Notch Brewing (Brighton Biergarten)

Chris Lohring founded Notch in 2010 as a contract-brewed brand with a single organising idea: that the US craft market had almost no well-made low-strength beer, and that every Notch beer would therefore be 4.5% ABV or lower. The brewery took over its own Salem premises in 2016, and in October 2019 Boston Magazine reported plans for a second brewery, taproom and beer garden in Brighton. That site opened in July 2021 at the Charles River Speedway, a restored former horse-racing administration complex at the corner of Western Avenue and Soldiers Field Road that has since become an open-air market of small food and retail tenants. The Brighton biergarten runs to roughly 2,000 square feet with seating for about 250 people at communal tables, operates year-round with heaters through the winter and umbrellas through the summer, and pours in the Central European measures the brewery favours — quarter, half and full litre.

The reason Notch matters to non-drinkers is that its non-alcoholic beers are brewed in-house rather than bought in, and are treated as a permanent part of the range rather than a seasonal experiment. Three are kept on at all times across both taprooms: a non-alcoholic craft pils, a non-alcoholic New England-style IPA and a non-alcoholic blonde ale, each at 0.5% ABV. Northshore Magazine covered the launch of the pair that started the programme, and Lohring's explanation of why a pilsner is the hardest style to get right without alcohol — that pilsner is very delicate beer, so any variable affecting flavour shows up immediately — is a fair summary of the technical problem. Sparkling hop water and mineral water round out the alcohol-free options. The alcoholic taps alongside run to Hefe Weisse, Dunkel Weizen, German Afternoons Pils, Salem Lager, Kolsch, Dunkel Bier, radlers, The Mule corn lager, Punto Pils and a New England pale ale. The biergarten opens at 3pm on weekdays and noon at weekends.