Boston’s craft brews City has a staggering collection of 10 micro-breweries to try
BOSTON has an active craft beer scene and the state of Massachusetts has at least 47 micro-breweries, 10 of them in greater Boston.
I signed up for an evening brewery tour with the Boston Brewery Company, and eventually five of us headed off in a van across the river to Night Shift Brewing while Andy from Arkansas, our beer guide, talked about how lifting the ban on home brewing in the late 1990s had led to an explosion of experimentation.
Night Shift Brewing’s story is typical: three guys in an apartment making their own stuff and giving it to friends, who eventually said, “Man, this stuff is good enough to sell.”
Now they have a large warehouse with big steel tanks, a range of brews and a bar out front where people from the neighbourhood gather to sip, talk and eat stuff. Very homely.
We tried four beers there – a very plain beer called whirlpool, which had grapefruit flavours but not much else; 87, which was a 7.8 per cent IPA with hops added at the end of the brewing process; the belafonte, a beer in the Belgian style, 7 per cent alcohol; and the trifecta made with three Belgian yeasts and vanilla beans, which was like drinking beer with a healthy dose of allspice added. One for the esoteric I think.
And then on to Mystic, a brewery named after the river, for five more.
They are followers of the Belgian tradition and their dark called Day of Doom is a 12 per cent tasty drop.
Radix has birch bark, liquorice wort and sassafras in it, but the flavouring didn’t work for me.
Andy tells us: “My job is to get you educated, entertained and slightly inebriated.”
He scored on all three, even though he arrived 45 minutes late at the pick-up point.
“Well, we just have to work harder at having a good time,” he proclaimed, swinging his large arms about.
At a more modern bar back in the city we move – more slowly now – through a flight of four beers and a pizza meal, before the final stop, Meadhall, a modern classy bar and restaurant, where there are 130 different brews available.
It’s a top spot for the young and affluent, full menu and table service.
We are allowed full pint here and I choose an Englishstyle bitter made in Maine.
A calming influence after porters, IPAs, darks, browns and pales.
The biggest and perhaps best known brewery is Samuel Adams, named after the patriot, failed maltster and leader of the American Revolution, their beers are available across the country.
He stands outside Faneuil Hall, which is itself a fantastic market area with many highclass cafes and restaurants.