Paradox Brewing

Paradox Brewing has developed a reputation for delicious and reasonably priced sours. Though we get the bottles in San Diego I wanted to visit the brewery directly to see how different it was at the source. Thought he building is quite large from the outside there is fairly limited seating in the tasting room. They serve food and offer flights that can be either sour or clean beer. Though at one time they rarely had clean beers they now had five different clean beers to choose from. They are about an hour outside of Colorado Springs but worth the trip at least once.

I stuck to the sours and did the sour flight and followed it up with a bottle of the mango habanero sour that they weren’t selling in bottles. The Passion of the Fruit sour was nicely balanced with tart passion fruit character and hints of apricot. This was one of my two favorites of the day. The hibiscus sour was funky and floral but overall a bit thin and super dry and lacking in intense hibiscus flavors.

The Salty Melon sour was mildly tart and lightly salty with mild melon character and lightly sweet finish. Though i enjoyed that it wasn’t particularly tart or acidic on tap it was lacking in flavor compared to a few others I tried on the same flight. The Alchemy Stone had a nice herbal funk with a light earthy base and subtle notes of peach. This beer tasted like it had mellowed out quite a bit since when it was first released. It was also fairly low in tartness and acidity.

The future knowledge tart saison was thin and dry with mild funk and light grape notes. I didn’t care for it that much mostly because compared to the other beers on the flight it was very subtle. The mango habanero sour was poured into a decanter and had notes of candied mango and mild chili that burned at the back of the throat. It had a nice mix of funk and tart and paired nicely with their fermented mango. As it warmed up the heat came through more strongly at the finish. Compared to some others, it was a good beer.

Top 2:
Passion of the Fruit
Alchemy Stone – Peach Sour

Cerberus Brewing

Cerberus Brewing was recommended to me by most of the people at Paradox. They have a full restaurant and serve a wide variety of beers from lighter stuff to IPAs and saisons. While the beers were good the most impressive part to me was the food. I had a flight of five beers and then finished with a full pour of one of the lagers.

The brett IPA was bitter and funky with an earthy malt base. Though the brett didn’t overpower the beer it was quite bitter and dry and not really my thing. The coffee saison had a light saison base but the coffee flavor was on the acidic side for me and I didn’t care for the choice of coffee variety they used.

The Elysium IPA was bursting with flavor including tons of citrus and tropical fruit. It had a soft body and a light haze with a mild mineral taste at the finish. This was my favorite IPA of the night. The Caught in Thought IPA was more papaya forward with a medium bitterness and an acidic finish. It wasn’t as much my thing compared to the Elysium.

They had three versions of a beer called Tiny Umbrella. One was an IPA, then a double IPA and a triple IPA, each with the same malts and hops. I got a taster of the double IPA version and it had a thick creamy body with a mix of dank hop notes, some herbal hop character and bitter grapefruit on the finish. It wasn’t my preferred hop flavoring.

I finished with the vienna lager, which was crisp and tasty with light dark fruit and caramel notes with hints of toast. It was a solid example of the style. I visited the brewery with three other people and we ordered quite a few things between us and I was impressed by most of it. My seasonal vegetable soup was a creamy squash soup that tasted great especially paired with the vienna lager.

Though I wouldn’t recommend making a trip just for the beer, if you are in Colorado Springs it is worth stopping by for the food and having some beer with it. All of the beers were solid even though a few of them weren’t my preferred flavor profile.

Top 2
Elysium IPA
Vienna Lager