PAWTUCKET/CUMBERLAND – Welcome to Local Insider Reviews, the new and somewhat selfish (I hope the businesses benefit as well) feature here at The Local Insider where I get to eat food, drink drinks, and tell people what I think of it all.
This first review is inspired by the events of tonight, July 24, where my 10-year-old daughter is having a spa night birthday party with her little friends, and I’m simply not invited to participate. I decided first to go to The Guild in Pawtucket, and then while I was posting about that, Jay Neveu from Phantom Farms Brewing in Cumberland commented and said I should stop by for a visit to hear live music ending at 9 p.m. I said I’d be right over, and I was.
Side note: my old friend Jim Raftus commented that I was at the wrong Guild and should be at the new one in Plainville, and while I would never agree with him that any spot in Pawtucket is the wrong place to be, I’ll definitely have to get to the Plainville one soon.
Reviews will now be a regular thing here, and hopefully you’ll find it entertaining.
Note: The Local Insider’s food and fun page is sponsored by RI Food Fights (check out their August #BestScoopShopRI extravaganza and use Local at checkout), and we’ll continue to ramp up our culinary offerings.
These reviews will be both of the paid and unpaid variety. If a business wants me to come in and write about them, they can do that for a reasonable fee (and pay for my dinner), and the review will be marked as sponsored.
While I’ll generally be positive, I also have to be honest, so I’ll share a thing or two that could have been better, whether it was paid or not.
So let’s get to the actual review part, with spoilers out of the way first:
I’m a big lager beer fan, so I decided to try one lager I hadn’t had before at each of the two breweries. I’ve been to both spots a few times, so I wanted a new experience.
In the end, the Striker Lager at The Guild (I assume it’s named in honor of Rhode Island FC) eked out a close victory over the Bulldog Lager at Phantom Farms (named for the Bryant University mascot), but both were top-tier. Different choices on my part from the extensive menus would have resulted in a different winner, but the Striker was just slightly more mild and nutty for me. What can I say, I like less bitter and more sweetness.
I’ve been covering the beer scene almost since the start of the boom in the 2010-2011 timeframe all the way up to when The Guild fortuitously landed in Pawtucket five or six years later. The state’s largest brewery was drawn in by the high quality of water in Pawtucket and an ideal location at the former Kellaway Center that would replace their previous planned headquarters in Providence after a fire there.
That choice would look even smarter when a new train station and stadium ended up being built nearby, and now new housing communities are popping up all around it, adding an expanded future clientele.
Back to the present. I ended up agreeing to try the Extra Time Lager at Phantom Farms Brewing, and though I think that choice was just about on par with Striker, I’m not going to count it because I wasn’t in a position to completely enjoy it on a full stomach. My timing was pretty good, however, as the server told me that starting Saturday, the beer will be sold in cans at Gillette Stadium in collaboration with the New England Revolution.
One thing I love about Phantom Farms Brewing is that it has seamless an indoor/outdoor space where I can hear the music and feel the breeze through the door but still concentrate enough to write this article. The Guild had an event going on in its Barn venue, and quite a more people outside, so the inside wasn’t very lively, but I’m sure its other locations were all humming on a Friday night.
Neveu said the live music at Phantom Farms was Brandon Catarina, a guy he says has a great catalog who is planning to play at George’s of Galilee on Saturday. That’s another place one can now find beers from Phantom Farms.
Catarina was great, and the crowd on the patio agreed, chanting for one more song well after music closing time of 9 p.m. The Toby Keith song that makes my skin crawl was balanced out by many other great hits.
Here’s my bottom line: both of these breweries have standout offerings and lots of options for seating. Also, how cool is it that we now have these amazing hangout spots to enjoy a drink and relax?
