Beerfests are a dime-a-dozen in a city as rich in hops and barley as ours, but few do it as well as Harpoon, which kicks off the festival season tonight at its South Boston brewery and continues tomorrow afternoon with the St. Patrick’s Day Festival. The weather is slightly warmer, but it will still be held in heated tents. In addition to the massive quantities of beer — including Harpoon Irish Stout — there will be food, like the stereotypical Irish dish corned beef and cabbage, and music.
Both days will kick off with the Bridgebuilders, a folksy outfit that put a modern slant on the genre in the vein of Lay Low Moon. Cape Cod’s Colum Cille Pipes & Drums will bust out the “bagpipes and all” tonight and tomorrow and Dicey Riley will also be on hand playing Celtic rock and traditional Irish pub songs.
Tonight’s feature act will be Cover Me Badd which, unfortunately, is not a Color Me Badd tribute band – because that would be more awesome than a bunch of inebriated revelers could handle. No, it’s just a standard cover band doing all the overplayed music from the ’80s ‘til now, but at least you’ll be shit-faced so it won’t be that, errr, badd.
Tomorrow night will have the Howl at the Moon dueling piano bar chain represented, another type of situation that to be fully enjoyed requires one to be half in the bag. And closing the St. Patrick’s Day Festival out, obviously, is Boston’s favorite U2 tribute band, Joshua Tree.
Upcoming events for Harpoon at the Boston brewery, held on Fridays and Saturdays, are HarpoonFest May 16 and 17 and Octoberfest October 3 and 4. And at the Windsor, Vermont brewery, held Saturdays and Sundays, there’s the Harpoon Championships of New England Barbecue July 26 and 27 and Octoberfest Vermont October 11 and 12.
A word of advice about the Boston festivals; Fridays are typically more chill with the after five crowd looking for an alternative to the usual corporate watering hole. Saturdays draw a more youthful demographic which tend to purchase too many $5.75 drink tickets, stumble about more haphazardly and pack the place to capacity.
Like Black Sheep say, the choice is yours.
Speaking of which, there is no parking for the festival so you’ll have to take the transit line. Free shuttle buses will be running from South Station at regular intervals.
HARPOON ST. PATRICK’S DAY FESTIVAL 2014 | Friday, March 7, 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. and Saturday March 8, 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. @ Harpoon Brewery, 306 Northern Avenue, Boston, MA | $20, 21-plus, tickets available at the door