Night Shift Brewing

@meefmoff Appreciate the review! And glad you enjoyed your visit. We put a lot of our souls into building that space. As you picked up on - its all about the beer. That's supposed to be the star and the food takes a supporting cast role. Quality, made from scratch, well executed, some subtle twists but every day kind of food, but nothing fancy. We also tried to make the food super affordable too.

Just a quick note on the pilsner - it was the first beer brewed on the brewhouse at Lovejoy. So we were just learning the system. We like the beer as a super low abv crusher but does have a very light body. The Zwickel we had on for a bit was a much better evolution. It kicked really quickly.

The heavy hoppy beers were just to get things rolling. Got a ton of style diversity in the tanks and getting into more funky stuff (stainless brett beers, etc).

We are hoping the Lovejoy patio is opened within a week or two!

 

I would think a 3.5% pilsner would be among the more difficult recipes to get right. How'd you choose that for your first batch?

 

Low ingredient cost so if things went bad - it wouldn't be a big deal to dump it. Not to say that we don't dump more expensive beers (Like some DDH DIPA - cause we have) but why risk it on batch 1.

 

I forgot to mention that the little to-go/coffee shop area was cool as well. Very welcoming and sufficiently "separate" from the rest of it.

I've only had that notably super fresh Boston Lager experience a handful of times (most recently at the No Name Restaurant of all places) but now that you mention it this was probably similar. Still might have a somewhat lighter body though maybe?

The Mild wasn't on cask and I think it was maybe 4.2% ABV? I wouldn't read too much into my "a little thin" comment as it really was quite good (I very happily drank 20 ounces of it). The non cask mild I've had most recently was Vincent at Notch which I recall being fuller bodied, but they have that fancy foamy nozzle dispenser contraption so it might not be an apples to apples comparison. Oh, and for the record it was a collaboration with another brewery - they were called something weird like DSSOLVR.

 

Which beer was the collab?

 

Oops sorry. That was the result of a clunky edit. The dark mild was the collab.

 

DSSOLVR is the brewery one of their early brewers is starting in Ashevile FWIW.

 

Oh that's really cool! Thx for the info.

 

What is the crowd like at owls nest esplanade on Friday afternoons around 4?

 

Tonight it was probably pretty big.

Anyone grab any?

 

Yeah I went. There was no line up until 5:45pm or so. Very chill there. Heady and Focal were $12.

 

Jeez.

I think there’s bars in Burlington you can get them for about $3 on some days.

 

For the pair or a single can?

 

Smoke Shop in Cambridge had Focal and Heady last night, 30 cases. Had a can of Focal for like $8 or $9, not bad!

 

And yet a $12 Heady still represents pretty good value for money in the grand scheme of Boston drinking.

 

Yeah it didn't surprise me. I've seen bootlegged Treehouse cans for about that much. I think Second Fiddle cans cost $11 at Stoked in Brookline.

 

How much does the other beers cost at Owl's Nest? I've seen bars in Long Island have Heady for those prices as well. The question is whether the cost is set by Night Shift or by Alchemist. I've always assumed the places I've seen Alchemist can's were not on the up and up but clearly Night Shift wouldn't do this unless it was. I guess its less than the gas cost to drive to Vermont to get it.

 

Doesn't sound like they're set by Alchemist.

 

Ah forgot that Smoke Shop is a restaurant and not a retail store. Could be other factors involved there but would need to compare the cost of a NS beer at the Owl's nest to the cost of Heady/Focal.