CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

Quaint red-bricked neighborhood bistro in downtown Cambridge maintains cozy corner café appeal with freshly brewed coffee as well as beer. Inside a former auto repair shop, LAMPLIGHTER BREWING COMPANY came to fruition in 2016. Its back kitchen serves locally sourced breakfast items to folks at the 12 white-tiled parlor seats, main community table, right side area and front cove lounge on my early December ’19 trip.

Glass encased silver tanks to the left service the twelve-plus draught taps of the rustically furnished white-walled, cement-floored, pipe-exposed coffeeshop/ microbrewery.

My wife and I try seven lovely suds late Saturday morning prior to the college football conference playoffs.

Musky dry-hopped pale lager, Stupid Seagulls, gained a lemony white grape souring above hay-like grain malts.

Tangy grapefruit-peeled blood orange juicing blitzed Cloud City, a fruitful NEIPA with dry floral herbage, grassy hop astringency and distant guava-mango-melon tropicalia.

Tart NEIPA, Birds Of Paradise, relinquished lemony pineapple, passionfruit and papaya tropicalia for lactic yogurt souring.

A more adventurous NEIPA, Sneaker Wave let arctic thyme salting influence its citric-juiced guava, papaya and pineapple souring and sweet elderflower sideswipe.

Possibly bettering all these NEIPA’s, Tropical Tom retained a cotton-candied toasted coconut sweetness fortified by vanilla-creamed orange, pineapple, mango and peach tones just barely embittered by piney hop resin.

Delightfully candi-spiced Belgian-styled holiday ale, Blitzen, brought cinnamon-toasted Graham Cracker sugaring to caramelized fig, chocolate-covered cherry and nutmeg illusions as well as pumpkin pie, allspice, clove, plum and toffee snips. Luscious dessert fodder.

On the dark side, bittersweet cacao nibs flourished alongside tarry dark chocolate and Turkish coffee sugaring for London Calling, a bold, heady porter.