According to Stan Tremblay, owner and head brewer of Liquid Therapy Brewery and Grill in Nashua, by definition, hops are one of the things that make a beer a beer.
“Beer at its most basic is water, hops, yeast and grain,” Tremblay said.
Tremblay said small breweries have been pushing hops really hard for the past few years, which admittedly has resulted in some very good beer.
“India Pale Ales [IPAs] such as the doubles and the triples [beers with twice or three times as much hops as a standard IPA] we’ve been seeing, have a huge amount of nuance because of the amount of [hops] that’s in there, which can mean a more vibrant beer. You’ve got beer that tastes like tropical fruit. You’ve got beer that tastes like citrus. You’ve got beer that tastes like berries. Even without using adjuncts or fruits, you can still get those flavors to really pop based on how these hops work best.” An expert brewer can extract any number of flavors, depending on how they incorporate hops.
And what are hops?
Hops are the dried flowers of a vine, Tremblay said, that are used to give beer a bitter taste — sometimes subtly, sometimes aggressively — and, in the days before pasteurization, to help preserve the beer.
“Think of a pine cone,” he said. “A pine cone has that center hard core that all these little petals are stuck to. All those petals have bits of organic material attached to them. So, depending on what you’re looking to accomplish, you can grow the whole cone in and get a certain vibe or flavor. If you’re looking to enhance that flavor, you can press the hops into pellets where they’ve taken that center vegetal mass out and it’s more the petals and the powder that’s on those petals going in. So you’re not getting as much vegetable flavor, grassy notes, hay notes, etc.”
But recently, brewers like Tremblay have started to explore other varieties of beer, with different, less hoppy flavor profiles.
“There are a lot of manufacturers that are producing lagers again on a regular basis,” he said, “or pale ales again on a regular basis. Things that are a little cheaper, things that you can find, products in the market — locally grown herbs and whatnot — that can be incorporated for Belgian styles, etc.” The most popular styles of extremely hoppy beers recently have used imported hops from New Zealand and Europe. A combination of supply and demand and recent import tariffs have made them prohibitively expensive.
“The last time I was in a beer store doing a tasting,” he said, “I saw beers that had gone up two dollars a four-pack because of these increased prices. It’s scary times, man. I just don’t see people paying $22 for the beer that I’m selling at $18. It’s going to put a pickle in everything right now. We have to branch out and do other things.”
Instead of leaning into bitterness, Tremblay said, many small breweries have been exploring fruity or even savory flavor profiles.
“There are plenty of fruit beers out there now,” he said, “[such as] one that I’m coming up with that’s going to have cranberries and orange for like a mulled orange cranberry style sour. So I’ve got that in the works, and I’ve got plenty of lemon blueberry beers that I’ve made in the past with fresh blueberries. I even made a carrot cake beer once. It was a little earthy, but you know it was still quite good. I’ve got one right now called Nacho Gose [pronounced “go-za”]. One of our claims to fame at our restaurant is our nachos. I take all of those broken chips that we can’t use, put them on a plate. Those all go into the mash. And then I use hops that provide lime notes. And then I age it with pickled jalapeños. So you get a little bit of heat, you get some of that corn note, you get those jalapeño flavors, you get some lime notes, it’s delicious. It’s actually super refreshing.”
Featured photo: Some of Liquid Therapy’s less hoppy brews. Courtesy photo.
• The second step in a roast beef/pizza empire? Zo’s Place has opened a second restaurant on Elm Street in Manchester (102 Elm St, Manchester, 836-3905) at the former site of Elm House of Pizza. This roast beef/pizza takeout restaurant joins an existing Zo’s Place in Nashua (235 Main St., Nashua, 889-8810. Visit zosplace.com.
• A new downtown café: Café at Bravo has opened at 85 Hanover St. in Manchester (854-8089, cafeatbravo.com). According to its website, the new restaurant specializes in high-end sandwiches, salads and sides.
• A farmers market in Merrimack: There will be a farmers market at the Stables at Anheuser-Busch Brewery (221 DW Highway, Merrimack) every Thursday, from 4 to 7 p.m. from Sept. 4 to Oct. 23. Support local farmers, artisans and makers while enjoying the scenic charm of the brewery grounds. Buy farm-fresh produce, homemade goods or handcrafted gifts and enjoy live music. Visit “Merrimack Farmers Market” on Facebook.
• Taking NH barbecue to a big stage: As reported by WMUR in an Aug. 17 online article, a pair of Nashua barbecue masters will compete in this year’s Barbecue World Championship Invitational in Lynchburg, Tennessee. “House of Que has competed across the country,” the story read, “including against contestants who have appeared on the Food Network show Pit Masters.” The invitational will take place from Oct. 11 through Oct. 13.
• Beer and blackboards: With the imminent start of the school year, To Share Brewing (720 Union St., Manchester, 836-6947, tosharebrewing.com) has announced Thirsty Thursdays for Teachers. Starting Thursday, Aug. 28, on the fourth Thursday of every month teachers will get 20 percent off their orders, with a valid school ID. This offer will be available at 3:30 p.m., immediately following the end of the school day.
I have an old child’s school desk. My sister says no one wants them. Can you help me out with some information? I would like to see someone enjoy it again.
Crystal
Dear Crystal,
Your late-1800s oak school desk looks to be in good clean condition. That will help in finding it a new home.
Your sister isn’t right but she isn’t wrong either. Most antique child’s school desks are not very desirable these days. It seems the ones with connected seats are least desirable. There are always exceptions if they can easily be reused. With so many different styles of school desks over the ages, from the 1800s to the mid-century style, some do hold higher values. Rarity, form, makers, and as always condition are important.
Your desk, Crystal, could easily fit back into today’s needs. Even with the slightly slanted top. Being a common style in good usable condition, the value would be in the $40 range. Now you just have to find the new home.
A school desk like this could easily be used for displaying a piece of art work, plants, etc.
Thanks for sharing, Crystal, and good luck finding the desk a new home.
Down a dirt road, nestled near what flatlanders would call a lake but Granite Staters know as a pond, is a sleepaway camp for creatives called Avaloch Farm Music Institute. It’s bucolic, with woods, meadows, corn fields and apple orchards, as well as, crucially, 34 soundproofed private guest suites for visionaries to work on their next masterpiece.
Alfred Tauber bought the property in the 1990s as a vacation home. A decade later, he met Deb Scher, and the two began work on a residency program that resembled MacDowell Colony in Peterborough but allowed space for interdisciplinary collaboration on new projects, Avaloch Executive and Artistic Director Ashley Bathgate explained recently.
“The idea was slightly different from MacDowell’s concept in that it was centered around ensembles and artists,” she said in a recent phone interview. “It meant that not just composers or a writer or a visual artist could come, but rather a string quartet or a 13-piece chamber orchestra, sometimes a soloist with a composer in tow.”
Bathgate is a cellist who first came to Avaloch a year after it opened in 2012, and she has returned many times to work on commissions with multiple composers. In 2022 she took over from previous Executive Director Scher and began growing a program that began as a summer getaway into something closer to year-round.
Avaloch now offers residencies seven out of 12 months. Along with an expanded program came facility improvements like the Concert Barn, which was completed in 2023.
“We’re finally able to have public concerts,” Bathgate said, like the upcoming concert from Tanjo & Crow on Aug. 29.
“Last year, they were artists-in-residence,” Bathgate said of the rootsy duo. “They’re going to be here for a week again, and then they’re going to do their EP release, which includes a song that they wrote at Avaloch. So we have all different kinds of shows now.”
A weekend of music continues Aug. 30, as Scott Kirby, Gabriel Donohue and Friends perform an in-house event. “Singer, songwriter, guitarist, storyteller, traveler and road warrior” Kirby grew up in Penacook and splits his time between Kittery, Maine, and Key West these days. Donahue is an Irish-born multi-instrumentalist who’s played with the Chieftains.
Finally, Bathgate will play a late morning concert featuring new works for solo cello and electronics following a Brunch & Bubbles event with apple picking after, weather permitting.
Bathgate’s work is informed by the eclectic mix of artists that come to Avaloch.
“Why I love this job is I also get to take the temperature and have a really broad view into what the younger generation considers contemporary art,” she said. “We had an eight-piece turntable ensemble that came two summers ago, and they were virtuosic in what they do.”
Graphic and digital visual artists have also come to Avaloch.
“We’ve had people who’ve done projection mapping in real time, where the visual component is improvised as the music is played,” Bathgate said. “I do some work with multi-tracking and live processing and electronics in my solo music, but I don’t have nearly the grasp or scope of some of these younger kids.”
Artistic diversity and cross-pollination of disciplines is important to Ashgate, whose resume includes 10 years with Bang on a Can All-Stars, who worked with members of Sonic Youth and Dirty Projectors.
“We were all over the map in terms of collaboration,” she said. “When I came here, that became very important for me to share.”
It makes for a unique on-campus vibe, Bathgate continued. “What makes Avaloch special and where you see that synergy is when you have different genres and people from different backgrounds all together, eating and spending time together, partaking and sharing in the different kinds of music that they’re making.”
This has produced many success stories, along with ventures like the Composers Conference, an 82-year-old institution hosted by Avaloch for the past two seasons, and New Music, New Communities, which pairs young composition fellows with a composer mentor and a performer who premiere a work that they write.
“We’ve had Grammy Award and Pulitzer Prize winners, and Guggenheim fellows in residence.” Bathgate said. “Some of them have recorded albums in the pine practice cabin that’s nestled in the woods.There’s been a lot of interesting creation of art. They use the grounds and the fields and the apple orchard as much as they use the facilities and the practice cabins.”
Upcoming at Avaloch Farm Music Institute When: Friday, Aug. 29, 7:30 p.m., Tanjo & Crow EP release concert; Saturday, Aug. 30, 7:30 p.m., Scott Kirby, Gabriel Donohue and Friends; and Sunday, Aug. 31, 9:30 a.m., Brunch & Bubbles with cellist Ashley Bathgate (11 a.m. concert) Where: Avaloch Farm Music Institute, 16 Hardy Lane, Boscawen Tickets: avalochfarmmusic.org
Theme of most fair foods is indulgence. Fair food is supposed to be deep-fried or covered in powdered sugar. Here’s a look at some of the dishes you might encounter on this season’s midways.
Apple Crisp
Pat’s Apple Crisp and Cider Donuts (patsapplecrisp.com)
Find them at this fair: Hopkinton State Fair, Deerfield Fair
Danielle Calkins’ family has been selling fair food for a long time.
“My dad and my mother started this business back in 1984,” she said. “We’ve been in business over 40 years. … They just started with the fair circuits like Topfield, Deerfield, Hopkinton, Rochester. Now, we do fall festivals and things like that, but we’re also now a mobile food truck business so we do private events as well. The cider doughnuts have been part of the operation for about 18 years out of those 40. My father passed away in 2010 and so my brother and I took over the business. My mom is still involved. She’s Pat.”
In classic fair food tradition Pat’s makes two foods, makes them extremely well, and tries to keep up with demand on fair weekends. Calkins said apple crisp is, for her, the quintessential New England fair food.
“I definitely think it’s just that feeling that New Englanders have at that turn of the fall season,” she said. “When we start to feel those leaves change and it starts to get a little cooler in the air, I just feel like people, New Englanders specifically, they just crave the sweaters and the scarves. You watch people at the fair, right? People are kind of bundled up in the evenings. It’s a little chilly. They want something hot and they want something that is homemade that they know.”
Calkins said while fresh hot doughnuts sell more at fairs, apple crisp has a special place in her heart.
“Just because it’s that mixture between French vanilla and when it melts a little bit into the crisp and the apples, it’s something special. I just think that everything kind of aligns for that Deerfield Fair weekend at the end of September. The apples are at peak, peak perfection at that time, just before October hits, and it’s probably about 50 degrees outside; it’s the best.”
Calkins and her family are traditionalists. They stick with McIntosh apples from one particular local orchard for their crisp.
”It’s completely dependable and it cooks well without becoming mush,” she said.
Extremely Large Doughnuts
Betsy’s Country Fair Donuts (facebook.com/betsysdonuts)
Find them at this fair: Hopkinton State Fair, Deerfield Fair, Sandwich State Fair
Cider doughnuts might be traditional, but enormous frosted doughnuts the size of hubcaps are the indulgence of choice for many younger fair-goers. Fully mature couples might need to split one between themselves.
Jamie Cross is the owner of Betsy’s Country Fair Donuts.
“We’ve been doing jumbo doughnuts at New Hampshire State Fairs since my grandfather started it in 1965,” he said. “We are third and fourth generation at the moment.”
Cross said his stand sells five varieties of doughnut, all of which are yeasted and leavened.
“We do five different varieties of jumbo doughnuts,” he said. “We do maple-frosted, chocolate-frosted, cinnamon-sugared, regular-sugared, and honey-dipped. Chocolate-frosted are usually the most popular in Hopkinton, honey-dipped in Deerfield, and usually maple-frosted up in Sandwich.” These are big doughnuts. “Ours are 8 inches across,” he said.
The doughnuts sell too quickly to keep track of, Cross said.
Betsy’s Country Fair Donuts. Courtesy Jamie Cross.
“As far as actual doughnuts, we don’t actually count. We usually measure by 50-pound bags of flour is how we usually count the day. And I think the best Deerfield Fair we ever had was probably 10 50-pound bags of flour, so 500 pounds of flour in a day. A Deerfield Saturday is usually the busiest day of any of the fairs.”
To be ready for the midway, the dry ingredients for Cross’ doughnuts are mixed off-site. “We mix dried powdered whole eggs, powdered milk, our shortenings, sugars and flavors. We’ll mix that in a batch. So we call it our base. So we have buckets of that. When we are at the fair, we only have to measure out a certain amount of base, water and yeast, and then you put the flour in until the dough feels a certain way. Then you let it rise, cut it, let it rise again, and then fry it. And then you dress them all up. They’re all the same doughnut, they’re just dressed differently.”
Cross notes that, surprisingly, frosted doughnuts are not at their best right out of the fryer.
“The perfect doughnut is like 15 minutes out of the fryer,” he advised. “They need to set a little bit. You don’t want them to be too hot when you add the toppings. … You don’t want them running all down your shirt. A lot of people are like, ‘Oh, do you have a hot honey-dipped?’ I’m like, ‘I do, and if that’s what you want, you can wear it; that’s fine.’
Gluten-Free Fair Food
No Pain, No Grain
Find them at this fair: Hillsborough County Fair, Deerfield Fair
Tenley Pello developed celiac disease as an adult, but she grew up loving fair food. According to her the most unfair thing about her situation is that she was able to develop a passion for wheaty, starchy foods before her body decided she couldn’t eat them.
“So I went from knowing how good fair food is to not being able to eat it,” she said. After some consideration, she realized that that feeling of injustice was also an opportunity.
“The way I kind of look at it,” she said, “is when I go to a fair I don’t want a smoothie, I don’t want to go and get a rice bowl, I don’t want a healthy option, I want typical fair junk food — and I couldn’t eat that anymore. So I wanted to kind of bring back enjoyable fair food to people who don’t really have options. Because even when you go to places that have gluten-free foods, there can still be cross-contamination; they might use the same fryer for everything, or forget to wipe a counter down.”
The thing to keep in mind, Pello said, is that “gluten-free” does not mean “healthy.” The whole principle of fair food, she said, is to be able to provide greasy, carby, indulgent food.
“Every event we work at, we sell something different,” she said. “Our fried dough definitely took us a couple of attempts to get right. We finally found a recipe that we really, really like and we settled on. A lot of people tell us that they’ve missed it, that they haven’t been able to have fried dough since they were kids.”
Pello said anything she fries is popular on the fairgrounds.
“Our Fry Bowls [huge servings of loaded french fries] seem to sell the most,” she said, “but our chicken tenders are really great …” Most of the dishes on the No Pain menu at any given event are built on a foundation of French fries. A Chicken Parm Bowl, for instance, starts with garlic-parmesan fries, topped with chicken tender bites, marinara sauce, and more parmesan cheese. Other bowls might be topped with pulled pork, Buffalo chicken, or a classic fair combination of grilled sausage, peppers, and onions. Pello said that she is particularly proud of the chicken tenders she has been able to source, which find their way into more than half of her inventions. “We’ve managed to find a distributor who can get us the best of the best,” she said. They are incredibly high-quality, and they’re halal. It is definitely a comfort food.”
Maple Cotton Candy
Ben’s Sugar Shack (bensmaplesyrup.com)
There is probably no fair food more iconic than cotton candy.
The New Hampshire twist on cotton candy is to make it out of maple sugar. Ben Fisk is the owner of Ben’s Sugar Shack.
“I’ve been making maple cotton candy at the fair since I was 15 years old,” he said. “It’s just a pure maple flavor.”
The way a cotton candy machine works, Fisk said, is that it melts sugar and spins it very quickly.
“There are heating elements in there and it just melts the sugar out there and spins it out. [The sugar] comes out into the air as a liquid and when it hits the cooler air is when it turns into the sugar fibers.” In Fisk’s experience, it’s children who like traditional bright colors. “But definitely, more adults eat the maple cotton candy,” he said. Because, in the end, maple cotton candy has such a pure maple flavor, the maple sugar can come from many different batches of syrup. “It varies, it can be dark,” he said, “but usually a dark to amber rich syrup is really good for making maple sugar.”
Smoked Turkey Legs
Michael Raffalo has seen smoked turkey legs evolve as a fair food staple over the years.
“I started doing turkey legs [at fairs] around 1996,” he remembered. They seem to have started as a niche food at renaissance fairs, and took a while to develop a following. “They weren’t popular in the beginning as they are now at a fair, but I believe most fair foods that are popping off are because of the food channels, you know, Carnival Eats, several shows like that on TV. Sausage has been a staple since before I was born. Popcorn, cotton candy, that type of thing, fried dough. But now, with these shows, people are frying everything — this and that. But the turkey legs have come around, and I’ve stayed with it through all these years.”
Raffalo and his family live in Florida but work the fair circuit throughout the summer and fall. The Deerfield Fair is an important event on his family’s calendar.
Smoked turkey legs. Courtesy photo from Michael Raffalo.
“Deerfield’s a big staple,” he said, “and it’s a family affair. This year I believe is our 60th year at that fair. It’s now turned over to my son. I’m still here a little bit to help along, but the next generation is coming along now. He’s the fourth generation on his mother’s side; it’s the same business, but he’s third generation on his father’s side. He’s a good boy.”
The turkey legs themselves are straightforward, Raffalo said.
“They are turkey. It’s just smoking and it’s an easy preparation. That’s the one good thing about them. You don’t need bread, you don’t need peppers, onions, all that. It’s just boom, here’s your meat. It’s meat on a stick.We’re into smokers, we’re into picking up wood, making sure it’s the right wood. You can just use oak, it’s fine, but if you want a little sweeter taste to the leg — I mean, it’s just like a barbecue process.”
Raffalo said that while many turkey leg vendors fry their turkey legs he and his family are committed to cooking theirs in a smoker, which requires organization and planning.
“If we were in a hurry we could get a batch out quickly in three hours for production,” he said, “But we let them go a little longer if we have time.”
A turkey leg is bigger than most first-timers expect, Raffalo said.
“They roughly range from 18 ounces to 36 ounces. Some of the legs in a box are twice the size of others, but they are all no less than 18 ounces. If you’re going to call it ‘jumbo,’ we want it to be 18 ounces or more. [A turkey leg] is a walk-around-with-a-hunk-of-meat-in-your-hand meal in itself. It’s just a big old hunk of meat and deliciousness. The flavor’s simple — simple smoke. [Customers] love it.’
Deep-Fried Oreos
Brothers Concessions
Find them at this fair: Hopkinton State Fair, Deerfield Fair
If New England fair food has a specialty, it’s almost anything deep-fried. Fried dough springs to mind immediately, of course, and then there are french fries, cottage fries, curly fries, spiral fries, corn dogs, fried clams, even fried ice cream. But the quintessential decadent fried fair food has to be the fried Oreo.
Matt Reed is one of the owners of Brothers Concessions, which specializes in fried foods.
Fried Oreos from Brothers Concessions. Courtesy photo from John Lindsey.
“Fried Oreos started in about 2002,” he remembered. “I think we started doing fried Oreos in 2003. My brother and I started as soon as I got out of high school. We started with fried Twinkies, fried candy bars and funnel cakes. And then the following year we added a couple other items, but an Oreo was the biggest one that we added. It’s been one of the long-term stays that we’ve had.”
Reed said that timing is everything when it comes to eating a fried Oreo.
“You really need to let them cool a little bit,” he advised. “You’ll burn your tongue if you don’t, but they are best fresh. If you let them sit and kind of sit for too long — half an hour or so — they’ll go stale. I do know several people who have told me that they were taking them home and reheating them in the oven, but for the most part hot and fresh is the way to go.”\
The secret to a good fried Oreo is to not cheap out, Reed said.
“When we first started doing it, when we were getting our original trailer ready, we had neighborhood kids come over to try out different things. And we had done Oreos, just regular … Oreos. And then we tried Double Stuf Oreos and they were so much better! Like so much better that we’ve always used Double Stuf Oreos for probably 23 years now. And I’ve never seen any other vendors do that. … The filling in an Oreo will kind of melt into the batter a little bit, so more is better.”
“With a Twinkie,” Reed continued, “the way we do it, it’s actually got a cool taste in the middle, but the outside is nice and warm. It’s kind of like a baked Alaska type of sensation. We do fried ice cream as well.” That has to be very cold when it goes into the hot oil, he said. The concept is to have different flavors, textures and temperatures in the same treat.
Reed has seen a growing acceptance of decadent fried fair food.
“When we first started doing it, it tended to be something for a young adult crowd,” he said. “But, you know, now, I have grandparents buying fried Oreos, fried cookies, fried candy bars. Early on, parents were not as excited about serving their kids fried desserts, but over time they’ve become more of a standard fair food. They’re everywhere now.”
Three upcoming fairs
Hopkinton State Fair Fairgrounds, 392 Kearsarge Ave., Contoocook Dates: Thursday, Aug. 28, through Monday, Sept. 1 Hours: Thursday 5 to 10 p.m., Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Monday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will be livestock shows, a demolition derby, carnival rides, monster trucks, live entertainment, a farmers market, and a petting zoo. Expect stunt riders, horse-pulls and, of course, fair food. Visit hsfair.org.
Hillsborough County Fair New Boston 4-H Youth Center, 15 Hilldale Lane, New Boston Dates: Friday, Sept. 5, through Sunday, Sept. 7 Hours: Friday noon to 9 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Expect livestock showing, ox-pulls, carnival rides, tractor-pulls, sheep-herding demonstrations, live music, fireworks and fair food. Visit hcafair.org.
Deerfield Fair Deerfield Fair Grounds, 34 Stage Road, Deerfield Dates: Thursday, Sept. 25, through Sunday, Sept. 28 Hours: Thursday, Friday and Saturday 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Billing itself as “New England’s Oldest Family Fair,” the Deerfield Fair is a lot to take in. Expect horse and cattle pulls, a pig scramble, giant pumpkins, circus performers, live music, horticultural and dairy judging, sheep sheering, rides, dog shows, a women’s Fry Pan Toss, and, of course, an almost overwhelming amount of fair food. Visit deerfieldfair.com.
Featured Image: Apple crisp from Pat’s. Photo courtesy Danielle Calkins.
The Hopkinton State Fair starts today and runs through Monday, Sept. 1, at the fairgrounds, 392 Kearsarge Ave. in Contoocook. In addition to the midway with a selection of rides (see the list at hsfair.org), the fair will feature the Demolition Derby (Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 6:30 p.m), Dialed Action Sports (Thursday at 6:30 p.m.), the New England Lawn Mower Racing Association (Friday 6 p.m.) and Dialed Action Sports BMX (various times Friday through Monday). The fair will also feature dog events such as Disc-Connected K9s (shows Thursday through Monday) and Dockdogs (daily) as well as live stock shows, pulling competitions, home arts and NH 4-H show and auction, the website said. Get juggling and magic performances daily on the Country Porch Stage and find live music on The Ag Stage including Linda Nelson (Thursday, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m), Dan Morgan (times Friday through Monday), April Cushman (Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.) and Brad Myrick (Sunday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.), the website said. Fair hours are 5 to 10 p.m. today; 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday. Buy admission passes, admission and ride mega passes and special show tickets through the website.
Thursday, Aug. 28
The New Hampshire Fisher Cats will play Game 3 of a six-game home series against the Erie SeaWolves tonight at 6:35 p.m. at Delta Dental Stadium (1 Line Drive, Manchester, 641-2005, milb.com/new-hampshire). Come early for a Space Potatoes Koozie Giveaway. Tickets start at $17. Games continue Friday and Saturday (when the team plays at the Space Potatoes and there is a Space Potato socks giveaway) nights at 6:35 p.m. and Sunday at 1:35 p.m.
Thursday, Aug. 28
Post-grunge rock band Creed takes the stage at the SNHU Arena (555 Elm St., Manchester, 644-5000, snhuarena.com) tonight at 7 p.m. with special guests Daughtry and Mammoth will open. Tickets start at $49.
Saturday, Aug. 30
Cruising Downtown returns to downtown Manchester today from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., organized by the Rotary Club of Manchester. The day will feature cars on display, along with food, local vendors and live music with Off Duty Angels, Linda Lane Band, Speed Trap and Permanent Vacation, according to the club’s Facebook page. See cruisingdowntownmanchester.com.
Saturday, Aug. 30
Today is the Clear the Shelter Finale at Pope Memorial SPCA of Concord Merrimack County (94 Silk Farm Road, Concord, 856-8756, pmspca.org) from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. with a 50 percent off pet adoption fees for adult pets.
Sunday, Aug. 31
Temple Mountain plays an afternoon solo set today at 3 p.m. at Contoocook Cider Co. in Contoocook. The Peterborough-based singer-guitarist mixes originals with fun covers. Sunday, Aug. 31, 3 p.m., Contoocook Cider Co., 656 Gould Hill Road, Contoocook, templemountainmusic.com.
Save the Date! Friday, Sept. 19 The annual celebration of Scottish culture, music, food and sports returns to Loon Mountain Resort in Lincoln. The annual New Hampshire Highland Games & Festival will take place Friday, Sept. 19, through Sunday, Sept. 21, according to nhscot.org. See events such as stone lifting and caber toss, historical reenactments of life in the Highlands, “Try It” classes, kids’ events and more. Purchase tickets for a single day or the weekend on the website along with tickets for special musical performances and food events, such as the Cape Breton dinner and whisky master classes.
