Boston Roundup and Budweiser

Over the 4th, went on a bachelor party to Boston, partially for beer - being with three other beer geeks, it was a major draw. Sure, I know what you're saying - Sam Adams. And sure, it came up. But the idea was more to find an accessible big city with plentiful beer. Boston, Denver, San Diego were finalists and Boston won, partially for being east coast. That Jake, the potential groom, and I both watched the hell out of John Adams on HBO helped tip the scales too. First off, it's a very accessible city; we stayed near the airport, the train was nearby and inexpensive. Anything and everything was within walking distance from the train, but keep in mind I walk around 8 miles a week anyway (still, at no point was I sore or excessively tired). Bostonians were friendly and better than their reputation.

So - Sam Adams. Worth the trip out to the brewery, and worth the effort to do so. You get a small tasting glass and a free tour. We tasted four beers, two of them experimental; tours are easy to get into. But, the tour itself was more than slightly silly, and very much geared toward the layperson. The tour took us into the "brew room" without taking us in - we got a description and some hands-on ingredients but saw very little before going to taste, which wasn't organized well. Interesting - Sam Adams Boston Lager is a lot more aromatic and tasty when fresh, so they really need to watch they get only so much bigger before they really work on their quality - what we had at the Boston brewery was high quality (though it was young). Of course, I knew going in that they only really do R&D there, but if they're relying so much on distribution through other breweries' facilities it's time to step things up.

The tour itself was in Jamaica Plain, accessible by train with a four block walk through neighborhoods. I was warned JP would be seedy and unsafe, but it wasn't. Picked out a restaurant there to try, but we headed back toward downtown early. If you're going, do your homework and find a place like Zon's, or pick out another place between there and downtown (I recommend Chinatown, though I didn't get there either). The brewery recommended an Irish Pub that looked somewhat lame, and a beer/liquor store on North End that didn't really wow with their selection.

We headed toward Fenway that day, somewhat unfortunately. I didn't want to be touristy and had already seen Fenway and a ballgame there; I assumed that things around there would be touristy, and they were. We stopped at one recommendation I'd found, Boston Beer Works (Fenway). Plentiful on tap, around 20 beers made on premise including a cask IPA. It was mid-day, and we didn't eat, so we were just sitting and drinking a few to get our plans together- this really didn't help us have a good time, and at that point it was barren. So we were looking for atmosphere at a place built to be huge for gamedays, so it didn't get a good shake.

We went across the street to Cask & Flagon, which came recommended to one of our trip companions. Food was OK - beer on tap was disappointing.

That evening, I stepped in and essentially pleaded for one of my recommendations for good taps and solid food. We landed at Publick House in scenic Brookline, out on the Green line where it goes above ground. The bar was literally a half block and visible from the train, so it's almost foolproof drunk. They had all kinds of belgian on tap, as well as tons of other good regional and national craft beer, and have an adjoining bar for the belgian scene. The Trappist Meatloaf (Chimay cheese, Orval-caramelized onions, Westmalle gravy) was decadent and I nearly inhaled it. Beer was priced on the high side, so the rest of the group wanted to get going around 12:00 - we got there at 10 and by then they had already cut off reservations and waitlisting because their list had extended past closing time. So, popular enough place. Definite recommendation. The same bar group was also opening a BBQ type beer restaurant further up the way.

After that, we went to The Lower Depths - a recommendation from the bartender at Beer Works, she said she hangs out there sometimes. It was a little dead, and they closed at 1 (WTF?), so I wish we would've either just gone home on the train (which "stops" at 12:30 but essentially runs till almost 1 so if you're mid-stop you're not just stranded) or stayed at Publick House. a $20 cab ride finished the night.

Friday was tough given the holiday - we did a lot of history based stuff during the day, and only came toward bars that afternoon, in search of lunch. Had lunch at the Green Dragon Tavern, which had been a historical landmark. Of course, it was also abandoned in the 1800s, and this was a "rebirth" place that assumed the name and really has no tie to the old tavern. Fish and Chips were good, I didn't drink there. Didn't seem a purpose, to down Smithwicks as a "best option" just to do it.

I just went back to look up the Green Dragon, and the website was hacked. With a marked date of 2007. Good work kids. The bar was, like much of Fanueil Hall's bar scene, by the same ownership group, and that ownership group didn't believe in big taps. They had Guinness/Smithwicks, two Sam, a Harpoon, maybe Newcastle, and that was usually it. No other regionals. Most Boston bars, unfortunately, seemed to follow this.

Dinner was in North End, which is essentially where you go if you want to grab a good dinner with a lot of variety in choice. After a couple hours walking South Boston trying to find where we'd been ordered to go to watch fireworks by a chick in the subway (and apparently missing out on both the locale and the fireworks), we stopped in a bar called Murphy's Law for a drink (I actually didn't - see the taps issue above) and I persuaded them to hit Sunset Grill instead. We cabbed this one instead of the train, for lack of knowing where we were, and I wish we would've made the turn a lot sooner.

Sunset Grill was another bar closing at 1 - which was a shame, both for our absolutely retarded misuse of time and the fact they had tons of beer on tap (120) and bottle (400+). They had a lot that I wanted the rest of the group to try (Kasteel Route, Stone Oaked Arrogant Bastard, Skirt Lifter Imperial Hefeweizen), and even though we diverged on our paths, we didn't exhaust the tap list and we each left wanting more time to try things. We burned a lot of beer in about two hours, and left somewhat triumphantly. Josh even bought an empty bottle of Sam Adams Utopia.

Saturday left us with our beer shopping - we went to Charles St. Liquors near the river, which had plentiful supply, though I was hoping for a bit more. They had a lot of what we came for - Dogfishhead 120 (illegal to sell in NC because it's 21% ABV), Stone, Lost Abbey, regionals, and so on.

I ended up being unable to find Russian River, or Stone 07.07.07 vertical epic (and 12th anniversary wasn't available yet), and a friend bought the last of their barleywine. I forgot to grab Ten Fidy, an Oskar Blues offering in their traditional can that's an oak aged imperial stout; I couldn't grab Oaked AB since they were only selling 6s and I already had nearly a suitcase of stuff; Lost Abbey was expensive there so it was tough grabbing more than one bottle.

We also hit up O'Sullivan's for a burger while in Cambridge. Again not a great tap place, but this one made up for it with their plentiful burger options, which is the reason to go there.



One other interesting thing about the trip - Charlotte Douglas Int'l now has a Carolina Brewing restaurant/bar on premise, which was ungodly expensive but not terribly outrageous for airport beer.


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Anheuser-Busch has finally been acquired. The beer giant, who in global terms turned out to be not so large as to be acquired by an international company, fell prey somewhat to the falling dollar and rising prices. InBev, who we all know in the international market for acquiring beer and distrubuting it after making it a homogenous and therefore characterless version of itself (I'm looking at you, Hoegaarden),