For this particular issue, we went a little overboard, I will concede.

Beer Reader,

Though I have addressed imbibers of a beer issue of this sort on more occasions than I had time to actually count in preparing the spread before you, I never approach such an opportunity lightly. Even if you rewind to the days when the Dig crew launched full-on attacks on the taste buds of holdover bros who dared question our lunge into hop bombs and innumerable other trends that have followed, you’ll find that we have always seen beer and the makers of it as a lot more than an afterthought for after work.

For this particular issue, we went a little overboard, I will concede. Because when you spend as much time and energy as I do reporting on and editing stories about sad and horrible shit like evictions and police brutality, goddammit it seems we deserve some actual rec time like everyone else. If we have to take notes, videos, and photos while we frolic with a dizzying array of pints poured full of everything from porters to pale ales to peach smoothie seltzers, then so be it. We’re here in service to our readers, after all.

In visiting nearly two dozen taprooms, breweries, and craft beer counters over the past month, not only to seed these pages but to reinvigorate regular beer coverage weekly, we saw with our own eyes and recording devices what is obvious to many yet nevertheless still invisible to most—namely, that we have a thriving industry that employs many dedicated, creative, and hardworking Mass people, and that this is a treasured apparatus. As we have witnessed in our travels, that’s the case whether you are at BearMoose Brewing in Everett, Lookout Farm in Natick, Shovel Town in Easton, Spicket River Brewery in Lawrence, Springdale and Jack’s Abby in Framingham, Widowmaker in Braintree, Vitamin Sea in Weymouth, Bent Water in Lynn, Black Hat in Bridgewater, or True West in West Acton.

You can’t remind people enough to support everything local. So here we are. And let’s be honest, while making beer may be hard, it’s hard to think of an easier way to do right by your community than simply stopping by a taproom for a pop or three. Maybe even cop a couple of growlers to take home. We sure did.

CHRIS FARAONE, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

CHECK OUT THE PDF OF THE BEER ISSUE HERE