We were in Boston last Tuesday for a morning of business meetings and errands. Our mood called for a casual seafood lunch, so we made our way to The Summer Shack on Dalton Street. The Shack offers superb seafood, but alas a dreadful beer list.
Having lunched well, we felt we deserved a good beer. Fortunately, help was just up the street at Bukowski Boston.
Bukowski is a gem just off Boyleston Street, near the Newbury Street shops. It’s a small bar with a serious list of bottled beer and fourteen well chosen draft beers. Best of all they generally have a cask ale on offer.
While certainly not a rarity, the Smuttynose IPA on cask was a welcome sight on a sweltering day. To my taste the massive hoppiness of this beer in bottle or keg version is a bit over the top and can be tiring. In cask the harsh edges seem softer and the luxurious mouth feel seems to balance the immense hop and grapefruit flavors that are the signature of this beer. A superb pint of cask like this inevitably suggests another, but we faced a drive back to Portland so one was the limit.
No problem, I knew that Dogfish Head night at Novare Res awaited us in Portland…
July 14th, 2008 at 2:01 am
Great blog, subscribed to your rss feed. Thanks.