This week in Friday Froth we're going to toss back a beer in the middle of a trend, a new creation in an old style, and some brewery news which leads us to an aged beer.
And now, as another James May say, the nyeewws:
I recently was among the first few dozen civilians to ever see the inside of Two Roads' new mixed fermentation secondary brewery, Area 2.First announced in 2016, this new on-site facility in Stratford will focus on sour, barrel aged, and wild ales - all the little organisms bursting with possibility, and voted most likely to make your wine or Bud Light drinking friends say "This is beer?!?"
It was a long road for Tribus Beer Co. to become a reality. One of the founders of Tribus, Sean O'Neill, sits down with Ken Tuccio to tell the story about how he and his partners got together, took their idea and turned it into one of the most anticipated brewery openings in the state. Listen here.
You never know where you're going to see CTBites. This past week our own food writer and "Friday Froth" beer columnist James Gribbon was invited to make a guest appearance on Channel 8 afternoon talk show CT Style to talk about great spots to have a beer outside. Summer may be winding down, but there's still plenty of time to enjoy a drink in the fresh air.
Some of his favorite spots included the beer garden and hop yard at Two Roads in Stratford, The Hops Company beer garden, the yard at BAD SONS in Derby (with a nod to take out wings from nearby Dew Drop Inn), and road trips to OEC brewing in Oxford, and Kent Falls farm brewery.
Watch the whole video below, and keep an eye out for James appearing on CT Style in the future.
SoNo’s biggest recent mystery involved the space where Washington and N Main streets meet. Stacked piles of wood blocked all hopes of peeking inside. A fox shaded on the ends of the wood made passersby more curious. What stumped a bunch of us even more was another fox that popped up in the windows, this time in emoji form, accompanied by the hashtag #Hola.
What was this riddle? A restaurant? Another bar? In SoNo, that’s what it usually is. But definitely something with a Spanish cuisine theme, right?!
I was puzzled. I posted about it many times. I asked around to no avail. People asked me what it was. I had no freaking clue. Eventually, I heard it would be a Mexican restaurant concept by the good folks at Skal Restaurant Group, who run things at The Cask Republic locations and The Ginger Man Greenwich. All of this was later confirmed (sort of) by a fittingly odd Instagram account that tagged me in a lot of posts as they did food and drink research in Mexico.
It’s a secret no longer! Evarito’s is now open in South Norwalk!
Like oncoming headlights appearing out of a foggy night, genetics are indicators which don't tell the whole story. Heredity may lay out a path, but time and observation tell where it leads. Phil Markowski helped launch New England Brewing Company in 1989, and decades later did the same as the master brewer at Two Roads. In the last Froth I talked about how NEBCo's dandelion head was spreading seeds all over Connecticut - from new beers under their current brewer, to Counter Weight Brewing in Hamden from his predecessor, and a tip about the inaugural tapping of beers from Tribus in Milford, the newest offspring of the ancestor brewery. This week, for the first time anywhere, we'll take a look at Tribus and its beers to see where this is all headed.
You can't understate the importance of Thomas Hooker Brewing Co. in the history of Connecticut beer. However for a while they got lost in the shuffle. Then, with a beer called #NoFilter, they had a bit of resurgence within the Connecticut craft beer community. Ken Tuccio sits down with Jonas Griggs, the head brewer of Thomas Hooker Brewing, to talk about Hooker's spot in the CT beer scene, the importance of #NoFilter to the growth of the company and his plans for the brewery moving forward. Listen here.
Half Full Brewery and CTBites are beyond excited to bring you this year's most creative and collaborative food and beer-pairing event series. Not to be missed, "Beers & Bites" 2018 pairs limited release beers from Half Full Brewery with totally off-menu food items from some of Fairfield County's best chefs and food truck operators. Tickets for our August 15th event with Skinny Pines pizza truck & Chef Geoff Lazlo are going fast, so get your tickets now!
We're taking Friday Froth on the road this week, and making the trip to New England Brewing Company in Woodbridge. You can practically hit NEBCo from the Merritt Parkway if you had a t-shirt cannon or severely misjudged your speed upon taking exit 59. You should do this (not overcooking the exit, I mean - and standing on the highway firing large projectiles is probably some sort of Nanny State "offense," come to think of it), but you should nonetheless take the drive because the beer at the end is, as anyone living in the state for more than three weeks can attest, quite good.
Have you ever looked down into the swirling foam at the top of a freshly poured beer and thought "that looks like a galaxy"? Ever had your mind blown by a Carl Sagan quote? Do you like New Haven pizz- OK, unless you're a CAPTCHA-bot, of course you do. The point is, whether you've watched the original Cosmos ten times, or you just wonder how far away the stars are, BAR in New Haven has re-started Astronomy On Tap, where beer, pizza, and cosmology come together.
Astronomy On Tap is a a global event series where professors, PhDs, and grad students talk about their areas of expertise at bars full of anyone who's interested, and it's free.
Ken Tuccio sits down with Johnny Kraszewski from Armada Brewing in this week's episode of Food & Drink, but the conversation isn't just about beer or the Connecticut beer scene. It's a conversation about marketing, promotion, the challenges associated with self-employment and more. Ken is also joined during the monologue by Patrick DiCaprio from the Full Pours Podcast and Ken gives Pat the rundown of his experience with cruise food last week. Have a listen here.
We are happy to share this exciting burrito news from Connecticut Magazine.
The opening-night crowd filed into the postcard-worthy red building that was once a railroad station but had just officially become Broken Symmetry Gastro Brewery. Eight-hundred pints of beer were poured as people thronged around tables, overflowing into the aisles and then outside onto a patio area.
Many, like me, were intrigued that a new brewery had opened in the Greater Danbury area. But that wasn’t the only reason we left work early and endured long lines and unintentional, mosh pit-like jostling.
Athletic Brewing Company in Stratford are not just making waves in the Connecticut beer scene, but also the country. They are the first US based beverage company to focus solely on non-alcoholic craft beers. Building an entire brewery focused non-alcoholic beers has caused many to raise a lot of eyebrows and stirred a lot of curiosity and speculation among the beer community. Ken Tuccio sits down with the owner of Athletic Brewing, Bill Shufelt, and head brewer John Walker to talk about why they decided to launch an entire brewery dedicated to beer that won't get you drunk. Have a listen here.
Residents of Greenwich are no strangers to The Beach House Café located on Sound Beach Avenue in Old Greenwich. The restaurant, with its beachy-chic interior and seafood fare with a fresh, Asian twist, has been a local favorite since it was re-opened in 2016 by restauranteur Kane Xu.
Just recently The Beach House Café opened a second location in South Norwalk, directly across from the Maritime Center. While it retains a nautical theme with reclaimed wood, dock-line roping, seaside prints and dock-master lanterns, the vibe here is edgier, more urban, lending itself perfectly to the SoNo landscape.
I had the opportunity to visit the new SONO location for brunch a few weeks ago and was struck by the Southern influence, though perhaps I shouldn’t dismiss the fact that the restaurant’s current location once belonged to Mama’s Boy, known for its Southern cuisine. The Brunch Menu boasts a great many choices, seemingly something for everyone, unless you’re like me, indecisive with an extensive palate and healthy appetite.
Being a beer writer, as you'd expect, has its perks. For a few years one of these was being chosen to serve on a panel of expert judges at the Connecticut Blind Beer Awards, a competition between a dozen local beers which takes the popularity contest aspect out of the equation by serving each from unlabeled, color-coded taps. The event is held each year at the Blind Rhino in South Norwalk, and while brewery representatives are on hand in case their brewery wins one of the awards, they are sequestered away from public view in the bar's basement to bottle share, play beer pong, and perform impromptu interior decorating with some cans of spray paint they found, until the Experts Choice and People's Choice are handed out. I had no formal connection with the awards this year, attending instead as a civilian, and drank all twelve of the CT beers on tap. Here is how that went.
Did you ever hear the one about the food truck chef and the restaurant chef at a local brewery?
Wait, that’s a real thing. There’s no punchline.
What I’m talking about here is the first ever Beers & Bites event that was held on April 5, 2018 at Half Full Brewery in Stamford. Beers & Bites is a collaboration between CTbites, Half Full Brewery, local food trucks and chefs.
The idea behind Beers & Bites is to team a food truck chef and a restaurant chef to collaborate on a menu that gets paired with Half Full’s thirst-quenching brews. Think of it as a beer dinner where you won’t leave feeling overstuffed; it’s just enough food and drink. For $50 you get four-courses, four beers (refills were common so it’s a little more than four), a commemorative Beers & Bites snifter glass, and a damn good time in a non-pretentious, not overcrowded taproom.
Lately I've been doing some studying up on hops, which is - naturally - why I'm going to start this week's column off by being mad at yeast. I am comprehensively sick and tired of unfiltered IPAs; exhausted and at my wit's end trying to find an existing beer I can rely on to not look like milky pond water upon its exit from the can. Unsightly floating clumps, and my beer burning my throat, aren't even the biggest irritations. The worst is the style has had, until just now, "New England" in its name. Thankfully this week the Brewers Association has officially renamed it "Hazy or Juicy IPA." The BA's Beer Style Guidelines are effectively the AP style book of beer writing, and they've relegated the defacto descriptor of juice-bombs to the backseat. Hooray for the BA, and death to trub, amen.
A short while back, fellow CTbites writer James Gribbon sent me a text. He asked, “Where’s a good place to get breakfast in SoNo?” I replied with, “There aren’t many. SoNo Baking Company and SoNo Harbor Café. That’s probably it.”
Unless it’s a weekend and restaurants are serving brunch, breakfast in South Norwalk is scarce. I’m not talking wheat grass juice or a pastry at one of the Latin places on South Main Street, when I say “BREAKFAST” I mean eggs, pancakes, and bacon. I want a sit-down place where I can get wired on quality coffee and clean up maple syrup drizzles with that last chunk of sausage.
If you're a beer lover, you're in luck. Each day it seems another brewery or beer pub opens its doors in Fairfield County, catering to residents with creative hops (Harlan Haus in Bridgeport) and carefully curated snacks (shout out to Shelton's The Drunk Alpaca).
In a short period of time, the Connecticut craft beer scene has exploded, tapping into the county's thirst for flavor, variety and fun.
Many of these businesses were started by local folks with a passion for home brewing. All of them have helped elevate the area's craft beer experience.
Not sure where to go? We've done the research for you -- and yes, that may (or may not) have included sampling a few pints of amber brews.
Aspetuck Brew Lab, Bridgeport: This two-year-old brewery and tap room are the dream of a husband-and-wife team (see Daily Voice story HERE ) who care as much about the community as they do good, local beer.
Broken Symmetry Gastro Brewery, Bethel: This craft brewery and casual dining spot, in the old Bethel Train Station, is hoping for a late January/early February opening. Stay tuned by following them on Facebook.
