Waltham Beer Works?

Some of the places in NY have some pretty dynamic solutions (e.g. Pony bar has this interactive board that easily deletes and adds beers without much ado). However, I would rather just read it from a chalkboard if the dynamic board says $9 for an 8oz pour...like at Pony Bar.

All of those names sound great. I hope it is their good productions though and not the chaff. I was at Merchant the other day and I got pretty excited when I saw that they had Singlecut and a bunch of other great taps, but then I noticed that NONE were IPAs. I may have a narrow focus, but if it isn't an IPA or a Wild/Sour, I get pretty bummed out.

I admit to not understanding the economics around beer bars, but I wonder at what point you benefit from having X number of taps. Is it a street cred thing? For me, you can have 200 taps, but if there isn't something truly interesting, what's the point. The Tap House has a million beers, but if you took two or three of what I consider (important distinction) their best beers, it might as well be the Fenway beer selection.

 

I truly have no reply to this... while I'm also a great lover of IPA's (though the sours are way off my radar) there are a tremendous amount of people out there that do not feel the same way. The thought that if our 48 taps are not predominately IPA's it will be full of "chaff" is too out there for me to contemplate.

 

That's a good point. I was only talking about where my palate was, not everyone's. What I meant was that I wondered what the real spread was between the most and least popular of 100 taps was. Do the lowest 10 not sell at all?

 

That has actually been a pretty hot topic around here. Unlike you, I'm not huge on sours... definitely just my palate, not at all a judgement... and what I found at our last establishment was that they, and some of the other more "esoteric" beers sat an unacceptable amount of time in the keg coolers. So we're trying to suss out how to approach our list so as to not sacrifice the quality of the various brews. I think what you'll find here is about 15 or 16 of the taps will be allocated to known quantities... IPA's predominately... 15 or 16 will be to fairly "sure bets" (lagers, pilsners, ambers, porters, stouts, etc)... 8-10 will be to limited editions or one-offs whatever "breed" they might be... and 6-8 will be toward sours, the offbeat, cool ciders, etc.

The more esoteric beers and ciders will likely be in logs as opposed to 1/2 kegs so if they do not sell well we don't waste valuable product. Logs are not as profitable in general, but they do provide a bit of security where waste is concerned.

 

Yes. Sours are a little like the current election, people tend to fall pretty drastically one way or the other.

However, if shelf space is indicative of trends, I would think that sours are on the upswing.

Funny, one of the upsides of bringing a great sour to a gathering is that, unlike when I bring Trillium, many will just go back to whatever they were drinking before the sour...

 

If I went into a bar and the taps were dominated with IPAs, I'd be leaving pretty quickly. There are A LOT of styles that are neither IPA or wilds/sours. Glad to hear this place will be representing those, too. (PS: I love wilds/sours.)

 

Nothin's new under the sun I guess.

 

So you must leave most bars pretty quickly then, huh?

 

They have it at the Boynton in Worcester. It's definitely a nice touch!

 

SOOOOOOOOO glad this is not going to be Beerworks!!!
Its ~1mile form me and I hope it rocks. Please have lunch everyday unlike The Gaff.

 

Ha!! That's a good one regarding the Trillium vs sours... My sous chef up in VT loved sours and was always psyched because, unlike the Lawson's and Fiddlehead and Hill Farmstead we NEVER ran out of the sours.

 

Pony Bar is actually the only bar that I recall seeing a digital draft list at.

 

Dive Bar in Worcester has a great solution for updating their tap list online - they post a pic of their chalkboard on Instagram once a day. Easy to find, easy to update.

 

@phantomchef - Any update on when your new spot is opening? I live right down the street and can't wait to check it out!

 

Hey Mark... sorry, I haven't checked in for a few days... we are VERY close. We're waiting on our last sign offs from 2 or 3 inspectors, then we need to find about a dozen more staff members, THEN we will get ball rolling. Thanks for checking in. You can watch us on Facebook under Brewer's Tap and Table to keep abreast of things. These are the breweries we'll be opening with...

Night Shift (MA)
Singlecut (NY)
Jack’s Abbey (MA)
Notch (MA)
Finback (NY)
Banded Horn (ME)
Aeronaut (MA)
Lost Nation (VT)
Maine Beer Co (ME)
Beer’d Brewing (CT)
Bissell Bros (ME)
Deciduous (NH)
Hermit Thrush (VT)
Foundation (ME)
Wormtown (MA)
CBC (MA)
Idle Hands (MA)
Zero Gravity (VT)
Wicked Weed (NC)
Clown Shoes (MA)
Kent Falls (CT)
SoMe (ME)
Transmitter (NY)
Queen City (VT)
Two Roads (CT)
Kelsen (NH)
Proclamation (RI)
Fiddlehead (VT)
Allagash (ME)
Lord Hobo (MA)
Dogfish Head (NH)
Stony Creek (CT)

Look forward to seeing you down there... (whenever the hell we finally get open!)

 

With that tap list count me in.

 

Oh yeah???

 

I'll be sure to ask for you when I arrive!

 

(DE)

 

Credit where credit's due, that is a very good list of breweries. 40 taps still seems excessive to me though.