Best Boston area pubs

So I'm in Boston and will have a free day Saturday. Any good pubs with a lot of good craft beer selections on tap?

Bukowski's
Cash only

Boston Beer Works
They are a brew-pub chain in the Boston area
Great food and great beers
I prefer the one on Canal Street

Deep Ellum
I've never been but my friend swears by the place

There aren't many bars or pubs in boston....:cross:


kidding

try the sunset grille, they have like more than 100 taps of craft beer. I got some really unusual stuff there a month ago.

I'm preferential to Cambridge Brewing Company on the other side of the river as well. You can get directions from the T (Redline - Kendall Sq. stop) on their website.

Sunset Grill is in Brighton but can also be accessed on the T (Greenline B-train, Harvard Ave. stop).

jgourd said:

So I'm in Boston and will have a free day Saturday. Any good pubs with a lot of good craft beer selections on tap?

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What part of boston are you going to be? As bguzz pointed out, there are fair number of places you can go. I betting they'll be a good place stumbling distance from where you are staying...

Yeah, a location helps since their are good spots in way too many neighborhoods. Here are a few recommendations. Keep in mind that I don't like sports bars and would rather be in a place that would be playing punk rock (and would settle for indie).

If you are near Backbay, I second the Bukowski's recommendation for both atmosphere & food.

Cambridge Brewing Co. in Kendall Sq has some great beers, but it more of a sit down restaurant than a bar. (Decent basic pub food.)

If you are in Jamaica Plain, the Brendan Behan is a great spot.

Deep Ellum in Allston has a very good selection and a great atmosphere If you stop by on a weekday (not Thursday), it should be easy to get a seat on their patio. Their food is pretty good, but that area has some of the best Thai, Taiwanese, and Korean food.

babalu87 said:

Bukowski's
Boston Beer Works
They are a brew-pub chain in the Boston area
Great food and great beers
I prefer the one on Canal Street

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Not a fan of Boston Beer Works at all. Especially stay away from the Airport location. The food is OK, but the beer is very light and watery. Works for the average beer drinker, just not me. Give it a shot if you don't mind lighter beers.

Pale ale isn't very hoppy, the red is so light you can't even taste the malt, and the Blueberry is OK but still light. The blueberry ale seems to be the most unique I've had (actual blueberries placed in the beer after the tap). However, it's still not that good.

Didn't mean to be negative, I just wanted to put my 2 cents in.

Since I travel to Boston a lot though, I'm glad everyone else is chiming in.

The Publick house off the green line is INCREDIBLE. Bukowski's is also pretty great but the cash only thing always got me. I would also stay away from Boston Beer works for all the reasons described above.

I went to PAX this summer first time in boston. I enjoyed myself but with I was able to find one of those corner bars with great beers on tap and to mingle with the locals. But where we were staying was center city boston and the only thing available was an irish pub and mexican restraunt...

http://lordhobo.com/
http://www.cambridgecommonrestaurant.com/main.html
http://www.redbones.com/brews.html
All have great beer selection if you're in the cambridge/somerville area.

OK as far as my location, I'm in Bedford now (at the Doubletree hotel), but will be in Boston on Saturday. Let's just say that I will probably return my rental car at the airport (my hotel is the Holiday Inn at the airport) and I want to take public transportation from there. So anything easily accessible that way will be fine. And I don't mind doing a little walking. I prefer a bar atmosphere (bar, taps, good beer selection), but don't mind tables and some restaurant-ness. I'd rather stay away from tourist joints and go where there are locals. I've heard of Cambridge Common from some acquaintances here, so I might try that one. I've also heard of Doyle's and another one I can't remember now. Any other suggestions are welcome. Thanks! Oh, and I prefer beers on tap to bottles and places that have flights (small amounts of many beers to try out).

Cambridge Common seemed OK. Decent tap variety there and they'll give you a 4x4oz sampler. Frankly the best beer I had there was from Cambridge Brewing Company, which I later visited twice. It's about 4-5 blocks away from MIT.

dukeredhair said:

The Publick house off the green line is INCREDIBLE.

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+1.

IMHO: The Publick House is my favorite place in the city, but it's probably further than you want to go (Green Line-C to Washington Sq.)

Cambridge Brewing Co. is pretty good, and in an interesting place.

Sunset is overrated. Too many taps to keep things fresh, and too much of a fratty crowd.

Boston Beer Works is hit or miss. I like the one by Fenway better than Canal St. It pretty much depends on what they're brewing, but it's more of a restaurant than a bar anyway.

As some others said, though, you'll probably be within a block of a decent bar wherever you go.

I was gonna say that if you don't mind going out to the 'burbs, there's a place in my town called the Union Brew Haus. They have over 200 beers, but most are bottled, and I just read your post saying you'd rather have draft beer. I thought I'd throw that out there anyway.

BTW, you can take the commuter rail to Weymouth, but depending on how late you wanna stay, you'll need other transportation to get back into Boston.

I'm always looking for an excuse to go there, so if you wanna go, PM me.

Haputanlas said:

Not a fan of Boston Beer Works at all. Especially stay away from the Airport location. The food is OK, but the beer is very light and watery. Works for the average beer drinker, just not me. Give it a shot if you don't mind lighter beers.

Pale ale isn't very hoppy, the red is so light you can't even taste the malt, and the Blueberry is OK but still light. The blueberry ale seems to be the most unique I've had (actual blueberries placed in the beer after the tap). However, it's still not that good.

Didn't mean to be negative, I just wanted to put my 2 cents in.

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Obviously you ordered the wrong beers. A pale ale doesnt have to be hoppy.
If you want beers, order their hoppy beers. They do have a VERY HOPPY beer, i forgot the name, but they warn you when ordering it. Maybe it's not at the airport one, but whatever.

OK. So I think I might hit Cambridge Common then Cambridge Brewing Co then Lord Hobo. And if Boston Beer Works is not in the airport terminal, then maybe it will be last. Wondering if I should just take public transportation or just find parking garages near the bars.

I know that there IS NOT any place to park at Lord Hobo. Or even nearby. I was going to go there once, but after driving around and around several times, I gave up.

Take the T, ride the bus, or if you have to, take a cab.

doctorRobert said:

Obviously you ordered the wrong beers. A pale ale doesnt have to be hoppy.
If you want beers, order their hoppy beers. They do have a VERY HOPPY beer, i forgot the name, but they warn you when ordering it. Maybe it's not at the airport one, but whatever.

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I know that it doesn't have to be hoppy to be a good pale ale, what I was actually trying to say is that there is very little hop presence at all. Pale ales should have SOME hop character.

Also, I did go to a different Boston Beer Works that was next to a couple of other bars (Sorry I don't remember the street). We specifically asked for their list of beers and was looking for an IPA or bitter beer. They only had one different beer and that was a Russian Imperial Stout. Might have been good, but didn't get around to it.

That hoppy beer you are referring to might have been a specialty or limited release.

Either way, I was making my point based on MY opinion and I tried to explain it as such. If you like Boston Beer works, please point out the beers that you enjoyed.

I have nothing against Boston Beer Works other than I didn't like their beer. Just chiming in.

jgourd said:

OK. So I think I might hit Cambridge Common then Cambridge Brewing Co then Lord Hobo. And if Boston Beer Works is not in the airport terminal, then maybe it will be last. Wondering if I should just take public transportation or just find parking garages near the bars.

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You should be able to walk to lord hobo from cambridge brewing company and theres parking garages and some meter parking nearby there (CBC not lord hobo). I can't say for sure about parking for cambridge common, I usually just walk there. The T is also about 0.5mile walk from each place, central for lord hobo, kendall for CBC, porter for cambridge commons. Oh, also Doyles (assuming you mean tommy doyles) is next to CBC so you can check that out if you wanted too.

So we first went to Tommy Doyle's. Not particularly good beer selection, but I had a Harpoon IPA and my wife had the Drifter (very grapefruity to me). Plus, we had the best clam chowder ever there too. At least better than the 5 or so other places I tried it while in the Boston area. The best part about that pub was the bartender. That chick was great. Hilarious and very obnoxious; cursed like a damn Irish! But she's Scottish!

Then we headed to Cambridge Brewing Co. Awesome place! Great beer selection (it's all theirs)! An interesting one is their wild porter. It's their robust porter but inoculated with the lambic strains and aged in oak barrels for a year and a half or so. It tasted like a cross between a porter and port. The bartender was good enough to let me sample just about every beer they make. It was the most awesome place of the evening. I ordered their cask ale (with cascade) and also their "bitchin'" bitter. The wife had their golden and amber. We ate some fries with vinegar, salt, pepper, and their homemade ketchup. Awesome!

We then headed to Lord Hobo. Great beer selection. I had the Ballast Point Big Eye IPA and the wife stuck with water. The IPA is a great beer that somehow reminds a tad bit of the Sweetwater IPA. We ate some patee assortment that was great.

We finally headed back to Cambridge Brewing Co. because someone suggested their razor clams (seasonal and fresh). They were awesome! Plus, I love joints that brew their own beers and let you sample them. No problem spending my dough there. I bought a pint glass.