Ale Street News Online

Sometimes it takes a special individual, outside of one’s immediate circle of family and friends, to help one maintain a sense of well-being — a therapist, a hairstylist, a wisecracking TV detective.

I used to wonder why, when my friends had a spare ticket to a football game, I was often the first person they would call to join them. At first I thought maybe it was my looks, maybe my personality, or maybe it was the beer...NO! It was the food! The tasty treats I would bring typically turned a tailgate party into something closer to a catered affair.

The Second invasion of West Coast breweries is well underway!
I
n the early 1990s, breweries such as Sierra Nevada, Anderson Valley, Widmer, Pyramid and Rogue made their presence felt on the East Coast. Some stayed and remain popular while others retreated. Now a new Tsunami from the West Coast has hit the Northeast.

It’s not every day that a girl gets to wash down a 4-course dinner with seven shots of bourbon — all while sitting next to the guy whose name is on the whiskey’s label. That opportunity presented itself to me recently when the Federalist, a swanky restaurant in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, held its first bourbon dinner.