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Brewery Spotlight: Trillium

7/19/2019

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Haven't done this in awhile, and it's about time I did Trillium. I've had 79 of their beers at this point, which is the exact same number I had of Harpoon when I did the last one of these.
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The Venue: Trillium actually has 5 different locations listed on their website as of now. Fort Point (brewery/restaurant), Canton (brewery/taproom), Greenway Garden (beer garden), Farm (farm/brewery - not yet open), and Fenway (taproom - not yet open). I've been to the Fort Point brewery/restaurant and the Greenway Garden (I also went to the old Fort Point brewery before they actually had a taproom/restaurant).

The restaurant in Fort Point is awesome. There's a bar downstairs with some seating with a full menu and plenty of beers on tap. The second floor is mostly for reservations for dinner. There's a small patio outside (see the fencing in the picture), and they have a rooftop (again, see picture) that gets super crowded when it's nice out.  They don't offer flights or anything like that, which is a shame because it's hard to resist wanting to try all of the beers when you're there. They'll usually have around 20 beers available. The food menu is slightly upscale, and everything is quite good. They do have TV's on the bottom floor, but they're only on for major events. They also offer beer to go, by the can (no need to get 4 of everything).

The Greenway Garden right in downtown Boston is where I've been the most. It's a beer garden, with a truck with 8-12 beers on tap. There's some picnic table seating and barrels for standing. It can get quite crowded, especially after-work hours. Obviously, it's only open during the warm months. It's mostly in the shade in the late afternoon, which is nice when it's extremely hot. They don't offer flights, but there's few enough beers on tap that you could probably try them all.

The Beer: This is the draw of Trillium. They're a top rated brewery in the world for a reason. They do an excellent job with IPA's, stouts, and sours. They also make a bunch of lighter options, but I usually skip those. Of the 79 beers I've had from them, I've only rated 2 below 4 Shyoh's. In fact, only 6 are below 5. Here's the spread by rating:
1: 0
2: 0
3: 2
4: 6
5: 38
6: 32
7: 1

That brings the average to a stellar 5.30. That's incredible with that volume of different beers (for reference, the average rating on here currently is 4.556). Shout out to DDH Scaled (an IPA) as the 7.

Specifically, all the sour beers are incredible. They've got a few different series (soak/super soak, fated farmer, seesaw/double seesaw/triple seesaw) where they vary the fruit they put in it, and I will try every single one I can get my hands on. ​They also do slight variations of a bunch of different IPA's that are also always good. That's all without talking about the stouts, which are probably the best of the bunch. They have a bunch of 12%+ alcohol stouts that are just so so good. Hard to go wrong.

Where To Get It: The 3 open locations mentioned above. They also occasionally have it on tap at a very select group of restaurants in Boston (they're regularly at Five Horses). Really though, you just need to go to the breweries or the garden.
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Brewery Spotlight: Harpoon

3/8/2019

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Keeping this going, with the 2nd most-visited brewery for me: Harpoon. I've had 79 of their beers as of now, so I have a pretty good idea of what they're all about.
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The Venue: The beer hall/brewery in the Seaport district of Boston. This pic was taken directly from Harpoon's website. They have a large German beer hall style taproom. It's quite popular, especially on weekend afternoons. Friday evenings are usually a 20's/30's crowd (and less crowded), but the weekend crowd is all over the place: tourists, beer enthusiasts, and more. They have a bunch of tap offerings, including Clown Shoes. Typically around 20 options, and you can get flights, though only in pre-defined combinations. They usually have some experimental options to go along with their popular year-round and seasonal offerings. They also have pretzels served with various beer-infused sauces, which are awesome.

Even with all that, the big draw is the tour. It's $5, lasts about an hour, and 20 minutes of that is just an open bar of tastings. The tour guides are all great (I've gone on the tour 5 times with 4 different guides). Tickets go on sale at opening, and tours run every 20 minutes (at least on Saturdays). Highly recommend. Definitely a go-to when I have visitors from out of town.

They also have a bunch of festivals at the brewery throughout the year. I've never been, because they're crazy crowded, and the crowd is extremely young (as in average age might be < 23). They have a secondary location in Vermont, but I've never been. 


The Beer: Expect most things to be good, but not blow you away. Their IPA is their most popular, available at basically every bar around Boston. The UFO (UnFiltered Offerings) series are quite good (shout out to UFO Razz, one of my favorite fruit beers, and their grapefruit shandy, Big Squeeze), and I tend to like their dark beers more than average. Overall, here are their beers by rating:
1: 0

2: 3
3: 13
4: 27
5: 26
6: 9
7: 1
That brings the average to 4.35, which is below the site average. Just like Night Shift, that's likely because I've had so many of their beers, and not just their most popular stuff. Of the 3 beers with a rating of '2', 2 of them were available once and never brewed again. They also brew beers that are specifically for different bars in Boston (literally a different beer for each bar), and most of them are bad, which accounts for some of the bad ratings. You can be pretty confident that every beer you get from Harpoon will be good, especially if they actually market it. When you have a brewery this popular, that should be expected.

They also do a great job with variety packs. If you're at a beer store, and can't decide what you want to drink that night, a variety pack from Harpoon is a great way to go. You'll get a few different options, and they'll all be good.

Where To Get It: The two taprooms (at least the Boston one has merch and beer to go also). The IPA is available at basically every bar in Boston, and it's widely available on the East Coast. It's also pretty easy to find in stores, but if you're searching, check out their Beer Finder. 

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Brewery Spotlight: Night Shift Brewing

3/1/2019

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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.

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