Mean Max Brew Works

The absolute best aspect of my visit was the fact that they were actively brewing at the time. The smell of boiling barley was intoxicating in itself! Truly transformed the experience and added to the ambiance. Not to mention, the beers I tried were spot-​on for their style. The variety was welcome and the number of styles on draft was great. I would LOVE to visit again!

Stopped in at Mean Max last night while doing the bar crawl of Glen Street. Definitely one of the nicer places on the street now that Wallabee’s is closed down. The staff is super nice, they have some great beers on tap, so I really cannot complain. Drinks were reasonably priced and they had some nifty growlers for sale. They had a Helles beer that my boyfriend thoroughly enjoyed. They serve beer only, no food, but they will provide you with all the local menus if you want to order in food.

How could we have missed this place for nine months?!? Maybe it was the new signage that caught our attention tonight as we were on our way to check out a different brewer just a bit further south.
Just visiting Mean Max is a refreshing experience. They don’t serve food, other than a bowl of bar snacks that will probably make you want to order more beer. But they do allow you to bring in your own food or have it delivered to you there.
While the table-​top menus described 15 different brews that they make, the blackboard menu showed that only eleven of them were available on the night of our visit. But there were also two hard ciders and five wines available.
We decided to take advantage of the Flight offer of five, 5 ounce samples ($ 8.50) to taste a cross section of the brews. Starting with the Stout No Doubt (6.1% abv) oatmeal variety, the wife and I both enjoyed its excellent coffee flavor.
On to the McCord (6.7% abv), a dark porter with little head and sweeter than the stout. I really enjoyed this one, but my wife found it sweeter than she likes.
Next came the Holy Bock (6.7% abv) which the bartender told us was probably the most popular of all their beers. I think its popularity is because of its more mildness in flavor.
Our 4^th sample was the one my wife had been waiting for, their IPA, Tahawus (6.2% abv). She really enjoyed the bitterness and the hoppyness of this brew. However, our fifth and final sampling of Skylight (5.8% abv), another IPA, but a black IPA served on nitro, she found to be too sweet and not hoppy enough. I preferred the Skylight to the Tahawus.
As you can surmise, this is a place to try new brews and have a good time. Bring your non-​beer-​drinking friends and let them enjoy the wines or the hard cider. They even have three real dart boards.
Service from our bartender was very friendly, helpful, and informative. There is no doubt (just like their stout) that we’ll be returning.

Mean Max is a welcome sight in Glens Falls. Unlike other local brewers, these guys are focused on beer, not food. When I last visited there were eight widely varied styles on tap: I drank three. My favorites so far are the titular Altbier and the Stout. Mmmm.

I’m going to reserve judgement on this place for a bit. Went in for first time recently on a busy night and the service was very slow. All they serve is beer so there needs to be a way to speed up the beer serving process if you want to make cash long term. They were using some sort of Ipad setup for a cash register that seems like it is way too slow.
I almost left after waiting for 10 minutes to get a beer but was then served a couple of styles neither of which was anything to write home about.
I’m going to go back in a few weeks to see if they’ve figured things out yet but for now I’d say I was hoping for more.