Night Shift Brewing

All Craft Beer Cellar locations sell singles and also regularly carry Night Shift and Exhibit A. Exhibit A will also sell singles at the brewery.

 

Thanks!

 

Nightshift has recently moved to offering mixed 4 packs of beers like OHTT but the last thing they mentioned on this thread I recall was that their inventory was based on 4 packs and that they'd need to figure out how to get the accounting correct as well as not bog down the employees trying to sell the beer to go.

 

Was out of town last week when Craigerator was released. Was nice to see there was still some in stock whenI returned yesterday. The limits on purchase certainly seem to have helped

 

I haven't read that thread but n a personal level - I don't particularly like flights. I feel like to really enjoy a beer you need to savor it for longer than "a shot of beer" and focus singularly. When you get a flight with say Whirlpool, Pfaff, a berliner, and something dark - your palate is all out of whack and none of the beers got a fair chance to express themselves.

That being said we sell a shit ton of flights (although full pours are still king for us). We have so many awesome beers on tap that it's the only way to experience the depth of our brewing. Typical customer flow is similar to what you do - get a flight then figure out what you want for a full pour or to take home. They do slow down service and require bartenders to explain the beers to customers (which is great!). We have played around with non-flight lines in the past to resolve the slowing down of service part.

Hope that helps answer your questions. Don't hesitate to tag me with further questions! I don't check BA every day but I try to at least once a week or so.

 

If a 4oz flight doesn't allow you to appreciate the beer fully, does an 8oz barrel society double shot pour?

 

In a vacuum, I also don't like flights. But they're a a necessary evil, especially for breweries such as yours in which there's 20+ different beers on tap, a third of which can be something completely new for the consumer.

This would never happen, but 4 oz. in and of itself can be enough to get at least an idea of how the beer tastes. Wine is served in 3 - 5 oz. a aliquots...but it's also in a large glass. This is where flights truly fail in my opinion (that and the part you mention about your palate being out of whack).

I am also one of your customers who comes in, gets a flight of all the new beers I'm interested in, and then orders a full pour or two of whatever I liked or an old stand by.

And honestly, to truly make a judgement on a beer and taste all of it's complexity, I think you need multiple pints.

This is a great idea if you can pull it off!

 

In principle, I like big beers in big glasses. However, if I go to a new brewery, I always get a flight of the likeliest candidates to sort of whittle down my options. A 4oz taster is not enough to critically judge a beer but it is enough to say 'I like this one, I don't like this one, I like this one better than that one.' After the first flight, if I'm not drinking the beers side-by-side, things get a little muddled.

 

I don't know. I think you should do your research and know what you want before you get there for the most part. Plan on trying two beers for the night and be good with it.

 

How do you research how a beer tastes without tasting it?

 

There are enough mediocre to bad beers out there that I'm not getting a full pour of anything without testing the waters first. I don't need a flight per se but I won't go to a brewery doesn't at least offer smaller pours.

 

Thanks for the perspective. And yeah, a small pour may not give you a full sense of a beer, but it gives a better one than a no-pour does so they're a reasonable compromise when a brewery has so many options (and when there are so many breweries). And one thing I really like about them is that they're a great way to stretch your palate. I don't generally like Heffeweizens so I'm simply not going to order a full pour of one. But I often take a flyer on a small pour just to experiment. That's how I found out I liked your Roggenbier which initially scared me off with its "clove" descriptor.

I'm curious why the idea of the separate line for flights hasn't stuck? If I had to guess I would think people simply couldn't follow the directions. I always get a laugh out of watching the big line form at the bar right in front of the sign that says "Please do not form a line"

ETA: the new smiley faces the site is using are kind of creepy

 

Yup, my thoughts exactly. There's 5300 breweries in the US, 110 in MA alone...and many of them have a very long list of beers...and each will potentially have multiple experimental beers on tap.

I've visited quite a few breweries in the past month or so, between MA, VT, and ME...and I would say the large majority of new beers I had were honestly not something I wanted a full pour of. This isn't to say there's not A LOT of good beer out there, but with so much beer out there, "they can't all be winners kid."

Heck, I even got a flight at The Little Tap House in Portland because they had maybe 10 local double IPAs on tap, most of which I'd never had before.

 

Stupid stupid stupid people!!!Big sign, front and center, don't form a line, just go to the bar. How come when people walk in they lose all knowledge of how to walk to a bar and buy a beer? No bar in my <mumbles under breath> years of drinking has ever had people form a straight orderly line for a beer

 

Craft beer people love standing in lines. Even when they don't have to. The culture is so far off course a sign just makes people want to form a line more.

 

Lol, I was at the Trillium Beer Garden yesterday on the Rose Kennedy Greenway and was amazed at the line. We got in on the earlier side so there was no line but by the time we were halfway through our first beer the line to get in was probably 50 people, it wrapped across two sides of the beer garden. Most of the beers on tap are available at other bars nearby so not sure why anyone would sit in such a long line. I could see if there was something special on tap but probably the most interesting beer on tap was PM Dawn which was available elsewhere.

Back to flights, I'm not a giant fan of buying flights but there are certainly times they make sense. What I prefer to flights is the option of buying a single beer at smaller serving sizes. I forget what Night Shift allows for different serving sizes but I know they at least offer a single "flight size serving" in addition to a full pour. I like when bars offer ~6-8 oz pours in addition to ~12-16 oz. Trillium PM Dawn is a great example of when I would have loved the option of getting a half pour. A full pour of a 9%+ beer is many times too much alcohol. A flight is great when you have no idea of the quality of a brewery but when you know you like the brewery but there are just too many options half pours are great. So even with low ABV beers being able to drink 2 half pours and a full pour allows a good sampling of beers with still being able to get a good feeling for the taste of the beers. Its a nice middle of the road option that gets more sampling without either getting drunk or being overwhelmed by 4 or 5 samples. I find I also savor 1 8 oz beer longer than 2 4 oz pours.

 

What would you do to "make craft beer culture great again" ?

Personally i like the idea of a line at a bar to order, though i know it doesnt work out well logistically.

 

Ha, I've probably been there at least once a month for the last year or so, and I honestly don't know if I've ever noticed that sign. My roommate didn't either. This probably explains why sometimes I think people are "cutting in front of me". Although I'm hesitant to give people the benefit of the doubt considering people cut the line to meet up with friends routinely outside.

Regardless, the line likely forms because the bar area is packed, so what are you supposed to do, push someone out of the way? No, just like at a bar, you wait until you can actually get to the bar to order. As a result, it gets backed up and a line(s) form.

Don't go on the weekdays. I've been twice on Saturday afternoons, and at no point did a long line form. Maybe a couple minute wait at the most. One of my friends went on a Sunday and strolled right in.

I also don't think there's a bar in the area that has 8 - 9 Trillium beers on tap, especially not ones that are currently available at the brewery. Lu Lu's might have 4 or 5, but only one or two are current. And Lu Lu's definitely isn't in the area. Pastoral might have one Trillium beer on tap, sometimes Row 34 has one as well.

And none of these allow you sit in the middle of Boston outside enjoying your beer. I can definitely see the appeal, especially if you just got out of work and want a quick pint of Trillium before heading home on the T.

 

Start a good one. America has never had a good one which is why now that craft beer has exploded we are stuck with a bunch of bandy-legged swamp creatures playing craft beer like it's Pokemon.

We could start with more people actually enjoying the beer and not getting pissy just because you can't take it home and trade it like a Cal Ripken jr. card.

Nearly everything about the culture is fucked up. There's some good people but there are in every Hobby. This one just has a higher percentage of profit driven additions and assholes than any I've ever been involved with.

It's tough to start a good culture when you don't even want to be in the same species as some of these people.

 

Thankfully we on this forum are blessed to have you as our shining beacon of excellence in craft beer culture.