Evacuating for St. Patrick's Day: Brighton edition

February 19, 3:23 PMBoston Irish Pubs ExaminerJason Notte

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St. Patrick tends to smile upon the public transit-deprived patrons of Brighton favorite Irish Village.

We're less than a month removed from St. Patrick's Day, which means the residents of the Boston metro area have some decisions to make. You can either sit at your favorite bar or pub pondering the historical significance of British forces evacuating the city in March of 1776, or you can follow their lead and head for high ground before your local watering hole is inundated with amateurs and your bartender is reduced to an automaton straight out of the video game Tapper. 

As the holiday draws closer and the Southie's West Broadway starts to echo with clinking glasses and preparation, we at the Examiner's Boston Irish Pub bureau are going to suggest places where area regulars can go to escape the throngs of tourists and dorm room guests from out of town. The places mentioned here won't exactly be empty once the holiday comes around, but they'll be geographically displaced from the celebration epicenter downtown and in Southie. The first places that came to mind were in a neighborhood that we had a hard time considering remote: Brighton.

Sure, there are a bunch of Green Line branches into this area and lots of really accessible bars, but some of the best are located just out of reach of T riders. Chief among such venues is Irish Village (224 Market St., 617-787-5427), a neighborhood favorite and a pillar of the city's Irish community. It's the latter that keeps this place a nice, civil place to have a $4 Guinness pint on the holiday (or a $2.50 High Life). Run by the same folks who brought you Cambridges' Grafton Street, Redline and Temple Bar, it's one of the most perfect pours in town and is well worth the cab fare or a ride on the 86 bus.

Your best bet, however, make be to make the long hike from the C Line's Washington Street stop or to take the 57 bus to Porter Belly's, Devlin's or the Green Briar in Brighton Center. Located within a block of each other, these three establishments are the the crown jewels of two of the city's pub conglomerates. The Green Briar (304 Washington St., 617-789-4100) has a predominantly Irish staff and is bedecked in cherrywood and cozy, but has a deceptively expansive seating area and sports selection. It's one of the few places in town where you can watch hurling, which is more exciting and less gross than it sounds, as well as the occasional rugby and soccer matches. If the menu of chicken curry, fish and chips and burgers seems a bit familiar, it's because the Green Briar shares much the same fare with its Briar Group of pubs that includes Solas, Ned Devine's, M.J. O'Connor's and The Harp.

Just up the street is Porter Belly's (338 Washington St., 617-254-3300), which spent a lot of time on the old timber and antiquities to give its modest interior that old country pub feel. It's charming and may feel a bit tight around the time people start singing "The Wild Rover" for the 20th time, but the well-poured Guinness and nearly 30 burgers on the menu more than make up for the tight quarters. Considering that Devlin's (332 Washington St., 617-779-8822) is right next door and owned by the same folks (who also run Orleans in Somerville and Charlestown's historic Warren Tavern), it may behoove you to bounce between the two. Devlin's is much more of a bistro than a pub and, thus, lacks the relaxed confines its neighbors. However, a bar menu that includes buttermilk chicken tenders, chicken teriyaki dumplings and lobster pizza is nothing to sniff at. Don't get scared off by the wine list, either... there's still beer on tap. Trust us.

While we realize this is a pub piece, we'd be doing you a disservice by sending you into Brighton Center on St. Patrick's Day and not having you visit the recently opened Battery, An Authentic Irish Chipper (379 Washington St., 617-987-0884). Cod, pollockhaddock, sausage, hamburger... you name it, they'll batter it and fry it up for you. It's counter service, so you won't be sitting down and letting the malt vinegar leak into your newspaper, but there may be no better way to barhop then with a battery fish in one hand and a cup of one of the city's best curry sauces in the city.