The Commons Brewery occupies a spacious corner on what I call the mid-Eastside near Lucky Lab, Cascade and Green Dragon. After barely avoiding a driver who REALLY wanted to turn right in front of us, my party of hearty beer tasters settled in to ease our jumpy, thank goodness the brakes work nerves.
I selected a taster tray to get a wide range from light to dark beers. Starting with Myrtle (my favorite) a lacto meets Meridian hop saison. #No Filter is a collaborative beer where Myrtle was slammed into Sweet Heat the Burnside Brewing pepper beer. This version had apricots and peppers and melded both nicely. Kthonias was a hazelnut Oud Bruin sour and it didn’t work so well for me. The two flavors cancelled each other out. More successful was the Pumpernickle Rye Saison which had a nice spice duo that complimented the base saison.
It is a huge space and it has plenty of elbow room in the tasting room and the brewery. (Side Note: more tables please) The bar area is nice and the beer descriptions though a bit chalk hazy are thorough enough for the beer fan. I was impressed by the diversity of the tap selections but a little less impressed by The Bruery prices on the 750ml bottles.
I like that there is a cool little cheese and food kitchen tucked into the corner for nibbles and the bread that I got was a welcome addition to the tasting.
Here in Los Angeles, the weather is finally making tentative steps to fall. Which means we can begin to drink some lighter stouts and barley wines and wait for any type of moisture to fall from the sky. These are my 3 picks to drink this month and because the Dark is so dark, the other two selections are quite light.