Dining With Craxi -- Jack's Abby

When I mentioned taking Kelly out to dinner for letting me stay with her, she said she knew of a great beer place for me to try. It is the only Trappist Brewery in the US according to Kelly. Always up for something new, I agreed to go to Jack’s Abby.

Jack’s Abby is a craft brewery that makes and serves mainly Lagers. It is set up like a German beer hall…long communal tables with a few high top bar tables. You ordered your initial drinks at the bar and the food at the table.

Since Kelly was driving she got a birch beer and I had a flight of four beers. We also ordered “dinner” – the Local Cheese & Charcuterie platter and a pretzel with cheese. The Local Cheese & Charcuterie plate brought me out of my comfort zone with pickled onions, blue cheese, and mustard. There was something we think was pate and neither of us decided to try it. We pushed it off to the side. Along with the above items, there was another type of cheese, salami, olives, baby pickles (cornichons), walnuts, toast, honey, and Sriracha sauce. Despite not being what I normally eat, it was very good. I would definitely get it again. I liked that I could layer different cheese and salami with the walnuts and onions.

With a selection of 24 beers on tap, it was tough to choose which ones I wanted to try. Because it was so busy, I really didn’t have any help from the bartenders. I picked my beers, like my wines, based on names and descriptions. I sampled the following beers:

--House Lager: It was ok. I wouldn't mind having it again but it's your basic lager.
--Framingham Lager: It wasn't bad. I could drink it again but I think I would do the House Lager over this one.
--Beer Geek Helles: This one was chosen purely on it's name. I didn't care for it. It was too hoppy for me.
--Raspberry Lime Rickey: This was my favorite of the night. Kelly asked if you could taste the flavors and I said with all the other flavors in my mouth (from the Local Cheese & Charcuterie  platter), I couldn’t really tell. It was smooth and hardly beer tasting. I would have liked to have more of this one.

Even though they brew just lagers, they have a handful of porters as well.

We decided to have dessert. We had the brownie sundae with coffee ice cream. I am not a fan of coffee ice cream but it made the dessert. The brownie was light and airy perfect for an ice cream dessert. Paired with the brownie, the ice cream had more of a tiramisu flavor than straight coffee. There were bits of toffee sprinkled on top. It was quite delicious.

Dinner was good. The pasta and pizza looked really good. I wanted to come back to the try the pizza and another flight of beer since the Blood Orange Lager had me intrigued. However, we just never made it back. There is always next trip.