Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1342831
99 is celebrated as a family and beer holiday in Ireland and mostly as a beer holiday in the United States. And celebrating the day usually means going to your favorite pub or brewery, having a few pints, and visiting friends—old and new. But celebrations in 2021 will continue to look as different as they did in 2020, just around the time that COVID-19 restrictions passed down from the government kiboshed public gatherings in the name of public safety. Folks instead donned their shamrock and "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" sweatshirts and opted to raise a glass at home. This year North Shore breweries are doing what they can, given the circumstances, to recognize Patrick's Day. Adrienne Ritchie, digital marketing manager for Newburyport's RiverWalk Brewing Company, says although they are not hosting a formal St. Patrick's Day celebration, it doesn't mean the team won't mark the Emerald Isle holiday. RiverWalk has a trio of different beers planned—a saison, a Pilsner, and a double IPA inspired by Southern Hemisphere hops—and food specials to go with them in keeping with Massachusetts' requirement that brewery patrons must purchase food with their initial alcohol order. What's on the menu? "Likely something along the lines of corned beef," Ritchie notes, because what's a St. Patrick's themed menu without a St. Patrick's staple? The bucolic funk of a saison, the crispness of a Pils, and the exotic, fruity, and even savory notes of a Southern Hemisphere IPA each complement a nice slice of corned beef in their own way, even if at a glance these aren't the styles one might expect to find on tap for the holiday. In Beverly, two breweries—Backbeat Brewing Company and Gentile Brewing Company—are going with the classics. "We're canning a fresh round of beers on March 10," reports Paul Gentile, owner and head brewer of Gentile Brewing. "One of those beers will be our Irish red that we make every year, and we have a stout that we make year round, a four- and-a-half-percent stout, that we're canning." Lots of Gentile's customers like combining the two to make a nice Black and Tan, he says. That drink is usually made by mixing pale ale and stout, but if you're having a Black and Tan on St. Patrick's Day, you're using Irish red as the base. Rounding out their tap list: Gentile's English bitter, a staple pub beer, which will be released at the same time as the Irish red. "So just these nice classic styles to mark what is, for all intents and purposes, a drinking holiday," Gentile adds. ST. PATRICK'S DAY, LÁ FHÉILE PÁDRAIG, RiverWalk Brewing Company in Newburyport