Four South Shore brewers, including three with a presence in Plymouth, have once again come together to celebrate the change of season and to support the local restaurants and bars that have buoyed them throughout the years.
Now in its fifth year, the Four the Shore project is a collaboration between Second Wind Brewing Co., Untold Brewing, Vitamin Sea Brewing and Widowmaker Brewing Co. All but Widowmaker – which has a taproom in Braintree – operate in Plymouth.
I recently got the lowdown on Four the Shore from Untold’s Matt Elder, Vitamin Sea’s Dino Funari, Second Wind’s Kenny Semcken and Widowmaker’s Ryan Lavery.
The collaboration dates to the Covid pandemic, which obviously was a huge challenge for restaurants and breweries because of social distancing and other restrictions.
Getting customers to return to taverns and taprooms was a slow process. In early 2021 Four the Shore was born out of an idea to promote the breweries collectively and individually by creating a themed set of beers.
Each brewer developed a beer to showcase. As in previous years, the 2025 edition features still-popular IPAs.
Here’s the Four the Shore lineup:
- Second Wind Brewing – Hazy Session IPA (5.4 percent ABV, El Dorado, Galaxy and BRU-1 hops)
- Untold Brewing – West Coast IPA (6.7 percent ABV, Citra, Amarillo and Simcoe hops)
- Vitamin Sea Brewing – India Pale Ale (6.17 percent ABV, Citra, Citiva, Nectaron and Simcoe hops)
- Widowmaker Brewing – Hazy Double IPA (8 percent ABV, Simcoe, Strata and Mosaic hops)
Four-packs and draft pours of each are available at the respective taprooms. On Friday, April 4,all of them will also be available on tap in select restaurants and bars across the South Shore. That includes Speedwell Tavern on Court Street. But don’t expect these beers to be around for long.
“The focus of supporting our friends in the restaurant industry when this project [started] in 2021 still remains true,” Widowmaker’s Lavery said in an email. “We are excited to have local [retail] partners putting all four beers on their taps.”
The project also gives these local brewers a chance to reflect on the unique nature of the local craft beer business.
“It is important for us to take a second from the daily grind and spend some time with fellow brewers that collectively respect one another, we all got into this around the same time and there is true friendship and a bond we take seriously,” Lavery said. “There are not a lot of industries that have people who are willing to support what would typically be viewed as direct competition the way the beer industry does.”
That community aspect, Untold’s Elder said, is “what makes beer special.”
Second Wind’s Semcken described the Four the Shore project as “a rite of spring for us. It’s a tradition we share across our four breweries and coincides with the shift from winter to the start of outdoor and festival season,” he said in an email.
“Four the Shore is a reminder that we are part of a bigger community and can do more to further our craft and customer experience working in collaboration.”
For Semcken and Second Wind, this spring and summer will be particularly crucial. After years of delays – and speculation that it would never come to fruition – the brewery is finally moving ahead with work on a Main Street taproom and kitchen, a major upgrade from its modest driveway location on Howland Street in downtown Plymouth. The building’s drab facade has been spruced up, and the Second Wind signs are in place. But the brewery is not ready to commit to an opening date. “Soon” was all Semcken would say. We’ll keep you posted.
Paul Boyd, a Plymouth resident, is a retired professor and faculty director of the MBA program at Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island. His research has focused on growth and success in the craft beer industry.