Pillory Pub - Plymouth, MA

Pillory Pub is located at 72 Water Street in Historic Plymouth Massachusetts.  The pub is just a stone’s throw away from the famous Plymouth Rock Monument.  Street parking is available as well as several parking lots within easy walking distance.

As we walked in, several patrons were tossing a game of darts, other groups were seated at the nicely set up bar area imbibing cold summer beverages watching the wide screen TV, while others including several families were enjoying their lunch seated on comfortable pub style chairs in the dining area.  At the front the pub is an additional row of chairs in the open air area of the pub that face directly out to the harbor.

The Pillory décor is very pub like and family friendly at the same time.  Wall hangings representing vintage beers and craft breweries, Massachusetts town signs and plaques representing local organizations are placed around the pub, all under slow moving ceiling fans.

Seated at our table we immediately noticed the great beverage menu located behind the bar that is hand written on a chalkboard featuring an impressive offering of 16 draft beers ranging from local craft breweries to  American adjunct lager beers (ie: Bud Light, Pabst Blue Ribbon, etc.).  Their ABV content, sizes and cost accompany each beer.  An additional area of “Craft Cans” and bottled beers completed the menu.  There are also card menus for summer drink specials and drinks celebrating Pillory’s 5 year anniversary.  A nice selection of wines, ciders and hard seltzers is available for the non-beer enthusiast.  Free WiFi is available with the password written at the top of the menu.  Very impressive!

Our Waitress, Toni, brought us the food menus and took our draft beer orders of Mayflower New World IPA, New Belgium Fat Tire, Bad Martha Vintage Summer Ale and Shark Tracker Lager.

Pillory’s food menu offers a variety of starters, salads, munchies, wraps and sandwiches, along with several lobster dishes, but simply put, the hot dog is king!  Over a dozen styles are available and after making some tough decisions, we settled on Reuben Dogs, German Shepard Dogs, Coney Island Dogs and BLT Dogs.  All are prepared with creative condiment combinations that represent the name of the dog and were delicious!  Side dish selections included chips, cole slaw, or baked beans.  We all chose the beans that had a tremendous spicy flavor that perfectly complimented the dogs.  We must admit that we doubled down on our order when Toni stopped by to see how we were enjoying our lunch!

Pillory Pub is famous for their hot dogs for sure, but additionally, the friendly staff, relaxing environment, reasonably priced menu items and extensive beer offerings make it a fun and relaxing place to enjoy your lunch while overlooking Plymouth Harbor. 

For more information and to check on upcoming entertainment and events visit their Facebook Page at The Pillory Pub

Blackie's Bulldog Tavern - Smithfield, RI

Blackie’s Bulldog Tavern is located 181 George Washington Highway in Smithfield Rhode Island.  As you enter the ample parking area you will immediately notice the impressive outside patio area on the left side of the tavern.  Once inside, the lunch scene was bustling with customers ranging from families with children, to business people, to tables of friends like us.  Blackie’s also has a private dining room located upstairs that is available for booking your party of up to 49 people.

   

As we were brought to our table in the separate dining area we passed several fun to read signs with entertaining quotes placed at strategic locations in the tavern as well as the bar that is home to a wonderful selection of local and national craft beers on tap.  Our waiter, Jeff, brought us the “Blackie’s Brewski’s” menu.  In addition to checking out the craft beers on tap, all of which accurately described their character, ABV and mouthfeel, we discovered that there are also over two dozen craft ales, IPA’s, lagers, wheats, stouts and porters available to be enjoyed.  Blackie’s also offers a selection of lighter beers from their “Usual Suspects” menu.   A wide range of wines and cocktails are also available on the menu.

We ordered Left Handed Milk Stout, Lagunitas IPA Whaler’s The Rise Pale Ale and Wachusett Blueberry Ale to enjoy while we turned our attention to the food menus which include cooked on premise smoked meat offerings, a unique “Paleo” menu and a “Kiddo’s” menu.  As Jeff served our drinks we commented on how well done and vast the food and Brewski menus were.  We then ordered our lunch selection of Reuben sandwiches for Ken and Charlie that are uniquely made with chopped (not sliced!) corned beef, sauerkraut, provolone on crunchy marbled rye; The Mushroom Marsala Burger for Gray, featuring (Pancetta Italian Bacon), provolone and several tasty spreads; and English style beer battered fish and chips for Jim featuring hand cut “skin on” steak fries and chopped slaw.  We finished off our lunch with two delicious desserts, the carrot cake ice cream sandwich and the seasonal cheesecake.  All of our selections were excellent.

While we ate, we were visited by both Angie, the co-owner and executive chef and Katy, the tavern’s beer manager, Angie is rightfully proud of her “expect the unexpected” approach to designing and preparing her dishes, using local products and ingredients and hand crafting every meal that is ordered.  Katy explained that the tavern strives for “Creative Inconsistency” with a mix of beer styles from local and national breweries to expose customers to many great beers that may not be household names and yet pair well with the wide variety of creative dishes that are designed and prepared by Angie.

Visiting Blackie’s Bulldog Tavern is a great experience for all. As Angie and Katy say, Blackie’s is for all ages….from 7 to 97!

 

For more information about Blackie’s visit them on Facebook at blackie’s bulldog tavern

Tavern 6 two 1 - North Smithfield, RI

Tavern 6 two 1 is located at 621 Pound Hill Road in North Smithfield Rhode Island.  As we went inside, the owner Monica greeted us with an enthusiastic smile.  Our table overlooked a recently completed outside eating area.  Multiple wide screen TV’s excellent for watching sporting events are located throughout the Tavern.  TV’s next to the outside seating area can be innovatively rotated to allow viewing from either inside or outside tables

  

The craftbrew focused décor sets the tone that the Tavern is THE place to go for some great beers.  Framed black and white photographs of local breweries are strategically placed high on the walls. Empty growlers, also from local breweries, are placed on shelves surrounding the tables serving as vases.

The Taverns reasonably priced menu features a variety of starters, soups and salads, sandwiches, wraps, burgers and entrees complete with suggested wine pairings.  Pizza and calzones are also offered.  6 two 1 also has a promotion schedule from Sunday through Thursday offering food and drink combination specials.  

Our waitress brought us the beer and ale menu, which is one of the best we have seen to date!  Offerings were listed by style and had uniquely featured icons of pint glasses, bottles and cans representing how each beer was served.  The Alcohol by Volume or APV (the percentage of alcohol in the beer) and International Bittering Units or IBU’s (a gauge of the beers bitterness) figures were printed next to each offering.  The beer selection is unusually plentiful with16 drafts being poured today.   We selected Newport Storm Summer Wheat, Harpoon IPA and Ithaca Flower Power IPA.  None disappointed and were truly refreshing on this 92 degree New England day!

Lunches were ordered from both the sandwich and entrée menus. Ken chose the Chicken Bacon Wrap, Charlie ordered the Chicken Caesar Wrap, Jim had Fish & Chips and Gray the Chicken Parmesan Sandwich.  All foods are cooked to order with fresh ingredients and were very good.  The cole slaw side was very unique featuring large cuts of cabbage with creamy and delicious dressing.

In summary, Tavern 6 two 1 is bright and cheery inside and out with a friendly waitstaff and an enthusiastic and engaged owner.  The outstanding beer menu and suggested wine pairings with the menu offerings are sure to please even the most discriminating beer or wine enthusiast.  

For more information and to read the many patron reviews visit their Facebook Page Tavern 6 two 1

How It All Began

A little about the Brew and Chew Guys. From left to right: Gray was an FBI Agent who now enjoys keeping an old Cape Cod cottage in good repair.  Jim was in the food services industry and now volunteers his time with the Knights of Columbus.  Ken was a veterinarian and has the best self-landscaped yard in our town.  Charlie was in engineering professional services and is an avid home brewer

The ladies in the back row were the inspiration for BridgeToBeer!  All of us have been friends and neighbors for over three decades.

For quite some time the girls met in the early evening to play bridge, leaving us on occasion to fend for ourselves for dinner. We dined creatively on leftovers, pizza, maybe a beer, coke or a coffee.

Before we realized what had happened, we were all retired, and evening bridge became lunchtime bridge.  Our brigade of PB&J sandwiches began!

It was then that we had our eureka moment....Why don't we meet up for lunch while the girls are playing cards.  And so it began!! 

After our first few lunches where we shared our thoughts amongst ourselves regarding the food, the beer and the establishment itself, we randomly thought others would enjoy hearing from four retired guys like us.  Charlie mentioned that he could build a blog for us and every month we could add a post summarizing the establishment we had just visited.  We all agreed and soon thereafter  www.bridgetobeer.com was born.

Our requirements for the establishments we visited were simply that their menus needed to have a great or specialized selection of reasonably priced foods and offer craft beers that pair well with their food offerings.