“We focus on one thing, and always keep our eye on it: people who like stuff that tastes good.” It’s such a simple statement from Drink Craft Beer co-founder Jeff Wharton, but it sums up the company’s ethos perfectly. Fort Point tech workers and family guys Wharton and Devon Regan started the company in 2006, “as a blog to provide more accessible access to craft beer culture and knowledge for the folks that didn’t want to use a forum. It’s more for the craft beer curious, versus the uber enthusiast.”

Boston Beer & Cheese Fest, 2016 | Image courtesy Drink Craft Beer

The website created was, and still is, an active and informative place to find some of their favorite beer-of-the-month clubs, beer-centric savory recipes, homebrewing tips, and local craft beer news and events. The word ‘pairings’ is used in many ways: with beer, with friends, with food, and with a great vibe. “Sharing great beer and great food with great friends, you can’t help but have a good time,” says Wharton. “But we’ve always wanted to make the point that friends and being social should come ahead of the beer and food.” It was the focus on the social aspect that led them to create their first pairing event with Taza Chocolate in 2008;  it was, to put it mildly, wildly successful. “We expected 50 people to show up,” explains Wharton, “and 300 waited in line for a couple samples of beer and chocolate paired together.”

Fast-forward a few years, and the two now produce three popular beer festivals in Boston annually: Boston Beer & Cheese, Boston Beer & BBQ, and Boston Beer & Sweets. Coming up on March 10th & 11th at the Cyclorama in the South End (you may be able to snag one of a handful of tickets still available, if you’re lucky) is the Cheese companion event: over 80 New England craft beers and ciders from 25 different breweries, with unlimited samples of cheese from 10 New England creameries. Savor your oatmeal stout with a sharp Vermont cheddar, try a hopped-up IPA to cut through gorgonzola, pair a yeasty Hefeweizen with some soft, tangy goat cheese, or customize your own combo—no food rules apply. You’ll even come across some non-cheesy nibbles while you’re there to test out as well. The self-explanatory Boston Beer & BBQ is coming up in July, and the Boston Beer & Sweets Fest, featuring fancy truffles, specialty donuts, cookies, and ice cream for beer floats, will be scheduled for later this year.

Boston Beer & Cheese Fest, 2016 | Image courtesy Drink Craft Bee

It’s an excellent environment for tasty food and drink, knowledgeable vendors, and a fun crowd. “We saw a lot of the hyper-enthusiasts creating spaces on these internet forums that turned off casual beer drinkers,” states Wharton. “We wanted to be the opposite. So, from the beginning, we focused on tasting experiences, recommendations versus reviews, locality, and food. Brewers tell us they see increased sales and traffic to their tap rooms after our events, and people tell them they discovered their beer at a Drink Craft Beer event. This all means so much to us, because the goal has always been to help people learn about great food and drink in their backyards, get them out socially to learn this stuff, and help to bolster local companies. And it seems like it’s working.”

Drink Craft Beer – co-founders, Devon Regan and Jeff Wharton
Boston, Massachusetts
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Top image Boston Beer & Cheese Fest, 2016 | Image courtesy Drink Craft Beer

The post Quite a Pair: Boston Beer & Cheese Fest appeared first on Take Magazine.

This weekend, towns and cities around the country honor America’s founding with varying degrees of pomp and circumstance, marching bands, and floats. In Gloucester, Massachusetts, residents celebrate with the “Horribles.”

The annual Fishtown Horribles Parade starts at 6 p.m. and has been held every Fourth of July weekend since the turn of the 20th century. That’s when, in the early morning hours of July 4th, Nick Montgomery and John Day organized some farmers and their children in a small part of Gloucester called Riverdale to parade around their farms in “horrible,” or parody, costumes of political and popular figures of the day, banging pots and pans all the while.

Photo courtesy of the Fishtown Horribles Parade Committee 2015

The “Ancient and Horribles Parade” (or “Antique and Horribles Parade”) was already a tradition in New England. In the 1800s towns from Rhode Island to Vermont created these jovial parade versions as antidotes to dour military parades. After World War II, the Riverdale Athletic Club began holding Gloucester’s parade during the nighttime of July 3 and eventually moved the venue downtown.

From LEGO men and biker boys to trucks full of ukulele ladies and mermaids, the parade is dedicated to outlandish costumes borrowing from current political and cultural themes, children’s favorites, and, frankly, whatever is on the mind (and in the wardrobe) of Cape Ann residents. Past floats have featured costumed stills from the pirate, Puritan, and Prohibition eras as well as every imaginable scene in-between.

Photo courtesy of the Fishtown Horribles Parade Committee 2015

“It’s my favorite part of summer,” says Alison Goolsby, a second-generation parade volunteer, “because (we) get to be part of something great … for more than 20 years my family has always helped out with the parade. I remember dressing up every year as a Horrible.”

In addition to the parade, all of Gloucester — from bridge to bridge — is filled with bands, vendors, fireworks, and dancing. Indeed, part of the parade’s continued success stems from the town’s unique “island” community of multifaceted traditions built on the fishing industry, Italian and Portuguese family traditions, New England roots, and the enthusiasms and ideas of transplanted locals.

Individual and business donations fund the parade, which is run by a committee of volunteers and their families, some three generations deep. Children who grew up marching in the parade now walk alongside their children and grandchildren, never having missed a year of participating in the parade in some way.

Photo courtesy of the Fishtown Horribles Parade Committee 2015

Dave Tucker Sr., a past and present parade committee chairmen and a parade “lifer,” is part of four generations who have worked to put this year’s parade together. “It’s a deep-rooted family affair for us,” he says. “My dad being an original and founding member, my sisters and I carried signs and collected money, dressed up, and did whatever was needed.”

The parade committee works year-round to raise funds through various local events. This year’s parade features a dozen bands, 40 to 60 floats, and hundreds of participants from Gloucester and clubs from all over the East Coast and Canada marching the route.

Top photo courtesy of the Fishtown Horribles Parade Committee 2015

The post The Very Good, Horribles Day appeared first on Take Magazine.

Mass MoCA, the preeminent curator of cutting-edge visual art in the Berkshires, has also firmly established its reputation as a purveyor of live entertainment.

At the vanguard of its foray into the phonic is the biennial Solid Sound Festival, which takes place June 26-28 and is headlined by festival founders and alt-country messiahs Wilco. A weekend-long campout where you’re equally likely to stumble into a mandolin workshop, a falafel booth, or a bizarre bit of street theater, Solid Sound has become a summer staple for dance-starved, vibe-hungry visitors to North Adams.

Speedy Ortiz | Photo by Shervin Lainez

It’s also a festival where New England acts are well-represented, including the Expandable Brass Band and Northampton’s Speedy Ortiz, who were added earlier this month when Springfield native and blues icon Taj Mahal had to bow out of his slot citing health issues.

“This will be my first time playing at Solid Sound, but I was gonna go either way,” says Speedy’s Sadie Dupuis. “We’re really looking forward to playing with Wilco and Real Estate.”

Solid Sound Festival | Photo courtesy of TMM

Also on the bill are New England rock legends NRBQ. The band’s sax player, Klem Kimek, credits New England’s wealth of live-music venues for his musical evolution: “Me and my pals were music hungry, and New England was small enough that any venue in the six states was reachable by road trip to catch great music. It was a full-time hunt — bars, colleges, theaters, the Berkshire Music Barn, hockey rinks, and stadiums all presented great live music, and giants roamed the earth. Don’t get me goin’…”

Vermont folk artist Sam Amidon (performing with Bill Frisell), played a couple years back and “immediately loved the wide range of music and arts and the genuine spirit of celebration that pervades the festival,” and says he can’t wait to go back.

John Hodgman | Photo by Chattman Photography

Brookline, Massachusetts native (and Montague Book Mill haunter) John Hodgman returns to curate the comedy stage, along with fellow Daily Show alum Jessica Williams. Hodgman says he found his way into Solid Sound through the side door.

“I attended as a paying customer at the first Solid Sound in 2010,” he says. “Like all brilliant things that I love, I immediately wanted to parasitically attach myself to it. I succeeded.”

Solid Sound Festival | Photo courtesy of TMM

For kids, Vermont’s Circus Smirkus provides thrills and laughs, while performances by the Needham, Massachusetts-based nonprofit Plugged In, a program that helps kids who want to start or join bands get their jam on, might inspire younger audience members to strap on a Strat.

Top photo courtesy of TMM

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