MA Taprooms re-opening - Phase 2 or 3?

Unfortunately, a great small brewery like Honest Weight has never been able to create outdoor seating due to the structural limitations of their building, lack of adequate outdoor space, etc. Such great beer—I hope they are able to sell enough to-go stuff and are able to get cans out through distribution. If I could get cans near me, I’d buy tons of it. And they are just too far away for me to rationalize making a to-go order. At the beginning of quarantine, I bought myself an HW gift card to support them, of course having no idea when I’d be able to use it. If a location is so far away that I can’t make the trip there and back without needing a bathroom stop, I don’t make the trip. That’s where my thinking has been, and I guess I’m not ready to change it yet.

 

Really unfortunate, love their beers. Up here on the North Shore, mayors Driscoll (Salem) and Cahill (Beverly) have been aggressive with their plans to give restaurants (and now, I presume, taprooms) easier avenues to opening outdoor space and taking up parking lots, sidewalks, etc. to do so. I know Backbeat, which opened next to Beverly Depot mere days before the shutdown, plans to put in all sorts of outdoor space. But a place like Channel Marker right on the main drag is going to have to be more creative about finding the space (though given that their canning runs sell out within minutes, I'm far less worried about their long-term prospects).

No matter what, this is a major improvement over the initial announcement and the list of breweries that will still have to wait is significantly shorter.

 

CT is basically doing the same thing, except they do allow food trucks. Breweries can open for outside seating only if they serve food too. And they must have servers bring the drinks/food to the customers. No one can go to the bar in the taproom to order or get drinks.

It's definitely weird that before Covid, breweries could operate without food, but now for partial reopening they have to serve food. In CT it was explained that they wanted people to eat along with drinking to mitigate drunkenness, but that's stupid. Why was it different before Covid? Didn't you want to mitigate drunkenness then? Many people think it's appeasement to restaurants; to make it a level playing field.

 

Food trucks will count in MA too.

 

I think in RI they are partly leveling things the other way, by allowing to go beer and growler fills from restaurants which has never even been on the radar during normal times. That is fine with me, the more free enterprise by both restaurants and taprooms the better for everyone. No mixing of food service with taprooms here except "brewpubs" serving food had around a one week head start.

Long Live Beerworks quietly rolled out outdoor courtyard service this week with seating from the service window, and LineSider who has an expansive indoor space with a smaller courtyard said they are seating up to 50% capacity inside, again table service where you go to the bar to be seated.

 

MA allowed the same thing which you would otherwise NEVER have seen in this state.

 

Went to these two a couple weeks ago on a date and it was great. Very simple and efficient, and I felt safe. Went to Garrison City later in the week and it seemed a little too crowded but the beer was great. Very excited to finally go to The Tap, CBC, etc.

 

Where is The Tap and CBC? Visiting the area this week so just curious.

 

The Tap is in Haverhill and CBC stands for Cambridge Brewing Co. in Cambridge, MA (specifically Kendall Square).

 

Make Cambridge Brewing a priority. One of the best breweries around and the patio is nice.

 

They open today at 4 pm for dinner and drinks on the patio. Lunch tomorrow.

Game on.

 

I just went to The Tap earlier and it was a great experience. Their food is always superb, and Solar Plexus still holds up. My date loved their Belgian stuff too, which was a bonus. My only real concern is that they do flights and they’re actually all served in small glasses. Maybe this is a little overly-cautious of me but I would like to know what the sanitizing process is here; I would like to be assured that they are properly cleaned between instances of serving, as every other place I’ve been since they’ve been re-opening has utilized single-use plastic cups.

 

Like a Tinder date or current girlfriend/fiancé/wife...etc.

Just curious if people are out there dating now too.

And what’s wrong with glassware? If it gets washed in the dishwasher I don’t see the issue.

 

Solar Plexus is honestly a top five DIPA for me. I felt like I was seeing it canned less often even before Covid hit so I'm glad to hear they're still hanging in there and still making it. A trip to Haverhill might be in order as soon as I get an Idle Hands visit out of the way...

 

Lady I’ve been seeing since just about the beginning of COVID, we work together and have the whole time so that’s convenient for “social distancing” purposes, eh? No way I would be meeting random new people now.

Yeah I guess If they’re properly dishwashing everything there is no issue. I would like to read somewhere about their procedures to make sure everything is properly disinfected, but there wasn’t anything about that. Maybe I’m just paranoid? Guess I just prefer disposable stuff in these times.

 

I don't have the link handy but I recall reading something that seemed legit about how glass to mouth contact is unlikely to spread viruses due to saliva and digestive fluid doing a good job of killing things. The article framing things in the context of saying that the old saw of "turning the rim of the glass around to other side" if you took a sip from a friend's drink was worthless because the likely vector for contagion was actually your fingers picking up the virus from the side of glass and then touching your face.

So to the extent you want to believe a second hand story from an internet stranger, if you were to sanitize your hands often and make sure not to touch your face while drinking, the actual *drinking* part of the equation might be pretty safe even with iffy glasses.

#doctorschmoctor

 

One more (and hopefully the last) thing on the subject. Since they serve food, they are required to run their dishes through a chemical and/or temperature sanitation process. So if they run the bar glassware through the same system and if they are up to code, the glasses should be safe.

 

I run all my dates through a similar system.

Can’t be too safe during these times.