Cambridge Brewing Company

After taking in the Red Sox World Series victory parade (2007 vintage on a wonderful Boston autumn day), we crossed the Charles to check out what the CBC had on tap. In the spirit of the day, many of the lunch specials had a ballpark theme - an Italian sausage sandwich, a Fenway quesadilla with hot dogs, and so forth.

We tried two current specials, the Kriek du Cambridge and the Aestas Ale. The former is an intensely sour Kriek, with the wort inoculated with various kinds of wild yeast sources, including one developed using Cantillon beer. It was an excellent example of the genre, very tart, extremely drinkable, and surprisingly good with a spicy vegetarian chili. The Aestas Ale is an "American Mild", based on an English mild bitter, and hopped with English Challenger hops and American Amarillo. It had a great, hoppy nose, and a lower alcohol content perfect for a session beer - which is what it's explicitly billed as.

We were a little miffed by the service, however - a rarity for this spot. The only other guests at the bar knew the head brewer, and he brought out multiple different samples for them to try, free of charge. At a busy time of day, it might not have been so noticeable, but treating us so differently - he never even looked in our direction - was quite strange when we were the only other ones there. He even tapped a keg for the beer engine so that his friends could sample it, and when we asked the bartender what the cask ale was she didn't know, and emphasized that it wasn't available until 5 (though we knew that not to be true!). She never bothered to find out what the beer was, despite the fact that we were clearly interested. It's a shame: this is a good bar, with excellent beer and food, and the service on this occasion let them down (normally, it's top notch).