Baere Brewing

Baere was one of the most recommended breweries that I visited in my trip. Some said it was a must visit spot. I thought the beers were good but they didn’t particularly blow me away. They had a nice tasting room in a strip mall with good air conditioning inside and plenty of outdoor seating, though it was too hot to sit outside when I visited.

I started with their saison, which was good. The beer was dry and spice forward with cracker notes and a lingering bitterness. It was a bit bitter for the style but solid. I prefer a different style of saison but it was nicely done. The Belgian Single was solid with notes of light orange and light funk. The beer was subtle and lightly bitter on the finish. The Grisette was my favorite of the bunch. It had bright notes of lemon and grapefruit with mild funk from the brett yeast finishing with light oak. This is one of the more impressive brett beers I have had in a while.

The porter was good and roasty with mild bitterness and somewhat syrupy. It is fairly standard for the style. The kolsch was light and creamy with notes of grape and corn. It was average for the style. The pale ale was super dry with nice mix of resin and tropical fruit. A solid pale but it could have used more explosive hop aroma.

Baere was overall solid though the only thing that stood out to me was the grisette. It is a good brewery but not something I would go out of my way to return to.

Top 2:
Grisette
Belgian Single

Cerebral Brewing

Cerebral had mostly hazy IPAs and I tried quite a few. They have a good sized tasting room and a solid line up of hazy beers including a few available in cans. For hazy beers they were fairly average though still good. The sours with lactose were much more impressive. I tried a flight of six beers of which most were IPAs with a few sours.

I started with the mango coconut lime berliner weisse with lactose. It was easily my favorite of the bunch. The beer initially tasted to me like peach pie with light tart and notes of cinnamon. The lactose gave it a creamy body without getting overly sweet. Their flanders red style sour was solid with notes of caramel and red wine vinegar and a strong tart finish. It wasn’t the best but a solid example of the style.

The Tangerine Stuff IPA was bursting with citrus and the fruit balanced wonderfully with the base hops. The beer had nice prominent notes of mango to combine with the tangerine. The last 3 were all hazy IPAs. DDH Strange claw was creamy with tons of hop acidity and a nice burst of tropical flavor. Rare Trait was super flavorful and exploded with notes of tropical fruit and papaya. The Controlled Chaos was the most creamy of the bunch with tons of pineapple flavor. The three hazy beers were all solid, fairly average as far as hazy IPAs go. They are a solid stop if you don’t want to hunt for Weldwerks hazy IPAs.

Top 2:
Bird of Paradise – Berliner with lactose and fruit
Controlled Chaos – Hazy IPA