WESTFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS
Inside a red brick Industrial mall, BRIGHT IDEAS BREWING opened its original canary yellow-walled brewhouse in North Adams during 2016 (with a second taproom in nearby Westfield operating since 2023). A festive pub featuring a snazzy yellow-chaired covered deck that matches its illuminating yellow interior brick walls, the North Adams site at the Mass MoCa campus shines brightly.
Residing at the former Sprague Electrical Plant (closed 1984), Bright Ideas wood-topped 15-seat bar (with a dozen-plus hydrant-piped draught handles) services several Industrial metal-wood tables. Metal crossbars, exposed pipes and a few left-walled pews fill out the spiffy cement-floored beer factory.
My wife and I gathered at one of Bright Ideas pews on a Friday, March ’25, sinking nine while Squeeze’s “Pulling Mussels From The Shell” and other fine ’80s music played on. We even tried sweetish Afternoon T-Light Lavender & Lemon, a butterfly pea flowered hard seltzer.
Mild Czech pilsner, Czechs Out, a clean bohemian lightweight, placed spritzy Saaz-hopped lemon fizz atop rice-sugared pilsner malting.
A navel orange spritz surfaced for sweet amber grained Czech lager, Fortune’s Favor, bringing subtle caramelized fig to its mild tobacco-crisped barley roast.
Dewy peat-mossed extra special bitter, Winter Study, an English-styled pub ale brewed by Williams College students, sported mild cocoa resonance and a slight orange splash.
Another dewy choice, modest Munich-styled dunkel, Weisse Drunkel, sprayed mild orange zest across barren banana-clove sweetness and wispy plum-raisin snips in a light caramel malt setting.
Moderately acidic kettle-soured variant, Sour Splash – Apricot, let salty lemon-limed apricot puree engage light herbal misting and acidulated wheat.
Sunshiny yellow grapefruit and sweet orange-peeled lemon zest awoke splashy New England IPA, Undercast, leaving minty evergreen freshness on its lightly creamed oats base.
Rummy banana puree linked Belgian pale ale, 589, to honeyed green tea, tart mandarin orange, sweet floral spicing and lacquered peach illusions.
To the dark ales. Soft-tongued Irish nitro stout, Lark And Lion, raised lightly creamed dark chocolate nuttiness above mossy barley roast.
Mildly fudged Imperial milk stout, Aztec Winter, a milk-sugared Mexican hot cocoa derivative, pinned cinnamon-spiced ancho chili peppering to minty dark chocolate, picking up tertiary maple molasses, black cherry and salted caramel swipes.