Beer to find in Boston

Depends on what you like, but offhand, I'd say, Treehouse (on the way in) Jack's Abby (I don't know if they distribute to NY) TRillium, Night Shift, Mystic, Idle Hands, Pretty Things, Maine Beer...
I could go on for a while.

 

trillium

 

If you have access to a car, the most bang for you buck you can get in a small area is to head to Everett/Chelsea and hit Nightshift, Mystic, Idle Hands and Slumbrew (their Beer Garden at Assembly Row) which are all within a couple miles of each other (full disclosure: route 16 in Everett and Chelsea is a very annoying road) and only a few miles north of Boston proper. Most of those have taprooms where you can relax and sample/drink to your heart's content.

Jack's Abby in Framingham is totally worth the trip (and they have a true (though small) taproom as well) but it's a bit of a trek and there's not much else near it. They usually have a lot of beers on offer though, so that softens the blow. If you're driving in from the West you'd want to hit it on the way in. Same goes for Treehouse which is much further west still.

In Boston proper, Trillium is absolutely worth going to to acquire their amazing beer but they don't really have a taproom to speak of so you'd just be getting beers to go (their website says they're not even doing samples at the moment, so it's growlers and bombers only). Harpoon has a very cool taproom and is very close to Trillium so that would be a good double shot. They typically have some reasonably interesting stuff on tap beyond the usual stuff you see at every liquor store in the area.

Personally, for the combination of atmosphere, beer quality/variety, and accessibility I think Nightshift is the one place to really not miss in terms of actually kicking back and drinking a variety of beers on site.

 

If you get a chance, cross the Charles River and check out Cambridge Brewing.

http://cambridgebrewingcompany.com/

 

Go to Trillium; spend your entire beer budget. You'll be a happy guy.

(A stop at Night Shift for Morph is also a good idea)

 

A lot of good suggestions so far. If you tell us what beers you like, that might help.

If you can find bottles of Framinghammer from Jack's Abby, you should get them... Any variant

 

They just released Framinghammer 4-packs (non-BA).

 

Haven't seen or had the non-BA, but I definitely recommend the BA variants (regular, coffee, coconut etc)