Tag Archives: GLENS FALLS NY

MEAN MAX BREW WORKS

United States Brewpubs,

Photo of Mean Max Brew Works - Glens Falls, NY, United States. Entrance on Glen Street.

GLENS FALLS, NEW YORK

Just across the street from the firmly established Davidson Brothers Brewing in the heart of Glen Falls, three-barrel nanobrewery, MEAN MAX BREW WORKS, came aboard during August 2014. Founding proprietors Matt Barry and Dave Wells craft fine standard fare that retain stylistic intent as well as interestingly robust ‘big beers.’

Four patina columns, reclaimed wood furnishings and several international flags don the narrow space. Clustered clear-balled chandeliers hang at the L-shaped serving station (with twelve taps, electric beer menu and refrigerated bottles and cans). The back-spaced brew tanks relinquish many well-designed liquids.

Image result for mean max brew works opened

My wife and I touched down at Mean Max during early December ’18, quaffing four swell dark ales and one ambitious pale ale on this overcast afternoon.

For starters, bittersweet More Funner proved to be a fruitfully balanced pale ale with juicy orange-peeled grapefruit, peach, pineapple, tangerine and mango tanginess guarded by light hop spicing and grouty malt graining.

Next came the darkies – each with its own fairly distinct personality.

Amiable dessert fodder, Shotgun’s Porter, retained sweet brown chocolate luster, glazed vanilla spicing and toasted coconut remnants over lightly embittered charred hops.

Sweet milk stout, Percolator Coffee, let its sugar-creamed coffee frontage gain fudgy dark chocolate undertones and mild cocoa nibs wisps.

Soft-creamed nitrogenated moderation, Stout No Doubt, brought mild nut-charred espresso coffee serenity to velvety dark chocolate malts.

Christmastime chocolate crème de mint knockoff, Twas The Night, proved to be a voluptuous porter as chocolate-chipped cookie dough malts gained dry cinnamon-barked spicing and delicate vanilla creaming.

There are also several Mean Max reviews of bottled and canned offerings in the Beer Index.

www.meanmaxbrew.com

COOPER’S CAVE ALE COMPANY

United States Brewpubs, ,

GLENS FALLS, NEW YORK

In a pale green aluminum building a few blocks off Glens Falls historic downtown, COOPER’S CAVE ALE COMPANY has operated as a brewery since 1999. During 2009, the cozy backdoor brewpub opened for business serving craft beer alongside homemade sodas, locally sourced ice cream and upscale pub food. Tannish earth-toned furnishings provide a soft elegance while a private room serves business and party functions.

On my January ’16 afternoon sojourn, my wife and I sit at the 10-seat bar to share nachos with pulled pork while sampling eight mid-range brews.

A few fruit ales reach my palate first. Raspberry Wheat offered a bittersweet raspberry rasp sharpened by phenol hops and spritzy carbonation while Cooper’s Cave’s ‘fastest selling beer,’ Bluesberry Ale, went down even easier with its perfume-hopped blueberry lacquering.

Next, there were three British styled ales. Traditional English bitter, Tavern Ale, featured raw-honeyed rye, roasted caramel malts and fungi earthiness. English-styled India Pale Ale brought dewy moss and musty earth tones to mild citrus snips. Dark mild ale, Bummpo’s Brown, retained a soft-toned chocolate malt sweetness for its slick hop-roasted nuttiness.

Uniquely hybridized Fenimore Froth Winter Warmer brought medicinal alcohol astringency to honeyed oats, ginger spice, orange zest, sugared cinnamon and earthen musk without getting peculiar. Equally medicinal, ‘rocket fueled’ Strong Ale draped its ethanol burn with honeyed Maris Otter malts, blanched barley malts and dried fig illusions.

Though a bit underwhelming, dry Irish stout, Sagamore, plied oats-dried coffee roast to nutty cocoa and sweet chocolate.

In canned version, musky Brit-styled Pathfinder Porter delivers chalky black chocolate malting to bourbon-dried Muscat grape mustiness, walnut-oiled raw molasses astringency and mildewed cellar dankness.  

www.cooperscaveale.com

 

DAVIDSON BROTHERS RESTAURANT & BREWERY

United States Brewpubs

GLENS FALLS, NEW YORK

Nestled in the heart of snug Upper New York town, Glens Falls, DAVIDSON BROTHERS RESTAURANT & BREWERY was the vicinity’s first brewpub. Old brewing gear, rustic mining gear and exposed ceiling pipes give the pub a Prohibition Era feel and the brick-kettled Peter Austin brewing system provides crisp, clean ales. Open since ’96, the intimate brick tavern served typical pub fare, seafood, and appetizers. Upstairs lounge had bar and dart games.

It had been eleven years since my wife and I initially perused Davidson Brothers. It was a more innocent time when the United States only had a few hundred brewpubs. Now, there’s a few thousand with three new-sprung pubs in Glens Falls alone – Common Roots; Coopers Cave Ale Company; Mean Max Brewworks.

On a zero-degree January ’16 late-night sojourn, tried eight tapped brews starting with lightly creamed floral-perfumed lemon-soured American Bright Pale Ale and sweet hazelnut-sugared cola-nutty Harvest Brown Ale. Next, traditional English IPA (from a 19-year-old recipe), with its dewy earthiness and buckwheat-honeyed graining, contrasted Americanized I-87 IPA, an approachable phenol hop-embittered dry body pleating dewy crystal malts with grapefruit, mango, pineapple and orange tang.

Brit-styled Winter Ale brought rye-honeyed sweetness to dried fig and sugared spicing while 2015′s cask-conditioned Anniversary Ale retained a soft-toned caramelized buttering and dewy moss sweetness.

As for the mocha-bound dark ales, Throwback Porter plied cocoa-dried black chocolate to molasses-sapped fig sugaring and dark-roasted nut char while the richer Oatmeal Stout draped its walnut-seared hop char with soothing molasses-sapped oats, brown chocolate, roasted coffee and anise illusions.

During initial December ’04 trip, Davidson offered their own bottled beer selection (check Beer Index) and several commendable tap-only brews quaffed on a family visit on the way to wintry Adirondacks.

Beers tried on-site included wheat-sweet maize-dried German hybrid Cold Blooded Lager; resinous hop-spiced malt-toasted red-fruited tobacco-crisped Irish Red Ale; soft-toned mocha-creamed cigar-ashy Swimmin’ Cow Rye Cream Ale; buttery oats-fortified cherry-dabbed whiskey-toned Scotch Ale; prickly-hopped rye-backed tea-like Brewers Secret Copper Ale; and perfume-hopped espresso-centered dark chocolate-y dry-bodied Oatmeal Stout. Uniquely distinct was coffee-fronted eggshell-creamed Band Aid-wafted meat-cured peat-malted carouser Smoked Porter.

www.davidsonbrothers.com