John Harvards Brew House, Framingham

September 21, 2008
Nice place, had the Pats on TV. We could see the brew kettles from our seats. Friendly service and food was very good. Price was a little high but not terrible. Beer was so-so. A couple were terrible-the Pale ale and Kolsch, yikes.

May 24, 2007
My second John Harvards, man are these places similar looking. BIG COMPLAINT, this place is in a shopping mall except nowhere does it say so, not on the site or anything. So you kind of figure it out when you get there and malls everywhere as well as chain food places. But this place happens to be in an area of this mall thats separated from all the food places. And its in a corner so unless you go right to that corner you wont see it. I looked for this place for 30 minutes. Some points off the overall for that. look for SHOPPERS WORLD. This one is bigger and a bit more opened up. Got lucky with about 8 beers on tap. As usual they ranged from sub par to good. Again, similar to the other JH I visit. The brewer here (Maria?) seems to excel and traditional styles (read: not a good hoppy brewer). I liked her pale which is really crappy at my JH. The Espresso stout was awesome. Food was ok, the sides of my swordfish were great but the fish itself nothing special. It was a rainy Sunday so the service was fine but should have been better IMO.

July 8, 2005
Beer was ok at best. food sounded good but then wasnt what was imagined. it wasnt bad, just wasnt all that. the place is beautiful though. all solid wood and quite large.

February 27, 2005
This place gets packed. And I mean PACKED. Expect over an hour wait on weekends. When I was there, there were 8 beers on tap. The four I had were fairly good. The food is excellent. I had the chicken pot pie and it was great. Service was a little slow but again, the place was packed.

February 7, 2005 [ Updated February 22, 2006 ]
Very lovely place inside, much more well-lit and lighter toned decor than the Cambridge location. The beer seemed a bit hit or miss the couple of times I’ve been here, running in to some problems with the bigger gravity styles. Food was pretty good both times I’ve come (though the chicken quesadillas were over-cheesed, so I would avoid those). Good service, interesting selection, if somewhat limited when I’ve been there. Stilll looking to try a non-dry stout from these guys.