PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSTETTS
Across the street from Plymouth Bay on Water Street, VITAMIN SEA BREWING opened this second location May 2024 (with its original taproom in close by Weymouth). Inside a mod brown-shingled professional building, Plymouth’s Vitamin Sea offers beautiful bayside splendor from its umbrella-laden patio.
Inside the high-ceilinged Plymouth pub, the aluminum-fronted cement top bar with roped Edison lights features twenty draughts. The left side wood-metal furnishings, nautical anchor and wrap-roped columns add a rustic harbor feel. A backroom with barroom tables and several tap handles fills out the interior.
Crafting over 200 different beer recipes since Weymouth’s inaugural February ’19 debut, Vitamin Sea’s diverse offerings boast both unique character and complexity.
My wife and I arrived on a Monday at noon, October ’26, downing five IPA’s, a farmhouse ale, dark mild and Cali Common while taking home another dozen (reviewed in Beer Index).
One of Vitamin Sea’s finest one-offs, nitro California Common, Low Tide, recalled a creamier, fluffier Extra Special Bitter with its rye-spiced pumpernickel crustiness, mossy dewiness and wispy fennel herbage gaining an ‘uncommon’ wood chip sear as tiny bubbles rise to the brown-bodied surface.
Dewy dark mild, Mildly Amused, sunk crusty pumpernickel and rye breading into caramelized chocolate malts, gaining ESB-like smoky peat sneak.
‘Rustic saison,’ Croix De Canard, a collab with Croix De Chavaux, utilized leathery French Elixir hops to reinforce lemon rot souring, barnyard oats mustiness and dried floral musk over doughy French breading.
Sessionable West Coast IPA, Little Dreamer, allowed wood-dried lemon rind, grapefruit peel and orange pith bittering to reach musky herbage over dainty pale malts.
Juicy New England IPA, Elusive, a popular Citra-Simcoe-Mosaic-hopped moderation, let bittersweet grapefruit and orange peel zest sidle salty crayon waxed green mango, guava and pineapple tropicalia as well as gin-perfumed honeysuckle spritz, picking up dank floral-daubed pine resin in a creamy oated wheat setting.
Dry orange marbled hazy NEIPA, House Money, blended briny Rakau-hopped guava, gooseberry, green mango and white grapefruit tropicalia with Amarillo-hopped dank pine resin atop yogurt-milked oats creaming.
Yet another NEIPA, silken Pacific Vibrations, let lemony grapefruit and orange zest softly settle alongside peachy mango tang and dry lime twist as slight piney residue contrasts caramel malt sweetness.
As a finale, Boston Bruins’ Bobby Orr tribute, #4, a hazy golden experimental-hopped NEIPA, stayed soft-toned as lemon-limed pineapple, guava, papaya and yuzu tropicalia picked up floral sweetness to contrast musty black peppered juniper bittering above fluffy oated Golden Promise malts.
