Boston Trip

Fair enough. If the on tap offerings aren't your cup of beer, then not worth a visit. Sounds like you have a ton of other great options, enjoy the city!

 

Even combining Night Shift with Mystic, Bone Up or Idle Hands I'd still rank it behind Kendall Square(Cambridge Brewing, Lamplighter, Lord Hobo, Meadhall, Atwoods) and Downtown/Fort Point(Row 34, Trillium Beer Garden, Stoddards, Gingerman, Tip Tap Room). Especially for a tourist. Downtown and Kendall are way nicer and easier to walk around than Everett. Better food options too.

 

Well I'm more interested in bleeding edge breweries. Specifically well-done kettle sours, barrel aged sours, or giant stouts (for my husband). Trillium already has the IPAs down in a format that is easy to get.

We will have a car on Saturday the 10th in Boston and so we could drive to a brewery that had those options. I saw before that Night Shift does sours but apparently not right now. Since I can get Jack's Abbey cans in the city I'm not making the drive for that. We're arriving too late to hit Tree House and expect much to be left.

Unless there is some really exciting new brewery, I will probably just drink a ton of Trillium at the beer garden. I also tend to prefer visiting breweries directly over bars.

 

Cambridge Brewing makes the best sours in the state IMO and they have a few on right now. As does Lamplighter which is a 5 minute walk away. No need for a car for that.

 

That's awesome. Thanks for the tip. I don't remember much from visiting Cambridge a few years ago but I'll hit both of them up for sure. I see sours in bottles only at Cambridge though, is their tap list not updated on the web site?

 

Night Shift will be releasing Ever Weisse (raspberry kiwi sour) on 6/4, so that should be on tap when you're here. Not sure if El Lechedor (on the current small batch tap list) will still be around then, but it's an excellent stout.

 

Thanks! I didn't see the small batch list for some reason when I checked. Might go out there for some of those stouts. I'll check the list again before going.

 

They list 3 sours on the draft list now. Their site sucks on mobile devices so you may not be able to see it. They aren't the best at updating their site. Untappd is helpful. They do bottle a lot of their sours including Hendrix and Vive Bruxelles recently.

 

Thanks for the heads up on Ginger Man. I'm visiting Boston this weekend and my hotel is right across the street. Killer tap list.

 

Just buy some bud light for 10$ a sixer in the heart of Boston

 

At Cambridge brewing right now. I think it would be more accurate to say that the best sours in Massachusetts are made at trillium. The peach sour I had there yesterday was quite excellent. I'm glad I made the trip to the canton location because I might not have gotten the sours at the beer garden.

Hendrix is an interesting beer but not a style of sour that sour fans typically seek out. Going to Lamplighter next and we'll see if anything they have on tap is great.

 

As a sour fan and regular a both breweries, I find Trillium's Soak series to be far less complex than CBC's sour and wilds. Straight lacto sourness and fruit. The Stonnington and the Lineage series are a bit more exciting, but beers like Cerise Cassee and Vice Bruxelles are in another class.

 

Maybe so but permutation 11 was top quality. One of the most impressive peach sours I've had. I agree the raspberry soak wasn't anything special. Well at least based on what they had on today I wasn't too excited by the stuff at Cambridge. And I wasn't going to buy a bottle of one of their brett ales without tasting it first.

 

if you're looking for a fun afternoon check out the www.salemferry.com and head to Salem for the day (55 minute ride). The boat ride is great, they sell beer, and you get dropped off around the corner from the House of 7 Gables which is a quick 10 minute/sight seeing filled walk to NOTCH. You can even take the ferry in and the train back (train takes roughly 30 minutes to North Station) if you want to save some cash. Lots of great restaurants, history, not to mention a distillery and ciderhouse. If the weather is nice I promise you won't be dissapointed.

 

I will second this. We took the ferry in Saturday morning. Great ferry ride and we did the House of 7 Gables and the Witch House at 310 Essex Street. Fun trip and we got it all done in a couple hours.

 

I was just in Boston for the first time last weekend. My gf had friends that live in Hopkinston.
On Friday we hit up Wormtown, Start Line, and Jack's Abbey.
Saturday-Trillium (Canton) and Castle Island
Sunday-Medusa
Monday-Harpoon

My favorite beers were WT Ales for ALS, SL the citra hop APA, JA's BA Graham Cracker beer, DDH Fort Point and the coffee stout from trillium, and medusa's galaxy side project

 

I know this isn't a food discussion, but any recommendations for restaurants in Boston? nothing crazy nice or anything, and not a particular style either. Just looking for a reputable place that has a nice atmosphere.

 

Where are you staying? Lots of great places but hard to give suggestions without knowing where you'll be and/or what you like.

 

Go to Nico Italian in North End. Reservations accepted and the spicy muscles in tomato sauce was delightful. Though you could also line up for some other places if you feel like doing so.

 

This is a vague query but Legal Seafood is sort of a standard here. Decent atmosphere, casual, easy for a walk-in, and slightly better than an average tourist trap. Plenty of better options though if you have a preference. The Cambridge/Somerville area has an arguably better food scene too.