The Hippo: July 20, 2017

FEATURED FOOD

Granite Brews

Brewfest Highlights New Hampshire Craft Beer

Written By Angie Sykeny (asykeny@hippopress.com)

Images: Stock Photo

 

 

Forty-five breweries and more than 100 craft brews will be featured at the fourth annual New Hampshire Brewers Festival, happening Saturday, July 22, at Kiwanis Waterfront Park in Concord.

The brewfest, hosted by the New Hampshire Brewers Association, spotlights New Hampshire brewers exclusively and has the largest collection of New Hampshire breweries at a single event this year.

“The whole festival is put together by actual brewers for true craft beer lovers,” NHBA Executive Director CJ White said. “It’s a true celebration of New Hampshire craft beer and brewers and the industry in the state.”

The lineup includes brewers from all over the state, many of them returning, but there will be some newcomers. For recently opened breweries such as Rek’-Lis Brewing Co. of Bethlehem, Sublime Brewing Co. of Plymouth and Backyard Brewery of Manchester, this will be their first ever brewfest.

Most of the booths will be manned by the breweries’ own brewers and staff.

“These aren’t just volunteers pouring,” White said. “This is a chance to meet and talk with the New Hampshire brewers themselves. Everyone who is pouring can tell you more about the beer in depth.”

Additionally, there will be brewers from some soon-to-open breweries including Empty Pint of Dover, Long Blue Cat Brewing Co. of Londonderry, Monadnock Brewing Co. of Keene and Post and Beam Brewing Co. of Peterborough, who won’t be pouring at the fest, but will be in attendance to meet with tasters and talk about their coming brews. There will also be an educational area with booths for home brewing and brewing-related programs offered at local colleges.

“It’s interactive,” White said. “There’s the tasting, but you also have the ability to become more educated and learn about beer as a whole.”

Brewer booths will be lined up under a large event tent. Upon admission, tasters will receive a souvenir tasting glass to use for unlimited sampling.

Each brewery will bring between two and six beers, which may include special releases, collaborations, seasonals or flagship varieties. More than a dozen breweries have collaborated on a project in which they each created a different brew derived from the same base recipe to feature exclusively at the Brewers Festival.

White said she expects to see a number of trending styles represented at the fest as well.

“A lot of sours have emerged, and there’s been a resurgence of some of the lighter beers like kölsch and pilsner,” she said. “And, of course, there will be tons of IPAs for people to try.”

In addition to the beer, the event will feature around 10 different food trucks, brewpubs and other food vendors; music by 92.5/102.3FM The River; a dunk-a-brewer challenge and other activities.

 

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New Hampshire Brewers Festival

Where: Kiwanis Waterfront Park, 15 Loudon Road, Concord
When: Saturday, July 22, 1 to 4 p.m. (VIP admitted at noon)
Cost: $40 general admission, $50 VIP, $15 designated driver. 21+ event.
Visit: granitestatebrewersassociation.org/events/nhbrewersfestival

 

Participating Breweries
603 Brewing, 7th Settlement Brewery, Bad Lab Beer Co., Backyard Brewery, Beara Irish Brewing Co., Canterbury AleWorks, Concord Craft Brewing Co., Deciduous Brewing Co., Earth Eagle Brewings, Elm City Brewing Co., Flying Goose Brewpub, Four Pines Brewing Co., From the Barrel Brewing Co., Garrison City Beerworks, Granite Roots Brewing, Great North Aleworks, Great Rhythm Brewing Co., Henniker Brewing Co., Hobbs Tavern & Brewing Co., Kelsen Brewing Co., Liars Bench, Lithermans Limited Brewery, Lone Wolfe Brewing Co, Long Blue Cat Brewing Co., Martha’s Exchange, Moat Mountain Smokehouse & Brewery, Monadnock Brewing Co., Neighborhood Beer Co., Oddball Brewing Co., Out.Haus Ales, Portsmouth Brewery, Redhook Brewery, Rek’-Lis Brewing Co., Rockingham Brewing Co., Schilling Beer Co., Shackett’s Brewing Co., Smuttynose Brewing Co., Stark Brewing Co., Stoneface Brewing Co., Sublime Brewing Co., Throwback Brewery, Tuckerman Brewing Co., White Birch Brewing Co., Woodstock Inn Brewery
Up-and-coming breweries (attending but not pouring): Empty Pint, Long Blue Cat Brewing Co., Monadnock Brewing Co., Post and Beam Brewing Co.

FEATURED NEWS

Special Election

What the Race for Senate District 16 is All About

Written By Ryan Lessard (news@hippopress.com)

Images: Stock Photo

 

 

On July 25, voters will decide who will fill the seat left vacant by the death of Democrat Scott McGilvray in March. Their choices are Democrat Kevin Cavanaugh, Republican David Boutin and Libertarian Jason Dubrow.

 

The Return

Boutin held the seat from 2010 to 2016 and decided not to run in the last election, citing family reasons.

“My daughter, who lives in Goffstown, was pregnant. She said, ‘Dad, I’m going to need your help.’ So I put family above politics and didn’t run,” Boutin said. “Fast forward a year later, my granddaughter now will be a year old just a couple days after the election. I spoke with my daughter and my family and my daughter said, ‘I’m fine, Dad, go ahead and run.’ And my wife said she was good with that as well.”

As a longtime state senator and a House rep before that, Boutin said there will be no learning curve if he’s elected back into office.

He said he would like to continue working on issues that were important to him during his time in office, such as expanding mental health and addiction services, reforming the child protection services of the Division of Children, Youth and Families, investing in the state’s infrastructure and helping businesses thrive and grow.

Boutin said he’s against gun regulations and has supported the stand-your-ground law and the so-called “constitutional carry” law that recently eliminated the concealed carry license requirements.

Many of these issues have already seen some movement, like the new office of the child advocate at DCYF, which Boutin said should make the agency more transparent.

Boutin previously chaired the commission to study child abuse fatalities, which has recommended a number of reforms including the child advocate.

But he said there’s still work to be done.

“When we as the legislature do these things, it’s not the end. … We have to be vigilant about these issues and make sure that things are getting done … in the best interests of the citizens of our state,” Boutin said.

He’s also been a supporter of drug courts and the Granite Hammer initiative that provides local police with state grants that are to be used for taking drug dealers off the streets.

 

The Union Guy

Cavanaugh is serving in his first term as alderman of Ward 1 in Manchester. He’s the assistant business manager at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2320 and said he has been a “blue-collar worker” in the telecommunications field for 32 years.

He defeated lawyer James Normand in a primary for the state senate seat. Cavanaugh is cut from the same cloth as McGilvray, though less well-known. He’s received support from multiple unions and has made public education a priority.

“The funds coming from the state to the schools is very frustrating to me,” Cavanaugh said. He knew McGilvray through coaching football, he said. "I know his wife Patti well. We grew up together and went to high school together,” Cavanaugh said.

He said he wants to continue what McGilvray started by supporting a state minimum wage (the state currently defaults to the federal minimum) and addressing the addiction epidemic by providing more state funds for treatment, prevention and recovery services and facilitating the adoption of programs like Safe Stations, which started in Manchester as a way to connect people to treatment through an open door policy at fire stations.

Cavanaugh admits he’s new to politics and doesn’t consider himself a politician. Rather, he emphasizes his working-class roots.

“I’ve worked my whole life,” Cavanaugh said. “It means a lot to me and I’ve been talking to a lot of people about that. I don’t think anyone is going to bring that voice to Concord, as a worker, that I can.”

He said he would have supported past efforts to expand casino gambling championed by Manchester state Sen. Lou D’Allesandro, but will consider any future proposals on a case-by-case basis.

He is against any new broad-based tax.

 

The Libertarian

Jason Dubrow is an engineer who lives with his wife and two kids at a small farm in Dunbarton.

For him, being a Libertarian candidate in this race is significant because it brings new ideas to the debate.

“It brings a new perspective in the race. We know what the Republicans say. We know what the Democrats say, and it’s really like a pendulum. We keep swinging to the left and right, but what we really need are new ideas brought to Concord,” Dubrow said.

Among the issues Dubrow prioritizes is education quality and school choice, whether it’s through school vouchers, charter schools or sending kids to private schools with taxpayer dollars (now allowed thanks to the so-called Croydon bill passed this year).

“Education is very important for the future of our children and I support every opportunity for people to find the best possible education that fits their needs,” Dubrow said.

He also said he’s pro-gun and would address the drug crisis by treating it as a medical issue, funding treatment, diverting funds away from law enforcement and decriminalizing drugs.

 

The Campaigns

Receipt and expenditure filings through July 5 show nothing from Dubrow’s campaign or independent committees on his behalf.

He says that’s because he hasn’t broken the $500 minimum threshold yet, but he expects to soon.

“I’m trying to run as lean a campaign as I can,” Dubrow said. He said the amount of money spent in this race so far is “obscene” and he wants to see less money in politics, generally. He said he’s been campaigning with sign waving, radio talk show appearances, talking to friends, leaving flyers on mailboxes and going door-to-door.

After Cavanaugh won the primary, he received the endorsements of Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan.And on July 13, he released an online video ad. Boutin has no video ads but has been playing two radio ads on multiple stations, according to his campaign.

As of the July 5 filings, Boutin has raised more than $103,000 and spent more than $41,000. The New Hampshire Republican State Committee spent about $13,900 on mailed advertisements and the NH Priorities State PAC spent about $1,740 on mailers.

Cavanaugh’s campaign raised more than $93,000 and spent more than $55,000. A Washington, D.C.-based committee called LMP New Hampshire has spent more than $28,800 on polling, direct mailings and brochures (in four separately filed transactions through July 14) and Let America Vote New Hampshire spent about $970 on Facebook and Google ads.

FEATURED ARTS

Art History Lesson

Learn About Impressionism Through Monet Paintings at the Currier

Written By Kelly Sennott (ksennott@hippopress.com)

Images: Courtesy Photo

 

 

The latest Currier Museum of Art show features a quick art history lesson on impressionism, illustrated by the guy who started it all.

“Monet: Pathways to Impressionism,” on view July 1 through Nov. 13, showcases the museum’s own “The Bridge at Bougival” (1869), plus three other major paintings by Claude Monet borrowed from the Kimball Art Museum in Texas and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston: “La Pointe de la Hève at Low Tide” (1865), “Cap Martin” (1884) and “Charing Cross Bridge” (1900). In another room are American paintings from the Currier’s collection inspired by Monet.

Monet inadvertently created the term with his 1874 painting, “Impressionism, Sunrise,” which critics attacked at the time because it seemed hazy and without form and structure. Monet insisted that’s what he was going for; it was his “impression” of that particular place. He and other artists of the period adapted the term for their movement.

“At the time, you [had] realism, and this is a direct response against realism,” said curator Kurt Sundstrom during a gallery walk-through. “People change so slowly. It’s like when Picasso [introduced] cubism. People said, ‘What the heck is that?’ It’s just too much of a change.”

The 19th-century movement is characterized by small but visible brush strokes, unusual visual angles and emphasis on accurate depiction of light, all of which help shape the artist’s perception. Each of the paintings on view in the show represents a period in the artist’s career and his movement toward this style.

The oldest, “La Pointe de la Hève at Low Tide,” was Monet’s first in the Salon, an important Parisian art exhibition. It depicts a rocky, coastal scene on a cloudy day. Monet was just 24 when he painted it.

“This caused a sensation,” Sundstrom said. “It’s still realist in the same way that you paint what you see. But what he did is he came out to this beach, sketched … and then took the sketches back to his studio, put the best elements together and constructed a scene.”

Monet painted the museum’s own “The Bridge at Bougival” four years before he painted with full-blown impressionist style, but you can see him moving toward that idea. Rough brush strokes suggest rippling water, and a dash becomes a chimney in this picturesque village scene.

“The teeny, tiny definitions done up, characteristic of realism, are gone,” Sundstrom said. “It was about capturing the moment. He’s using his artistic license to move things around. You can see his brush strokes are getting heavy and thick here to capture that sense of reflection of light. But what he’s also doing is using it as a way to suggest depth into space.”

In the last two images, buildings and figures disappear. “Cap Martin,” another seashore scene, contains swirling trees, suggesting a seabreeze, and “Charing Cross Bridge” depicts a London train scene on a smoggy, foggy day.

“You don’t see the trains at all, but you see the smoke coming off and the light passing through that smoke and turning purple,” Sundstrom said. “It’s not just impressionism. He’s trying to capture an emotional response.”

It wasn’t easy getting all these Monet paintings in place, but Sundstrom hopes the result helps better tell the story of impressionism and why the museum’s piece is so significant.

“People don’t want to lend out their Monets,” Sundstrom said. “We only have one here, and it’s a really important Monet because it’s transitional. Ours [was painted] four years before the term ‘impressionism’ was coined. And at the same time, our Monet is probably one that bridges the gap more clearly than any other Monet, from his early realist style to full-blown impressionism.”

 

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Monet: Pathways to Impressionism

Where: Currier Museum of Art, 150 Ash St., Manchester
When: On view July 1 through Nov. 13
Admission: $15 for adults, $13 for seniors, $10 for students, $5 for youth ages 13 to 17, free for children younger than 13
Contact: 669-6144, currier.org

 

Related Events
Both are free with museum admission.
• Storytime in the Gallery Monday, July 24, at 11:30 a.m., reading of Philippe in Monet’s Garden by Lisa Jobe Carmack, followed by craft where listeners can create their own garden inspired by a work of art, for ages 2 to 5
• Focus Tour of “Monet: Pathways to Impressionism” Saturday, Aug. 26, at 11:30 a.m., led by a museum docent educator

 

Twilight at the Currier: Summer Block Party

The inaugural Summer Block Party is at the Currier Museum of Art Saturday, July 22, from 5 to 9 p.m. Admission is free. There will be photo booths, live music, henna tattoo artists, a live band and local art organizations sharing their art. Dimensions in Dance performs a piece inspired by the Currier’s outdoor Mark di Suvero sculpture, and Positive Street Art conducts a community mural project visitors are welcome to participate in and organizes a live art competition (four artists create art within 90 minutes). In addition, there will be food trucks, a beer and wine tent, chalk art, a performance by Dream City Dance in Vermont, plus a puppet performance courtesy of Art Center students. “We really want people to come to the event and see everything the Currier has to offer, for its wonderful art collection and exhibitions, and as a fun place to come to,” said Lynn Thomson, who’s organizing the event. “The last couple of years [we’ve been] reaching out more to the community and making sure people are aware of us being here. … We see this as another step in that direction.”

FEATURED MUSIC

Soulful Side

Samantha Fish Hits Tupelo with Bigger Band, New Sound

Written By Michael Witthaus (music@hippopress.com)

Images: Courtesy Photo

 

 

After making three guitar-forward blues rock albums, Samantha Fish switched gears for her latest. Chills & Fever jumps out of the gate with a cover of the Ronettes’ “He Did It,” revved up with rapid-fire guitar bursts. Then the lights dim, and Fish’s soulful voice is the focus of a record that borrows from the genre’s finest — Betty LaVette, Irma Thomas, Nina Simone and girl group gems, all given a modern sheen.

Her take on the title cut, previously done by Tom Jones and Ronnie Love, among others, sounds like a musical hookup between Amy Winehouse and Morphine, with Travis Blotsky’s saxophone moaning. Skip James’ “Crow Jane” has a Black Keys vibe, with Fish on her trademark four-string cigar box slide guitar.

Echoes of the latter have been with her for a while, Fish said in a recent interview.

“I started at Fat Possum when I got into blues,” she said, referring to the Oxford, Mississippi, record label that gave the world RL Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and other roots players. “That’s where the Black Keys got their start. You got these guys that are modernizing even the North Mississippi music. … It’s really cool to mix up these genres.”

Fish picked up the guitar at age 13, after a brief flirtation with drums that mainly helped her rhythmic sense.

“I was a kid so my discipline ... was kind of lacking, but I like to go back and forth with it every once in a while,” she said, “just to keep my skills up.”

Chills & Fever was born from talks with producer Bobby Harlow (White Fang, the Go).

“When we met, he was taken by my vocals, and he said we really need an album that showcases that,” Fish said. “Playing on the trio, we focused more in another direction; this was just a good opportunity to show people another side of my musical personality.”

The lure for Fish was an opportunity to add horns, keyboard and pedal steel guitar to the three-piece configuration she’d used for a decade.

“Top to bottom, the concept was the size of the band,” she said, sweeping away concerns that it might worry fans of her guitar slinger side.

“When they come to the show they realize I’m playing more guitar than ever,” she said. “So it’s just keeping those things that are important in the front, which are the vocals and the songs and the guitar playing. The rest is personality.”

She’s got that in spades. Fish began performing almost by accident, but she’s never looked back.

“I got kind of thrown onto a stage with a guitar at a backyard party; probably that was the only way it could ever happen to me, because I was such a shy kid,” she said. “It was the worst feeling in the world, but it was also exhilarating. There was an adrenaline rush, and I realized I wanted to do that. The moment changed my trajectory in life.”

After making a self-produced EP, in 2011 she joined Girls With Guitars, a young supergroup with Cassie Taylor and Dani Wilde. Her first solo album, Runaway, came later the same year, followed by Black Wind Howlin’ (2013) and Wild Heart (2015), the first two made with producer and mentor Mike Zito.

Gender emphasis is “a double-edged sword; it sucks for the same reason it helps me,” she said. “A female instrumentalist is still viewed as a novelty to people … but I think the more we do it, it will become less of an interesting thing.”

For now, she’s exploring every artistic avenue she can. Fish’s next project is even more stripped down than her power trio, an Americana collection due in the fall made in Mississippi with Wild Heart producer Luther Dickinson.

“Jimbo Mathis and Lightnin’ Malcolm are on it, Lili Mae from Nashville played and sang — I recorded one of her songs,” she said. “We’re going to have this juxtaposition of a really polished soulful record and a semi-acoustic songwriter album … I’m really excited for people to hear it. There is so much to pick from, if they don’t like Chills and Fever because it was too much soul, they’ll love this.”

 

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Samantha Fish at Tupelo

When: Saturday, July 29, 8 p.m.
Where: Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry
Tickets: $25-$30 at tupelohall.com

FEATURED FILM

Film Review

War For The Planet of The Apes (PG-13)

Written By Amy Diaz (adiaz@hippopress.com)

Images: Movie Screenshot

 

 

Veteran ape-leader Caesar faces off against humans in War for the Planet of the Apes, the third chapter in the smart Planet of the Apes reboot series.

Chimpanzee Caesar (motion-capture performance by Andy Serkis) has led the apes through a long war with the humans. (Previously on Apes: Caesar and other apes were given drugs that allowed for human-like intellectual advancement and, for some apes, speech. The same lab also unintentionally let loose a virus that wiped out most of humanity. An uneasy detente between remaining humans and the advanced apes eventually turned into open war.)

Both apes and humans believes the other side aims to wipe them out. Humans, led by a man called the Colonel (Woody Harrelson), are aided in their efforts by apes they call “donkeys,” many of whom were one-time followers of Koba, the ape who escalated the human-ape conflict in the second movie.

The apes capture a group of human soldiers after one skirmish. Caesar decides, instead of killing them, to send them back to the Colonel. He hopes to prove that he and the apes aren’t “savages,” and to forge a truce: leave the apes alone in the woods and the violence can end.

The Colonel, of course, does not do this. Instead, he attacks the apes’ home base (the location provided by an ape turncoat). The attack has devastating consequences for Caesar, who must now decide what to do with both the remaining apes in his community and his own growing hate toward the Colonel. Eventually, he sets out with old friends the orangutan Maurice (Karin Konoval), the gorilla Luca (Michael Adamthwaite) and fellow chimpanzee Rocket (Terry Notary) to find the Colonel. Along the way, they make surprising discoveries including the existence of an ape outside their group, a zoo chimpanzee who calls himself Bad Ape (Steve Zahn), who can also talk, and a human girl, eventually called Nova (Amiah Miller), who can’t talk. They find other humans who can’t vocalize, suggesting that the human-ape war might not be the only threat to people.

When your society, perhaps even your species, faces an existential threat, what do you do — make war or make peace? Which one will get you to your goal of survival? And, deep down, is survival always as motivating as revenge?

These are the questions this movie asks. This might be a sci-fi action movie where more than half the core cast are motion-capture creations but this is not a frivolous movie. Its characters — human and ape — are mired in grief and fear and staring at the possible end of their world. These are big thoughts and emotions and the movie is able to match the weight of this while still having moments of lightness and humor. And it gives characters space to think without feeling draggy or padded. It is pretty to look at and it uses its cinematography to tell the story, not just pretty it up.

I’ve seen other reviews describe this movie as a Western, a prison movie and a quest movie. I’d also add biblical epic (though less campy than that genre usually is). This movie has elements of all of these genres and some solid action and manages to be at times fun, serious, emotional and light, all without ever being silly. And I think you have to credit the performances for this — not just Serkis, who is great as always. But also Harrelson, who tempers his craziness, and Karin Konoval’s Maurice, who communicates primarily in sign and with Maurice’s expressive eyes and plays the moral center of Caesar’s world beautifully, allowing for some real wrestling with the nature of humanity and morality.

War for the Planet of the Apes is a very strong entry in what has always been a strong series, one that has far more impact than you expect from a movie with so much genuinely exciting action, a nice thinky sci-fi concept and just the right dashes of humor.

Grade: A

FEATURED POP  -  * COVER STORY *

Paint Battle

How Paintball Got its Start in NH, Plus How & Where to Play

Written By Matt Ingersol (listings@hippopress.com)

Images: Courtesy/Stock Photo

 

 

A combat sport played on a battlefield by millions around the world, paintball originated right here in the Granite State in 1981 — and it all started as a bet.

“You basically had a New Hampshire faction of people and a New York City faction of people, and the bet was that people who lived in the city lost their survival instinct as humans,” said Alex Koppelkam, owner of AG Paintball in Weare, one of the longest continuously run paintball parks in the state. “Obviously you can talk a lot about that, but you can’t really prove it. So for years they talked about it, and they finally found this paintball marker that said, hey we can actually go do this.”

In paintball, players shoot at each other with balls of gelatinous paint projected via compressed air at more than 250 feet per second. The first organized game took place on June 27, 1981, a document from the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources shows. It was dubbed “The Survival Game” and involved 12 players trying to capture flags of four different colors without being hit.

The guns were air-powered pistols used by foresters for tree marking and the game was played in the woods on one of the players’ property in Henniker. Richie White, one of the New Hampshire residents involved in the game, was declared the winner, according to the document.

Robert Gurnsey, another player in the original game, would less than a year later establish the first commercial paintball field in Sutton, followed by the first manufacturing company in New London.

“Back then, the goal of the game was to be the guy that ‘survived,’ but it wasn’t teams, it was more like an ‘every man for himself’ sort of thing,” Koppelkam said. “As it … grew [in popularity] across the country, it stayed in that same format for a while, where some guys would just go out and have their own equipment and do it.”

It was not until the late 1980s, according to Koppelkam, that more organized paintball fields began to break ground. One of them was the now closed Canobie Paintball Games in Windham.

“That was really the first time that you started to see people say, hey, I think there’s a business here, and it started turning into the more family-friendly kind of play that we see now,” he said.

 

Safety First

As paintball got more popular, safety quickly became a priority.

“From a safety standpoint, one of the first things that happened as the industry was being created was that paintball masks came out, which cover your whole face, your ears, your forehead and your eyes,”

Koppelkam said. “Initially there was no safety equipment other than, like, wearing a pair of logging glasses.”
Even the paint used for the sport started to be manufactured in a specific new way.

“It used to be that it was an oil-based paint with no real standardized manufacturing,” Koppelkam said. “Nowadays, the manufacturing is such that it’s a paintball with a really brittle shell, so it just breaks on impact instead of hitting you and bouncing off, so it doesn’t hurt as bad.”

Despite the combative nature of the sport, paintball is statistically safer than soccer, football and even golf when played in an organized, professional facility, according to Koppelkam. Every game is always overseen by referees making sure the game is played safely.

“Paintball is incredibly safe as far as actual injuries go,” he said. “We require that all players, whether it’s your first time or your 17th time playing, to go through a full safety briefing on how to use the equipment … [and] we also have employees here that receive training on all the insurance regulations.”

Paintball fields across the state come in varying sizes and layouts, with dozens of different gameplay options available. Local park owners say it’s easy to try; in fact, new and first-time players are the bread and butter of most of their business.

All of them offer several standard rental packages for guns — which are usually called “markers” — paintballs and required safety masks. Some even have their own onsite pro shops for players to enhance their equipment. Most do allow you to bring your own equipment, as long as it meets that park’s safety standards, but prohibit the use of outside paintballs.

“Paintballs are typically stored between 50 and 80 degrees and if you’re not storing it correctly, it will usually deform and shoot poorly … and could potentially get harder, so [getting hit] may hurt more,” said Tony Fiore, owner of Merrimack Valley Paintball in Candia. “So we don’t allow outside paintballs, because we don’t know the manufacturer, we don’t know how old the paint is, that sort of thing.”

 

Creative Ways to Play

There are two main types of paintball often found at many of these parks: woodsball and speedball. Woodsball is any sort of game involving large man-made structures to represent a natural combat zone, using anything from old makeshift buildings to wood, tires, hoses and other props players can hide in or behind.

Speedball, which is primarily used for competitive tournaments but is also available recreationally at some local parks, is played on a much flatter and softer course using artificial blow-up bunkers.
Fiore said close to 90 percent of his players are either first-time or relatively new to the game, and most have to be talked into trying speedball for the first time before they end up finding they enjoy it.

“One of the things that’s interesting about speedball is that a lot of our players who come … have already decided that they are going to like woodsball better, but once they try speedball, they end up wanting to do it again,” he said. “The reason is that [a speedball field] is much easier on your body than playing in the woods. There are no hills to navigate, there are no rocks or stumps or anything to worry about, it’s nice and flat. … A lot of times there’s this perception that a bigger field is better too, and that’s not always the case, because it could get a little out of control sometimes.”

But woodsball has advantages of its own. At OSG Paintball in Center Barnstead, the largest paintball park in the Granite State, each of the 12 playing fields has its own theme. You could be playing on a Star

Wars-themed field with seven elevated platforms and an authentic two-story AT-ST walker replica to shoot out of. Or you can be playing in the Pirate Cove, which contains a full-sized pirate ship replica, six boats and a lighthouse, and the Empire Castle, a 25,000-square-foot castle field with five stairways, six entrances and an underground passageway. And the fast-paced games often allow you to experience several different fields in one day.

Sometimes costumes will be provided to add to the games, like Peter Griffin from Family Guy versus Homer Simpson from The Simpsons, or even characters from Call of Duty, Revenge of the Nerds, The Goonies and other iconic pop culture figures.

“We tend to get very creative [with the games],” OSG Paintball owner Dave Preston said. “I actually have a background in theater, so that helps to bring a lot of drama and action to the game. … It’s a wonderful sport and we’re always looking to push the boundaries.”

A standard elimination game, in which members of two teams attempt to hit the other until there is one remaining player, is actually one of potentially dozens of ways to play the game of paintball, according to Koppelkam.

“We certainly do a total elimination game … but then we will do Capture the Flag in different types,” he said. “So whether that would be a flag in the center [of the field] and both teams are trying to grab it and take it back to their base … or maybe the flag is hidden in a castle or something like that, where one team is attacking and one team is defending. We’ll also do flag football, where each team starts with a flag and they have to get it to the other team’s base. … And then we’ve done like a D-Day field scenario where you’re attacking the other team up a hill, and if you get shot at, you have to go back to your starting point at the bottom, so that can be a lot of fun.”

Popular games at Merrimack Valley Paintball, according to Fiore, include “Protect the President,” in which teams must move one designated member of their team from one base on one side of the field to the other without getting hit, and “Move It Or Lose It,” in which players only have a limited amount of time to remain at their bunker or post before everybody must move to a different one.

Koppelkam said the games are much more fast-paced than most first-time players might think; they may last anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes or more than 20, depending on the number of players involved and the type of game.

“You wouldn’t play on one field all day,” he said. “You’ll rotate around all the different fields … so, you might come to one field, play one game there, then head back to the staging area and then to a different field, so it’s kind of a rotating thing.”

Most paintball parks in the state are popular venues to host all kinds of group events, like birthday parties, bachelor parties, corporate gatherings, military personnel team-building exercises and much more, often integrating creative games to match the occasion the park is serving.

But even if you come to a park during its open play hours and are not a part of a large enough group to form your own team, you will still fit right in.

“The biggest misconception about paintball is not understanding what a great bonding and teamwork [building] type of sport that it is,” Preston said. “When you put, say, five to 10 people together who don’t know each other, it’s amazing to see how they start to work together instantly.”
Fiore said he has observed over time how much of a bonding experience it can also be between parents and children, whether it’s mothers and fathers or sons and daughters.

“Typically for most mainstream sports, you know, the parents are watching from the sidelines, and the kids have their own friends, so it’s always separating in that way,” he said, “so that’s why [paintball] can be a good family sport.”

 

DIY Paintball

Several department and sporting goods stores like Dick’s, Modell’s and even Wal-Mart sell the necessary equipment and tools to create a makeshift paintball field in your own backyard, as long as you are not playing on state-owned or someone else’s private property, according to local players and park owners. Onsite pro shops are also available at several parks.

One of the newest stores is CS Paintball in Allenstown, which opened last February as the only retail shop in the Granite State devoted solely to the sport and independent of any park. The store carries more than 140 worldwide brands of paintball markers, masks, paints, equipment and more for both new and experienced players.

Epsom firefighter Brenten “Cowboy” Cupp, a seasoned paintball player of 18 years that included three years on a professional team from 2007 to 2009, said he opened the Allenstown store to operate seven days a week at a location within convenient driving distance of all of the state’s paintball parks. The business also offers a repair service for all of its products.

“The most important thing to have in a game of paintball … is a mask,” Cupp said. “You only get one set of eyes, so you must make sure the mask is comfortable on your face. … The more breathability you have for the mask the better, because you don’t want it fogging up. … So, the better ones have a lot of ventilation.”

Cupp said that beyond the mask, “about 95 percent” of the sport is based on a player’s own personal preference. Other equipment you can add includes chest protectors, elbow pads and knee pads.Nate Miner, owner of BOLP Paintball in Lee, said backyard paintball players benefit greatly from using a chronograph, a device used to measure how fast paintballs are shot.

“Most guns can easily shoot over 350 to 360 feet per second … but we usually keep ours around or below 270, and that’s a pretty safe speed,” he said.
Paintballs are designed to wash out of clothing, but Fiore said he still recommends wearing clothes you wouldn’t mind getting dirty, and to cover as much exposed skin as possible without getting too hot.

“Even if you don’t get hit by paint, you still might get dirt and mud into the knees of your pants or socks, depending on where you’re playing, and you’re probably going to get all sweaty if you do any crawling or running or anything like that,” he said.

For paintballs, Cupp said they are best used when stored properly and rotated in stock. Paintballs are biodegradable and are usually made out of non-toxic materials like corn starch, gelatin and food coloring.

“The average life expectancy for the paint is about six months,” he said, “and it’s important to make sure it’s fresh and not sitting around for longer than that.”
Depending on the layout of your property, if it includes woods or fencing or even other private homes nearby, Fiore said having netting set up is also an important thing if you are starting your own backyard paintball game.

“There’s a lot to it,” he said. “You need to ask yourself, is there netting, and if not, then you have to tape off an area and it has to be a distance away from your neighbor’s property so you don’t have to worry about missing a shot and having it go into somebody else’s yard or hitting somebody’s car.”

 

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Where to Play Organized Paintball

• AG Paintball (158 Deering Center Road, Weare, 529-3524, agpaintball.com) opened in 1988 and today is one of the longest-running paintball parks in the Granite State. The park encompasses 30 acres with nine woodsball fields and one speedball field, and also offers an onsite pro shop with guns, masks and other accessories for sale. Walk-ins are accepted every Saturday and Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Wednesdays during the summer. Reservations for private games and parties can be made seven days a week. Rates range from $25 to $78 per person and include rental equipment and pricing for paintballs. You can bring your own equipment but paintballs must be purchased onsite. Additional paintballs can be bought, with prices ranging from $20 for 500 to $300 for 10,000.

• BOLP Paintball (114 Mast Road, Lee, 765-9852, bolppaintball.com) is a 5-acre park with three woodsball fields and one speedball field. Open play is offered on Sundays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. for both speedball and woodsball, on Monday from 5 to 9 p.m. for speedball only, and on Fridays from 5 to 9 p.m. for woodsball only. In addition, reservations for private parties are accepted Monday through Friday, 5 to 9 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Registration ranges from $5 to $15 depending on the day of the week. Rental equipment is $10 and includes a gun, a safety mask and CO2 pod packs. Paintballs range from $15 to $45 depending on the quality, but bringing your own equipment and paint is permitted.

• Laconia Paintball (492 Endicott St. North Laconia, 366-0999, laconiapaintball.com) opened in 2015 and has three different woodsball fields, each encompassing a couple of acres, with the biggest one spanning about four. It’s open from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day except Wednesday for both walk-ins and private parties and often accommodates both together. Rates range from $45 to $75 and include a gun, a safety mask, and between 300 and 2,000 paintballs. Additional paintballs and gear can also be purchased, ranging from $5 to $70 for paintballs and from $2 to $15, depending on the type of extra gear, which may include gloves or an upgraded gun. Bringing your own outside paint is not allowed.

• Merrimack Valley Paintball (274 Old Candia Road, Candia, 370-7459, mvppaintball.net) opened in 2014 as an 11-acre park with three woodsball fields and one speedball field. Walk-ins are available on Saturdays and Sundays, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and on Fridays from 4 to 8 p.m. for speedball only. Private reservations for birthday parties, bachelor parties, corporate events and more can be made seven days a week by calling in advance, with a minimum of eight players per game. Rental packages range from $45 to $70 and include a gun, an air tank, a safety mask and between 500 and 2,000 paintballs. You may bring your own equipment, but bringing outside paint is not allowed.

• OSG Paintball (1053 N. Barnstead Road, Center Barnstead, 1-800-707-7529, osgpaintball.com) is the largest paintball park in the Granite State, at 44 acres and 12 playing fields. Every field is themed, including Star Wars, Pirate Cove, Empire Castle, Hamburger Hill and more, and games can also have themes of their own, like Westerns, Call of Duty, The Simpsons, Family Guy and The Goonies. Walk-ins are available every Saturday and Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., and private games can be reserved seven days a week for a minimum of 10 participants. Rates range from $15 to $35, depending on whether it’s a half day or full day of play, and rental packages include a gun, a safety mask and 100 paintballs. Additional paintballs can be purchased for between $5 for 100 and $70 for 2,000. Bringing your own paint is not allowed.

 

Competitive Paintball

Most people play paintball for fun, but there are also leagues and tournaments players can be a part of, playing games in teams and competing for different prizes, depending on the division.

Adam Zippin is a captain of the New England Crusade, a competitive paintball team that meets every Sunday at AG Paintball in Weare to run drills and practices and to mentor new and upcoming players.

On Sunday, July 23, members of the New England Crusade and also of the New England X-Ball League will participate in AG’s next three-man tournament, offering professional insight and playing strategies. The cost to register is $95 per person or a $100 entry per team and registration is available through July 21.

“X-Ball is a competitive format of paintball with a field that standardizes the length and width [of the game] … kind of like a football field,” Zippin said. “The three man series events are more for beginners to grab a couple of friends and put together a tournament.”

The New England Crusade is a Division 3 paintball team, which is one of more than five divisions that are ranked, according to Zippin.

“A lot is based on experience of the players, and that tends to be the way the divisions sort themselves out,” he said. “It starts at professional, and then under that is Division 2, then 3, 4, 5 and 6, which is kind of like the entry-level division. … Each series has five events that are dispersed throughout the year.”

Games are played on speedball fields, with prizes as much as $1,000 or more, depending on the divisions of teams involved.
“In the most raw sense of it, you’ll have five guys on each team play, but the amount of time you’re playing will vary,” Zippin said. “Typically the higher the division, the longer the games will be.”

Organized paintball teams, according to Zippin, have a larger presence in southern New England states like Massachusetts and Connecticut. But he added that three-man tournament events like the one on July 23 are great opportunities for players to learn about the competitive side of the sport.

“Some people just like to play for fun, but others really thrive on something to compete for,” he said.

 

Low-Impact Paintball

Worried about what it feels like to get hit by a paintball, or that it might hurt? Almost all of the parks in the state offer a specialized type of play called low-impact paintball, commonly played by both kids and adults.

The guns used in low-impact paintball are as little as half the weight of normal markers, and the speed with which they are shot is significantly reduced as well, thus minimizing the effect you would feel from getting hit, according to Alex Koppelkam of AG Paintball in Weare.

“The biggest difference is weight,” he said. “Because it’s a smaller tank of paint [in the gun], it doesn’t need as much air to fire.”

Brenten “Cowboy” Cupp of CS Paintball in Allenstown said that a player’s safety is always improved dramatically as long as they keep their mask on — even if they have been eliminated from a game and have not yet exited the playing field.

“I would describe getting hit by a paintball as a bee sting that goes away in about 10 seconds,” he said. “There definitely are some places on the body where it may hurt a little more than others, especially the more sensitive regions … but your face is always the most vulnerable.”

Koppelkam added that low-impact paintball is especially great for beginner players to get their feet wet in the sport.

“A great majority of our players are first, second-time or rental type players,” he said. “Most people might see someone wear a lot of camouflage clothing or something, and they don’t realize like hey, that guy just played for the first time last weekend. He’s just as new as you are, but he just happens to not look the part.”