Two Roads Brewing Company Launches Dinner Pairing Series- A New Brewery Experience
Two Roads’ new pairing dinner series is a more intimate way to experience the brewery.
If you’ve followed the evolution of Two Roads Brewing Company, it’s quite something. Since the main brewery opened in 2012, one thing they kept doing is continuing to evolve.
Not including a laundry list of beer releases, Two Roads went onto open a second facility next to their Hop Yard six years ago that you now know as Area Two Experimental Brewing. Following Area Two and all their fun, funky small batch drops, and in no particular order, Two Roads got into making canned cocktails, non-alcoholic beer, distilling (we’ll have a few teasers on that), and they even purchased the former PizzaCo across the street and turned it into Two Roads Food Hall & Bar and next door, Two Roads Tee Box, a golf simulator, making it a full-blown “campus.”
Dinners are held smack dab in the middle of the production and aging floor at Area Two.
In the fall, the theme followed suit of Two Roads’ Roadsmary’s Baby, an annual pumpkin ale that they brew.
What they’ve added to the mix are dinners, ahem, multi course dinner experiences, over at Area Two where before, the kitchen was underutilized except for a few restaurant pop ups a handful of years ago.
Ben Paré, Two Roads’ director of hospitality, said that the dinner series idea stemmed from a private event that was well received by attendees and the higher ups at Two Roads. Paré, along with culinary director Tim Lonczak (formerly of Isla & Co. and Heirloom), and the team at Two Roads got to work.
Risotto - pumpkin, cauliflower, crispy sage, delicata squash, and toasted pumpkin seeds, proper for a fall themed dinner.
Guests at this event were the first to taste Two Roads’ entry into the whiskey game with Roadsmary’s Baby Whiskey, distilled from a 2021 batch of Roadsmary’s Baby Pumpkin Ale, then spent 32 months aging in charred American oak barrels and finished in barrels that held 2024’s batch of the beer.
“We started this out with a 4/20 dinner; seven courses, gluttonous, with very themed stuff like hangar steak with bone marrow, rasta colored panna cotta with a matcha pot leaf stencil on top,” he says. “Themes draw people in and keeps it fun and exciting.”
After the first one, they listened to feedback from guests and from their own team to retool in order to make these tastings a semi regular event.
If you’ve attended more than one of these, you’ve seen a lot of repeat attendees. Most are fans of the brewery and they jump on tickets fast.
Themes, seasonal and locally sourced ingredients, beer and now distilling releases are now all a part of the mix.
In October, right before Two Roads famed pumpkin ale Roadsmary’s Baby was set to drop, they hosted a dinner at a huge table, smack dab in the middle of the barrels and foeders on Area Two’s aging floor. Think along the lines of porchetta, short ribs, root vegetables; hearty fall dishes. Each course served with a pairing that including Roadsmary’s Baby and two of its variants—Roadsmary’s Spawn (brewed with maple syrup and pecans) and 2 Hell & Back, a super limited version of Roadsmary’s that was aged in rum barrels that Two Roads finished Roadsmary’s Baby Whiskey in.
Not just beer. Sips range from tasters of beer, to spirits, infused liqueurs, and stuff like this Brewer’s Negroni, a blend of gin, Road2Ruin Double IPA, cherry bitters, and cherry juice.
Phil Markowski, founder and brewmaster, is always in the house to introduce and explain each beverage of the night, while director of hospitality Ben Paré acts as emcee and explains each dish.
Whiskey? Yes, whiskey. That was arguably what the dinner was centered around that night. If you attended, you were one of the first people, not including people that work at Two Roads to try it.
At the end of January, they’d do something similar with their annual Igor’s Dream Imperial Stout; three different years of Igor’s Dream (2023, 2024, and 2025) and the first tastes of Igor’s Dream Whiskey—a 46% ABV malt whiskey, aged two years, and distilled from multiple vintages of Igor’s Dream Imperial Stout, then aged in the same barrels. And for food, onion soup, stroganoff gnocchi, Igor’s Dream braised short rib, and black forest lava cake (drink pairing, Igor’s Dream Black Forest Stout), and much like the fall dinner, the featured beer was used in all or most of the courses.
Locally made (less than two miles away) Nuovo Pasta’s Calabrian chili and smoked mozzarella ravioli , local honey, minted tomato passata, parm, crispy basil.
Fresh basil potato gnocchi (also from Nuovo), guanciale, rosemary, sweet onion, parmesan cream, toasted breadcrumbs.
Sometimes a Two Roads O.G. make an appearance, like their Cruise Control Lager.
“Cruise Control is German malts and hops,” Markowski says. “We try to make it as authentically as we can. It’s become one of our bestselling beers. There’s a lager revolution going on in craft brewing. It goes with just about any kind of food for all occasions. What’s appealing about it is the balance between the malts and the hops.”
“We try to do these centered around a new release to excite the masses,” Paré says. “It’s meant to be something special, but it’s also meant to highlight the level of food we do here in general. The same level of love we put into these multi course fine dining experiences, we put that same love and attention into our chicken wings, our smash burger, our sides, our sauces. Making everything from scratch isn’t the easiest thing in the world given the small amount of space we have to work with in the kitchen for what we work with size wise. It speaks to the passion of our team.”
When March rolled around, and Due Strade, an Italian Pilsner, was at the forefront, an Italian themed dinner was the next idea. But this one had some local purveyors involved.
“This dinner also came about because two regulars at our food hall, one is the senior director of operations and the other is the owner of Nuovo Pasta in Stratford,” Paré says. “They told me about their pasta, we did a tour there, they did one here, and I brought up the idea of partnering.”
When introducing Due Strade, the brewery’s new Italian Pilsner, Markowski provided this explanation:
“We talked about brewing it for a while. An Italian Pilsner is Pilsner beer that’s dry hopped, that’s what separates it from the pack. This style is starting to become more known in craft beer circles. We used Slovenian hops, one called Sterian Golding with German Hallertau hops. It’s crisp, but it has a little herbal notes to it.”
Another course with a local spin during the Taste of Italy Dinner was this: Jones Family Farm veal shank, braised in red wine with saffron risotto Milanese, balsamic reduction, fresh thyme, and wilted mustard greens.
The result was Nuovo’s smoked mozzarella and Calabrian chili ravioli and their fresh basil potato gnocchi appearing in respective courses.
Guests would not only enjoy first sips of the Italian Pils, but a few others in the form of a Brewer’s Negroni and limoncello, the latter made by Paré.
In attendance at the dinner series is Two Roads’ Brewmaster, Phil Markowski, who acts as partial host, but most importantly, to introduce what you’re drinking and each beverage’s specs. The “Negroni” was something most didn’t expect.
“We make our gin, that’s being released in a few months, with a bunch of botanicals, including birch bark and sarsaparilla root,” Markowski explains. “This Brewer’s Negroni is our gin, mixed with Road2Ruin (a hoppy double IPA), cherry juice and homemade cherry bitters that we made from the fruit on our cherry trees between here and the main brewery. The gin and our beer makes for a bitter bite to give it a Campari feel. It’s a sipper. It’s 18% alcohol.”
A nightcap on Italian night. Homemade limoncello and a recipe to take home in case you want to whip up a batch for yourself.
Limoncello, with dessert, of course.
Torta cioccolato - chocolate custard, pastry crust, nocciola gelato, toasted hazelnuts.
Markowski continued, and teased more distillery news that’s coming up in the very near future.
“We started with gin and vodka—and those will be more readily available and in stores—we made single malt whiskey, and a couple whiskeys from our beers (Roadsmary’s Baby and Igor’s) and we’re gonna do that every year, a one-day release and that’s it,” he says. “Our first bourbon is coming out this May after three-and-a-half years in barrels. There’s only gonna be something like 300 bottles. All small batch stuff.”
And of course, you can expect a dinner for that.
“Oh, yeah, we’re doing BBQ and bourbon,” Paré says. “All things that go together. Hyper seasonal and thematic. It’s a different experience than if you came to the taproom on a release day. Just doing a beer dinner, in my eyes, isn’t enough. Creating it as a destination makes it fun for people and they’re looking forward to the next one. It’s a special experience if you want to be a part of something.”
Stay tuned for those dinner series event announcements on Instagram @tworoadscampus
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