Carb-heavy foodstuffs and fairly tame if v. tasty beers characterize Butcher + Brewer, E 4th Street's only microbrewery to speak of. The space is gigantic and mucho-mod industrial with very little to dampen the omnipresent shouts and guffaws and the creak of the myriad stools and the music: it can sometimes feel as though one has stepped into a cacophony chamber explicitly designed to overwhelm the eardrums. The service is quite good, particularly at the bar, however (the bartenders somehow supernaturally immune to the adversarial aural ambiance). Food flies from the kitchen: steamy, savory dirigibles of tempura cauliflower w/ curry aioli land hard and heavy, narcotizing diners not accustomed to such mega-rich vegetarian food. And let us not even mention the mythic Mac and Cheese--of which odes have very likely been written, before the scribe slowly succumbed to an eon-long food coma. Beer-wise, the albino stout is legendary, but the seasonal saison is a crisp crowd-pleaser in its own right, balancing vital funk with the clean grassy notes that epitomize high summer and aid one in escaping the winter doldrums, if only for a moment. Stop in some Friday night ready to munch and laugh--and do check out the basement brewery inset in its gleaming nook: strolling about the subteranean apparatuses gives one the impression of having jettisoned oneself from all things snow-smothered and grey and entered a futuristic inebriation machine where yeast dreams of electric phenolics and everyone is appreciated.