Spacecat Brewing Company: Now Pouring in Norwalk

With Spacecat Brewing Company opening its taproom, South Norwalk finally has a brewery…

Again.

Not counting the two short-lived macrobreweries Guvnor’s and Iron which were located in the same space on Washington Street, the city hasn’t had a larger, buzzed about brewery since New England Brewing Co. debuted on Commerce Street 1989 with then head brewer Phil Markowski, and they eventually moved to Marshall Street with another head brewer, Rob Leonard at the helm.

NEBCO left SoNo in 2001 for Woodbridge and Norwalk has been without a watering hole like it ever since.

A little less than 20 years later, James Bloom—no relation to the famous Bloom Family oyster operation—had an idea to open a brewery along with his friend and co-worker Jeff Dunn.

“I worked at a healthcare tech company, Remedy Partners in Darien (that later moved to Norwalk),” Bloom explains. “We tracked Medicare patient healthcare costs during their stays to hopefully reduce costs for patients 90 days post-discharge. I was an analyst and did some programming. I loved it and loved the people I worked with. It was my first real job out of college, but I realized it wasn’t for me.”

It was at that company where Bloom met Jeff Dunn. They were on the same team, and although they weren’t fast friends, they bonded over wanting to do something of their own. It’s also when Bloom found out that Dunn has been homebrewing for over 20 years.

“I like beer and kinda like drinking,” Bloom says. “I joked with my buddies in college that we’d open a bar, like a high volume college bar with $4 Fireball shots and $3 Natty’s. That was always in the back of my head. Jeff and I would go to lunch and talk a lot about different ideas like opening a small business or even a pig farm.”

So…where’d the name “Spacecat” come from? 5-6 years ago, Bloom bought some artwork off Etsy from a German woman doing prints on dictionary paper. “At 25 years old, I felt like I needed some art and one of those was a cat in a spacesuit that I hung on my wall,” he says. “When I tried to come up with names, I thought about Southern Connecticut Brewing Company, and really thought I had something when I said, ‘Charter Oak!’ but that’s been a thing. One night, I looked at the picture and thought…Spacecat. Oh, yeah, that’d be good. The second I thought of it, I thought was it approachable, thought about possible can art, and if someone go to their buddies and say ‘I’m drinking Spacecat.’” The logo was designed by Brian Steely, who created Nod Hill Brewery’s logo.

The two went to Dunn’s house in Branford a bunch of times to brew and that became the idea. The felt they had the formula for a brewery: a cool space, preferably an old warehouse type, and good quality beer.

Bloom started to work on a business plan and received funding within a couple of months, enabling him to hunt for a space. It wasn’t until he approached the South Norwalk-based Beinfeld Architecture about designing the still unfound location that he got connected with landlord Keith Brown, who owns the historic, early 1900s building that was once occupied by J. & J. Cash, a textile manufacturer.

The steel door in the back of the building that houses Spacecat leads to a long walkway before you reach the taproom. They purposely wanted it to have the minor feel of a speakeasy.

“He (Brown) started developing the space after a carting company used it as storage,” Bloom recalls. “When I first came in here, it was being used as boat storage. There were a bunch of boats sitting in here. He brought East Coast Kombucha in here with the idea that this could be a drink place.”

With the location secured and brewing equipment purchased, they only had one issue, a global pandemic.

Bloom and Dunn decided it’d be best to wait nine months to see if other breweries would survive. Most, with the exception of a few, did make it through shutdowns. They also took the advice of a close friend who simply said, “Don’t forget, alcohol is recession proof.”

With a space designed and with veteran brewer Roger Krakow on board, they were ready to make beer and think about opening up just as the public became more comfortable with going back out.

Spacecat officially packed its taproom full of thirsty locals on October 1, 2021, featuring a varied list of styles that included a blonde ale, hazy New England IPAs, a dry-hopped kölsch, a hoppy West Coast IPA, and a biscuity, Oktoberfest-inspired marzen.

They’ve since broken out more sours, a Schwarzbier, a holiday ale, and Clair de Luna, a roasty, creamy vanilla milk stout that’s since gotten an oaky, boozy upgrade after resting in bourbon barrels.

As far as what’s coming soon from Spacecat, don’t expect any heavy lactose, milkshake style, barely recognizable as beer type beverages. Krakow—who worked as a brewer at Two Roads for eight years, some of those as head brewer—believes in staying on-style or close to a style.

“Roger has so much knowledge,” Bloom says. “He did lots of R&D at Two Roads, even in their sour program. We want to do what’s expected of a style, but to add flair. We’re not knocking anyone who’s adding too many adjuncts like lactose and making it a milkshake. We want to execute it well, then add adjuncts if it makes sense. Like we want to nail our dry stout recipe, then add bitter chocolate and cherries. We don’t want to make a 10% ABV beer with a ton of ingredients, then say, ‘It’s gonna knock you on your ass!’ That’s not us.”

Food trucks are a thing at Spacecat. A few that have made appearances are Knot Norms (with lobster rolls, wings, roasted oysters, and shishitos) and Neapolitan style pizzas from Parlor.

Spacecat expects to roll out lighter, crushable options in the spring and summer months like a Vienna lager, more sours, session IPAs, a Belgian witbier, possibly a helles lager, and according to Bloom, an easy drinking hefeweizen with a special hop variety that’ll give it a “berry smoothie taste.”

They’ve even started canning after only a few months and as soon as their beer catches on in more bars and restaurants, they hope to up production from a projected 350-400 barrels in 2022, to 800-1000 in the future.

And speaking of barrels, they’ve been collecting barrels of a different type for to creating variants and aged versions of their most popular beers. “We’ve gotten barrels from Two Roads, and bourbon barrels from Litchfield Distillery and SoNo1420 (that they used for their barrel-aged Clair de Luna),” Bloom says. “We filled a very old rum barrel that was recently used for gin aging with our Orange Peach Mango Cosmic Candy sour that’ll be ready in 12-16 months. And we just filled a tequila barrel with our Limelight Gose.”

Bloom’s hope is that with Spacecat having set the stage—and with SoNo Brewing hopefully on the way soon—that more people will view Norwalk and Stamford as a beer destination and hop back and forth, supporting local businesses in the process. He’s also hoping that Spacecat catches on enough so when their startup phase is over, they can host charity events, make donations, and give back in some way.

“We want to tie ourselves in with the community here,” he says. “More breweries are better for all of us.”

57 Chestnut Street; Norwalk
203.857.1074; spacecatbrewing.com