Matt Harding was a restaurant lifer and a craft beer enthusiast when he first heard about an interesting new dining concept coming to Boston. Time Out Market would be a food hall showcasing awesome cuisine from across the city, curated by global media company Time Out, with its own two bars.
Fast-forward to today and the culinary hub celebrates five years in Boston, with a beer festival this weekend on Saturday, June 22—and we have Harding to raise our glass to for that.
A day-one employee of Time Out Market, Harding is now assistant general manager, and the man behind the market’s awesome local beer lists. He organized the market’s first pop-up beer fest with local breweries back in 2022 and has hosted many more since. This weekend’s event will be the first one held outside on the lawn at 401 Park, adjacent to one of the best breweries in Boston, Trillium's Fenway taproom. (Well, if the weather allows for an outdoor gathering. The festivities will move inside the historic Landmark Center if Harding has to make that call on Saturday.)
The beer fest is part of a full afternoon of family-friendly activities to celebrate Time Out Market Boston’s fifth anniversary. From noon-5pm, free fun includes balloon animals, face painting, a photo booth and the beer fest for attendees 21 and up (proper ID is required to get a beer-tasting wristband). Free cotton candy comes out from 4-5pm, with food for purchase available all day from all market vendors. During the party, Taqueria El Barrio is additionally cooking up a pig roast on the lawn, and Far Out will be rolling up to the lawn with their ice cream truck.
Samples from eight New England beer companies will include Vitamin Sea, Lawson’s Finest Liquids, Widowmaker Brewing and more. Free beer fests at Time Out Market have brought in many returning visitors, Harding says, and have helped the market's bars establish an identity. “It’s a fun experience for the customers, and it also lets the public know that these small brands are supporting us, and we're supporting these smaller brands as well,” he says.
Keeping the beer list local to New England is important to Harding, because it’s important to the people who visit Time Out Market. Harding has got to know the demographics of the bar very well since starting as a bartender in 2019 and working his way up to bar manager and then his current role, which encompasses all things drink and more operational responsibilities at the market. “I got to talk to our clientele,” Harding says. “What are they looking for? What kind of questions are they asking?” He learned people wanted a lot more beer than wine; and, from locals and tourists alike, the question was constantly, “what do you have that's local?”
Because of the volume of a massive food hall—past beer fests have seen upwards of 500 attendees—Harding is somewhat limited to beers that can be supplied in large quantities for four months at a time, which is how the bar program works at Time Out Market. But he has built relationships with distributors to get a top-shelf selection, with Sam Adams being the biggest beer brand by far that Time Out Market stocks. The official beer of the Red Sox has been a great partner to Time Out Market, Harding says, noting that the Chicago and New York markets also serve Sam.
Blue Comet, a hazy New England IPA by Widowmaker Brewery out of Braintree and Brighton, is a top-seller at Time Out Market. For baseball season, Night Shift’s Nite Lite and Champ Lager from Mast Landing out of Westbrook, Maine, are Harding’s easy-drinking picks. “I think that Maine makes some of the best beer in the country,” he says.
He’s also a big fan of Vitamin Sea, a destination-worthy maker of full-flavored IPAs, sour beers and pastry stouts with taprooms in Weymouth and Plymouth. Vitamin Sea hardly ever makes the same beer twice in a row, and it hardly distributes its sought-after suds at all. It’s always on at Time Out Market, however, on Harding’s only beer line that rotates more frequently than three times per year.
This Saturday, taste Blue Comet, Vitamin Sea’s latest creation, Sam Summer and many more beers at Time Out Market Boston’s fifth anniversary party. Check out the full lineup of breweries below. Each brewery will have three different beers to try. “I suggest that one is one of their flagship beers. The other is what we have on draft at the market, and the third is something new and hot,” Harding says.
After the party, good times continue inside with beers (and more) to purchase from the bars and food until 11pm. “We really just want to bring as many people to the campus as possible,” Harding says.
What breweries are at the Time Out Market Boston 5th Anniversary Beer Fest?
- True North Ales
- Vitamin Sea Brewing
- Hero95 (a low-calorie lager and Time Out Market's June Drink for a Cause)
- Sam Adams
- Widowmaker Brewing
- Jack’s Abby Craft Lagers
- Downeast Cider
- Lawson’s Finest Liquids