sell-out crowd at The Music Hall in Portsmouth. Another Music Hall screening is scheduled for May 25.

In the U.S., 144 people die daily from heroin and other opioid overdoses. It’s an epidemic that’s touched many New Hampshire residents. For Venn, who professes an obsession with coffee (he’s rarely without a cup), his research on heroin and opiate use changed his perspective on addiction. “It’s a medical issue,” he says. “The only way to tackle this problem is to be real about it and start a conversation.”

Being real meant telling a story that humanizes addiction and focuses on positive outcomes. Venn interviewed more than 50 people for The Heroin Effect, including people in recovery, politicians, police officers, and judges. The film introduces Eric, Sandi, and Dean, former addicts who are now actively involved in the recovery movement. Each tells their own story, without narration. There’s also a riveting video diary by Daniel, who openly discusses his struggles with heroin use. The film is driven by their stories. “My goal is that the audience likes everyone they see on screen and identifies with them,” Venn says. “These people are your next door neighbors, family members, and friends.”

Venn has explored storytelling through music and writing since he was a child. After college, he initially followed his dream to be a musician, playing drums in bands locally and in New York City. He was always interested in film. “I was the kid who watched movies incessantly, then dissected them,” he says.

A faithful attendee of the New Hampshire Film Festival, Venn was inspired to write screenplays, eventually volunteering to help local filmmakers. That led to small acting parts, writing soundtracks, and then directing and producing his own work. Venn made his directorial and writing debut in 2010 with the short film Dark Scribbles. He produced and co-directed an award-winning documentary, In Danger of Being Discovered as well as a PSA, It’s Time, Let’s Talk, about the opiate crisis. He’s also written and directed music videos.

Venn hopes to secure a film distributor for The Heroin Effect and have it seen by as many people as possible. The film’s initial screening at the Music Hall generated statewide buzz. “People told me they were telling others about the movie,” he says. “If you’re still talking about the film after it’s shown, I’m doing something right.”

Michael Venn–Filmmaker
The Heroin Effect
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Photo by Raya Al-Hashmi of Raya On Assignment

The post Telling Stories of Recovery appeared first on Take Magazine.

Let’s face it: Americans can be a bit isolationist when it comes to media consumption, especially when it comes to film. This ethnocentric behavior is somewhat understandable. After all, Hollywood and American indie filmmakers produce a lot of great films, and international films aren’t as readily available as the home grown, big budget, smashy-smashy films we all love. It’s not as if TBS is going to show The 400 Blows, Mustang or The Salesman on a Sunday afternoon anytime soon.

Still from The Salesman (2016) Dir. Asghar Farhadi | Oscar Award Winner Best Foreign Language Film, 2017

The good news is New England, thanks to its many international film festivals, offers folks the opportunity to see some of the most vibrant, insightful, hilarious, and popular films made all over the world. Festival-goers can enjoy films and panel discussions in western Massachusetts, or head to New Hampshire to see a selection of documentaries and dramas still getting buzz from the Cannes Film Festival. Either way, New Englanders have plenty of opportunities to see something new and foreign all year. Here’s our list of the international film fests in New England you won’t want to miss.

Berkshire International Film Festival
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
June 1 – 4

BIFF is perhaps the most star-studded festival on our list. Last year’s fest boasted appearances by Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull (2001 A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blade Runner), cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and other living movie legends like Karen Allen and Meryl Streep. The film fest also gives filmmakers special attention for the sixth year in a row with its signature filmmakers’ summit.

Telluride by the Sea
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
September
In addition to a curated selection of contemporary international films on the cusp of popularity, Telluride by the Sea rediscovers “films and filmmakers hitherto forgotten or relegated to the dustbin of the ‘film buff,’” essentially using the notoriety of the film fest to revive these forgotten moments in film history through its Lost & Found program.

Camden International Film Festival
Camden, Maine
September 14-17

Still from The Happy Film (2016) Co-Dir. Hillman Curtis, Ben Nabors, Stefan Sagmeister | Screened at the CIFF in 2016

CIFF is currently accepting submission for films of all kinds, offering local and international filmmakers the chance to showcase their work to a larger audience. Like the other festivals on this list, CIFF features screenings, panels and events over the four-day run. What you won’t find at any other film festival in the region is a three-day crash course on VR filmmaking (done in collaboration with Maine Media College).

Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival
Providence, Newport and other Rhode Island venues
August 8-13

In addition to being one of the longest running film festivals in the region, Flicker, the organization that puts on RIIFF each year, programs other internationally-oriented film events throughout the year leading up to the big week of screenings, panels and post-show parties. Roving Eye Film Festival, held in April, screens international films with a theme of social change and additionally programs an international film festival for children residing in hospitals.

New Haven International Film Festival
November 12-14
New Haven, Connecticut

Though NHIFF is short relative to other international film festivals in New England, its content, genre exploration, and subjects are impressive and diverse. The festival features dedicated screenings of short films in four genres, as well as films from Iran, Pakistan, England, and France. Two can’t-miss docs showing at NHIFF: The Last Tear, a firsthand historical re-telling of the sexual abuse perpetrated by the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII, and Dog Days of Winter, a light-hearted look at the origin and advent of free skiing in the 1970s.

Vermont International Film Festival
October 20-19
Vermont

Featuring a wide range of international films and a showcase of local filmmakers, VTFF began as an anti-nuclear weapons movement in 1985, making it the oldest environmentalism-themed film festival in the nation. VTFF has since branched out to include other kinds of films, as well as year-round international film programming through the Global Roots Film Festival.

Top photo still from The Peace Agency (2016), Dir. Sue Useem | Screening at the New Haven International Film Festival

The post The 6 Best International Film Fests in New England appeared first on Take Magazine.