Night Shift Brewing Will Open Two Beer Gardens on Charles River

Can't wait to enjoy some pints along the river with everyone! Should be a fun spot!

 

I wonder how these will do. There are so many beer gardens around this summer and it feels a bit late to be opening them now, but I think Night Shift might be the most well-known local craft brewery to have one. They mention seating and games on the expansive green, which makes me wonder if this will be a roped off area like most other beer gardens, or if we'll be allowed to walk around in the parks with our beers.

 

There's a small local craft brewery called Trillium that you might have heard of with their own beer garden on The Greenway.

It will be roped/fenced off for sure. No chance for open container in a public space. These here parts are still under Puritan rule.

 

I'm talking general public. With Trillium not being in stores, not in draft at a ton of places, and not having a taproom for people to go to i feel like Night Shift has more brand recognition with the public.

 

I was going to disagree with your statement on the surface, but decided to back it up with some data. While not a perfect substitute, I think you could argue social media followers is a strong proxy for "brand recognition" today:

Facebook followers: Trillium (54k) vs. Night Shift (39k)
Twitter : Trillium (54.7k) vs. Night Shift (35.3k)
Instagram: Trillium (112k) vs. Night Shift (76.5k)

Trillium almost 50% more follows in aggregate across those three platforms.

 

Respectfully- who gives a crap about social media presence? I don’t have the numbers, but Night Shift must sell 5X the beer as Trill & has a substantially bigger market presence.

 

That's actually pretty surprising, and i'm cool with being wrong on this. I admit didnt look up social media numbers, brewing capacity, sales numbers or anything. My statement was based on just the fact that Night Shift distributes to a large amount of places so more people who arent that into craft beer would have heard of them. Anecdotally I also often have people bring up them and their taproom whenever talking about local craft beer with people who arent too familiar with it.
I was just trying to judge based off a layman's perspective, since i think we're a bit more informed on craft beer than the average Bostonian. That said it's likely that the people who would go to one of these beer gardens are somewhat informed on craft beer as well, so they would likely know of Trillium too.

 

I would say that social media is a terrible measure of general brand recognition in this sort of scenario. Trillium is available nowhere other than the brewery and doesn't really even have a proper taproom. Of course their social media following is higher since that's the only way anyone can keep tabs on what might be available and when.

Nightshift is available at basically every liquor store within 30 miles of Boston (probably more, I just can't vouch for that) and has arguably the largest and most popular taproom in the Boston area. There's very little reason for anyone to obsess over their twitter or facebook account unless they just like to "follow' things for the sake of it.

Put another way, nearly everyone who buys Trillium beers with any regularity is likely to be a social media follower. Based on Nightshift's barrelage, they likely have hordes of customers that buy Whirpool, Nite Lite, or Santilli at their local packy and don't even know that beer obsessives follow them on Facebook to keep track of when barrel aged Lechedor is coming out.

 

What other beer gardens are there in Boston other than Trillium's? Harpoon has one too at their brewery, and I think Lamplighter has a pop-up beer garden on Sundays only.

 

SOWA beer garden run by Craft Collective. They have some good stuff every sunday. Downeast Cider by South Station. I think they have beer too. Wachusett has one on City Hall Plaza.

Boston can definitely support more. The lines to get into Trillium Beer Garden and Night Shift's brewery are evidence of this.

 

How many days per week are those open though?

Actually, and maybe it's just people on summer vacation, it hasn't been bad lately.

In the last few weeks I've been to Nightshift, Trillium's beer garden, and Lamplighter all on Saturday afternoons. I strolled right into each, no line, and easily found seats.

 

Actually based on my travels this past weekend, all of southern New England was in the Portland breweries apparently.

 

Maybe an odd question: Did Night Shift Brewing or Night Shift Distributing win the beer garden licenses? My understanding was that this was an RFP type of process targeting breweries. But i read the references to Night Shift plus friends as more like the distro side won this rather than the brewery.

 

Being located on the Esplanade alone will draw a lot of traffic.

Admittedly anecdotal, but I tried to visit Trillium's beer garden around 4pm last Saturday - it was packed and the line was wrapped around the fence going down Atlantic.

 

Did you stay and wait in the line? I went multiple Saturdays last summer and even if there was a line, I barely waited to get in, it moves quick. I think my longest wait from the time I got in the line to beer in hand was 10 minutes.

Also admittedly, when I went a few weeks ago it was that crappy drizzly 50ish degree Saturday.

 

Aeronaut has a couple. One in Brighton & a new one in Arlington. Although I've never been.

The NS in Brighton looks cool as I've taken my kids to that splash pad at Artesani Pool many times. It's very close to me (I live in Watertown).

 

No, didn't wait in line. It looked like it was moving relatively quickly, but there was another long line for beer and the seating area was packed. Ended up going to Stoddard's instead. Aside from actually being in Boston, unlike NS, it's nice that the Trillium beer garden has a bunch of excellent alternatives within a short walk.

 

Holy crap, thanks the info. I had no idea there was a beer garden right near where I live in Somerville. Kind of sucks with the two beer limit (unless you purchase food), but honestly I don't stay most places for more than two beers or so before moving on.

Ah, it's honestly not bad at all, but like you said, there's other options around. I sometimes shoot over to the Seaport and hit up places there as well after Trillium. I also went to Stoddard's that Saturday a couple weeks ago, and Smoke Shop.

And yup, that's what sucks about Nightshift's location, you're kind of porked when there's a huge line. And then more often than not, you head over to Bone Up, and there's a spill over line there as well from Nightshift.

At that point I'll either just Uber home, or I can Uber over to Idle Hands or Mystic. Down the Road is very close as well.

 

Went to the Arlington one yesterday and it was a really nice setup. Anyone who doesn't like dogs and kid mixing with their beer should stay far away though as you might have assumed it was some sort of children's concert if you just glanced at it driving by.

Only downside was that the Kolsch I had was not very good. Well, it wasn't a bad beer exactly, it just didn't much resemble a Kolsch to my palate. Nice to see the neighborhood come out in force for this sort of thing though.