Inspired by my recent ingestion of my 100th different beer from Night Shift (my first brewery to hit triple digits), I decided to start a new thing where I give an overview of my experience with different breweries. Hopefully it becomes a regular thing. I will only do this for breweries I've actually visited. Maybe that'll make me finally visit some of my favorites.
The Venue: Night Shift has an extremely large taproom in Everett, MA, about a $10-15 Uber from downtown Boston, and it's extremely popular, with visitors ranging from beer aficionados and local regulars to a mid-20's party scene. To be fair, I've only been on Saturdays. The mornings/early afternoon are more the former, and the evenings are most certainly the latter. They typically have anywhere from 8-20 beers available in the taproom. They also have food trucks (check their calendar), snacks, and other non-alcoholic beverages to go along with a bunch of board games (a brewery staple). They offer flights, so you can try a bunch without getting too plastered. During my most recent trip that put me over the century mark, I managed to have 15 different beers over 3 hours. I had 3 flights and 3 full beers. I should also note that they have Lyft deals to go between a few other greater Boston breweries, and both Bone Up Brewing and Short Path Distillery (not beer, but I highly recommend) are within 2 blocks.
The Beer: Their 'Weisse' series is what I think they do best. They're all super sour and quite good. That said, you don't get me to try over 100 beers without having a pretty good range of stuff. The picture above gives you a decent idea. A bunch of IPA's/pale ales, including two rotating series (One Hop This Time and Morph), plenty of dark beers, saisons, and a bunch of other styles. Recently, they've been making a bunch of Brut IPA's. They also have a light beer. Their most popular stuff is obviously good. Whirlpool and Awake are notable and worth getting. Unfortunately, my 2 favorites (both 7's) don't seem to be offered very often. Overall, their beer ratings from me line up about with the average for all breweries by rating:
1: 0
2: 3
3: 8
4: 40
5: 38
6: 10
7: 2
For you math people, that puts the average at 4.495 for their 101 beers (4.2% of the total beers on here). For reference, for the whole site (2405 beers at the moment), the average is 4.5099. That's deceiving though, because I've only had the best, most popular stuff from many breweries, and I've had everything Night Shift pumps out. Overall, you can expect almost everything you get at Night Shift to be good, but only a few will be really excellent.
Where To Get It: Obviously at the taproom, where you can also get beers to go. You can also get it in stores and bars around Massachusetts, but mostly in the Boston area. Check out their beer finder.
Anything Else?: Yeah, buddy. This past summer, they had a few beer gardens open in Boston. I expect that to continue. Also, they're opening a secondary permanent location at Lovejoy Wharf later this month to brew experimental beer, which will probably clinch Night Shift as my first brewery to 200.
The Venue: Night Shift has an extremely large taproom in Everett, MA, about a $10-15 Uber from downtown Boston, and it's extremely popular, with visitors ranging from beer aficionados and local regulars to a mid-20's party scene. To be fair, I've only been on Saturdays. The mornings/early afternoon are more the former, and the evenings are most certainly the latter. They typically have anywhere from 8-20 beers available in the taproom. They also have food trucks (check their calendar), snacks, and other non-alcoholic beverages to go along with a bunch of board games (a brewery staple). They offer flights, so you can try a bunch without getting too plastered. During my most recent trip that put me over the century mark, I managed to have 15 different beers over 3 hours. I had 3 flights and 3 full beers. I should also note that they have Lyft deals to go between a few other greater Boston breweries, and both Bone Up Brewing and Short Path Distillery (not beer, but I highly recommend) are within 2 blocks.
The Beer: Their 'Weisse' series is what I think they do best. They're all super sour and quite good. That said, you don't get me to try over 100 beers without having a pretty good range of stuff. The picture above gives you a decent idea. A bunch of IPA's/pale ales, including two rotating series (One Hop This Time and Morph), plenty of dark beers, saisons, and a bunch of other styles. Recently, they've been making a bunch of Brut IPA's. They also have a light beer. Their most popular stuff is obviously good. Whirlpool and Awake are notable and worth getting. Unfortunately, my 2 favorites (both 7's) don't seem to be offered very often. Overall, their beer ratings from me line up about with the average for all breweries by rating:
1: 0
2: 3
3: 8
4: 40
5: 38
6: 10
7: 2
For you math people, that puts the average at 4.495 for their 101 beers (4.2% of the total beers on here). For reference, for the whole site (2405 beers at the moment), the average is 4.5099. That's deceiving though, because I've only had the best, most popular stuff from many breweries, and I've had everything Night Shift pumps out. Overall, you can expect almost everything you get at Night Shift to be good, but only a few will be really excellent.
Where To Get It: Obviously at the taproom, where you can also get beers to go. You can also get it in stores and bars around Massachusetts, but mostly in the Boston area. Check out their beer finder.
Anything Else?: Yeah, buddy. This past summer, they had a few beer gardens open in Boston. I expect that to continue. Also, they're opening a secondary permanent location at Lovejoy Wharf later this month to brew experimental beer, which will probably clinch Night Shift as my first brewery to 200.
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