Must-Visit Beer Bars/Bottle Shops - Boston

As far as beer bars, there's a new Yardhouse in fenway that has a ton of beers, Cornwall's near fenway is a decent English pub. Sunset Grill + Tap is just a few more stops down on the green line in Allston and has 100+ on draft, good prices too. Downtown, Jacob Wirth always has plenty of good European Brews on tap. Cambridge has a bunch of good places (CBC, Meadhall, LordHobo) and Brookline has Publick House (Tons of Belgians). Beer Bar wise those are your best bets.

There's some bottle shop near Fenway in Kendall that's decent, don't remember the name though. Otherwise you have to head out of Boston for a truly good store.

 

Deep Ellum

 

Lots of relevant stuff here: http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/finally-going-to-fenway-park-nearby-beer-musts.9854/

 

Lot of great bar suggestions in this thread - definitely head on over to Cambridge, as I think the Lord Hobo-Cambridge Brewing Company combo is the best one-two punch in the area. Closer to where you'll be staying, Deep Ellum and Sunset are both great as well.

In terms of bottle shops, Boston Wine Exchange, Federal Wine & Spirits and Charles Street Liquors are all good bets in Boston proper. In Cambridge, Liquor World is tops for me, and Downtown Wine & Spirits (just up the street, in Somerville) is also a good pick.

 

If you have a car, drive out to Belmont to Craft Beer Cellar. Bauer Wines and Spirits is a decent (albeit with a small beer selection) shop within walking distance.

 

Second Deep Ellum, and Liquor World in Cambridge. Lord Hobo never did it for me pricewise, and CBC has awful service and food.

 

Just like the one-two punch of lord hobo and CBC that was mentioned... The other one-two punch is the Sunset Grille and Deep Ellum.

To the OP - Visiting these two places provides a nice contrast. Sunset is almost more college-like with 100+taps. Deep Ellum is a bit nicer, smaller, and while they only have 30 or so taps, it seems like they get stuff that Sunset never sees. They're walking distance from each other (albeit a healthy walk).

 

I used to live on North Beacon - they're only 5 minutes apart!

Truth be told, though, I'd skip Sunset and spend the extra time at Deep Ellum.

 

Lord Hobo seems to have their prices more accurate now.

 

cambridge brewing company is the only must-hit destination. however, lots of places are excellent (lord hobo, deep ellum, publick house, etc etc).

CBC is my favorite brewery, and you can only get their best stuff there (their few bottled beers are good, but the things they serve at the brewpub are often unbeatable, e.g. cerise cassee, bad knees, YouEnjoyMyStout, blunderbuss, arquebus--the recent ones i can think of off the top of my head)

 

Sunset Grille, Julios

 

Too bad they took them down from their website.

My recollection is that pricing at LH has always been pretty fair, comparable to other Boston-area options when you consider what they put on tap. The only consistent beef I have with the pricing is that pints start at $6.50 (Haverhill excluded), so beers from Smuttynose, Sierra Nevada, and other lower-priced brewers wind up being too expensive (a pint of Celebration should not be $6.50). But it's easy to avoid these anomalies by ordering other beers.

 

You and me both. I much prefer DE to Sunset.

 

Can anyone suggest the best place to grab multiple variations of Cisco Sours?