Two Roads Brewing Company Launches Dinner Pairing Series- A New Brewery Experience Events Features Brewery Ingredients Interview Tasting Menu Brewery Two Roads Brewing Company Craft Beer Spirits Distillery Interview Homepage Stratford Beer Andrew Dominick March 20, 2025 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.” Read More
A Family Biz: Sly Bandit Brewing Company with Full Service Restaurant Opens in Wilton Brewery Ingredients Features Craft Beer Wilton Homepage Interview Brewery Sly Bandit Brewing Family Friendly Opening Beer Andrew Dominick March 18, 2025 When a homebrewing hobby runs in the family, it’s only proper to open a brewery, isn’t it? That’s at least what happened in the Guda Family, whose brewery, Sly Bandit, may have caught your eye while on Route 7 in Wilton near the Norwalk line. Owned by Dave, who’s retired from the information technology world, Wendy, a former New Cannan High School math teacher who still teaches at CT State Community College Norwalk, and their son, Mike, who left his job as a market research executive to brew beer full time. Read More
Spacecat Brewing Company in Norwalk Debuts Food Truck + New Cocktail Program Brewery Ingredients Interview Spacecat Brewing Company Norwalk Burgers Fried Chicken Sandwich Food Truck Brewery Cocktails Homepage Andrew Dominick February 26, 2025 The next time you’re enjoying a pint in Spacecat Brewing Company’s taproom, that tray of burgers that just went by IS NOT courtesy of Shake Shack’s Shack Truck. Right out back by Spacecat’s appropriately named patio, “The Litterbox,” is their own brand-new food trailer where the brewery smashes burgers, grills up Connecticut’s own Hummel Bros. hot dogs, and fries to perfection a crispy chicken sandwich. Read More
Foolproof Brewing Grand Opening In Bridgeport Features Ingredients Bridgeport Brewery Opening Beer CT Beer Homepage CTbites Team August 01, 2024 Foolproof Brewing Company is excited to announce the grand opening of their second location in Bridgeport, CT with a brand new brewery, taproom, and kitchen located at 800 Union Avenue. Read More
Friday Froth- Coming Back To Back East Brewery Features Ingredients CT Beer Beer Brewery Bloomfield James Gribbon September 04, 2020 In October of 2019 I sat down with Tony Karlowicz at Back East to visit the brewery and talk about the 2017 gold medal won by his porter at the world's largest beer competition, the 2018 expansion that nearly tripled his brewing capacity, and the giant new taproom he'd hired an architectural firm to design and build for the spring of 2020. We shook hands and said we'd see each other again when I could write the article about the grand opening in April. Ten months and a global disaster later I looked at the glass in my hand as I sat, finally, for the first time, in that tasting room. Printed just above my thumb were the words "Find Your Way Back." Read More
60 Connecticut Breweries Still Open For Take-Out And Delivery Ingredients Features CT Beer Brewery Beer Take Out James Gribbon March 18, 2020 The wave of local breweries made this new world possible, but for now their doors are mostly closed. Here's what we can do to see them open again.Breweries are still allowed to sell to-go orders, offering pickup or curbside delivery options. This post will list info on breweries, their hours, and links to order online. I won't be able to find them all, so I encourage readers, brewers, and reps to include further info about their operations in the comments section below. Most breweries are small businesses, and all depend from some degree or entirely on in-person sales. Let's help the brewers and staff keep the Connecticut beer culture we love going. Read More
Friday Froth: Experimental Brewing at 12% Brewing Project in North Haven Features Ingredients Beer CT Beer Brewery North Haven James Gribbon February 07, 2020
Growing CT Beer At Fox Farm Brewery Features Ingredients Brewery CT Farms CT Beer Beer Local Artisan Local Farm Homepage James Gribbon August 25, 2019 Beer, as I've said so many times on this site, is food. Beer is a farm you can drink. It's an agricultural product that comes to us from fields of grain and leafy green hop yards, even down to the yeast brewers culture and grow from the skins of fruit in orchards. The massive proliferation of breweries in Connecticut - many of them less than five years old - means a huge uptick in the need for all these natural products. I wanted to take a look at how the rise of craft beer is affecting the state of agriculture in the Constitution State, and how breweries and farms are working hand in hand to create and restore the growth of Connecticut beer. This will be an ongoing series as summer days get shorter and we approach harvest time, but I thought the best way to start would be with a place that brings agriculture and beer together, and I started with at Fox Farm Brewery. Read More
How New Haven’s Salsa Queen Became the State’s First Black Female Brewer (via CT Magazine) Features Ingredients Brewery CT Beer Beer Connecticut Magazine March 12, 2019 We love celebrating local CT entrepreneurs. Connecticut Magazine gives a shout out to this trailblazing woman who’s shaking up the primarily male dominated craft brewing industry. We also hear that Rhythm beer will be available at Chef Chris Scott’s highly anticipated Birdman Juke Joint in Bridgeport. Craft beer needs more diversity. The realization hit New Haven’s Alisa Bowens-Mercado five years ago while she was at a beer festival. She didn’t mean diversity in terms of more women and minority ownership of breweries; not yet anyhow. Back then she was thinking about diversity of flavor.At that festival, every beer she tried was either too hoppy or too sour for her taste. She felt the craft industry needed more approachable options for drinkers like her.“I want to make a beer that, when I go to a beer festival, that I can drink,” she told her husband.Four years later Rhythm Brewing Co. was born and Bowens-Mercado, owner of Alisa’s House of Salsa, a dance studio in New Haven, became Connecticut’s first female African-American brewer. This month, as she celebrates Rhythm Brewing’s one-year anniversary, the company’s flagship product, Rhythm Unfiltered Lager, is available at more than 200 locations across the state. Bowens-Mercado is also getting ready to start distributing it in the Bahamas. Read More
Rise Brewing Co: Nitro Cold Brew Coffee Made in CT Ingredients Features Ingredients Coffee Brewery CTbites Team December 26, 2018 Years of drinking bland and commonplace cups of coffee began to take a toll on Connecticut natives and founders of RISE Brewing Co., Hudson Gaines-Ross, Grant Gyesky, Jarrett McGovern, and Justin Weinstein. In 2014, they decided to take matters in their own hands by hitting the drawing board in their New York City apartments. Bean after bean, one roast and cold-brewing method after another, they finally created a cold brew coffee, making them the founders of RISE Brewing Company. Traversing the concrete jungle with their product, they asked experienced mixologists if it was the real deal. One day, in a Brooklyn café, the espresso machine broke; RISE cold brew came to the rescue, and was a hit amongst the customers. The product became available for purchase in July of 2017. Read More
Cross Culture Kombucha Opens Kombucha Taproom and Brewery in Danbury Restaurant Ingredients Brewery Tea And Coffee Danbury Opening Kristin L. Wolfe October 09, 2018 Cross Culture Kombucha just opened its doors in Danbury. It’s the first Kombucha taproom and brewery in the state, and they’ve been welcomed with open arms and growlers ready to fill. The light, effervescent drink has been around for ages but has most recently seen the limelight as a non-alcoholic alternative; one that is both really delicious and packed with healthy goodness. Read More
Friday Froth: Kent Pils, Two Roads Spills on Area 2, And A Hazy IPA That Kills Features Ingredients CT Beer Beer Garden Beer Brewery James Gribbon August 24, 2018 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?!?" Read More
Friday Froth: Hanging Hills Brewing Co. Proves Rock And Roll Means Well Ingredients Features Brewery Beer CT Beer Hartford James Gribbon January 26, 2018
CTBites On The Boat: Grace & Darkness Oyster Stout Release And Oyster Roast At Half Full Brewery, Jan. 21 Features Ingredients Beer CT Beer Brewery Seafood James Gribbon January 07, 2018 We'd left the dock in South Norwalk in utter darkness to harvest oysters in one of the oldest, most productive oyster fisheries in America. Jordan Giles of Half Full Brewery in Stamford shucked a few on the steps of the Grace's pilothouse and handed one to me. The Copp's Island oyster had been at the bottom of the Sound minutes ago.The "Why" is tripartite: I've always loved oysters (and can apparently add them to skiing and air travel on the list of things I'll wake up at an evil hour for), I had never been on an oyster boat, and Half Full brewery will host their second ever Grace&Darkness oyster stout can release and oyster roast on Sunday, January 21 at noon. These oysters were to be the main attraction. Read More
BAD SONS Brewery Opens In Derby: Designed For Guests Ingredients Features Derby Brewery Beer CT Beer Beer Garden Road Trip James Gribbon August 18, 2017 First of all: Beacon Falls, Ansonia, Derby, Seymour, Oxford, Naugatuck, Shelton - in acronym, BAD SONS, collectively "The Valley." Once the manufacturing heart of an industrial state, the factories shut down to reopen out west, overseas, or not at all, but their brick shells remained. Once known for hats, watches, and artillery shells, there is new life to be found in old factories in the valley, which have become perfect incubators for the Connecticut brewing industry's baby boom.The BAD SONS brewery inhabits a space in Derby just down the Housatonic river from the Yale crew team's boathouse, about 300 yds from the Dew Drop Inn. This coal-era brick monolith may be where "BAD SONS" comes to mean "Valley Beer." Read More
Roadtrip: Fox Farm Brewery Opens In Salem Ingredients Features Brewery Salem Beer CT Beer Opening CTbites Team August 08, 2017 I’ve been rabidly following the food news from my hometown of Salem, CT ever since I heard rumor of a brewery opening up by former classmates—Zack and Laura Adams. This awesome husband and wife team have created a beer oasis perfect for hanging out in the sleepy town of Salem. Opened in May, 2017, Fox Farm has been enjoying rave reviews.I’m really pleased that Zack agreed to an interview with CTbites to share his passion for beer and tell us all about his newly opened brewery. Read More
Guinness™ & Two Roads Brewing To Collaborate on 2 Small Batch Beers Features Ingredients Beer CT Beer Brewery Stephanie Webster March 21, 2017 Guinness & Co., based in Norwalk CT, and Two Roads Brewing Company, based in Stratford CT, today announce two small batch beers brewed in collaboration and to be released in May of 2017. The first collaboration will be brewed at the Open Gate Brewery, St James’s Gate in Dublin, Ireland, and will be served to visitors of the Open Gate Brewery taproom. The second beer will be brewed shortly afterwards at Two Roads Brewing Co.’s brewery in Connecticut and will be served to visitors at the brewery. Read More
A Visit To Asylum Distillery In Bridgeport Features Ingredients Cocktails Brewery Specialty Market Homepage James Gribbon February 17, 2017 This January marked 98 years since the start of Prohibition. The result: brutal enforcement, a public health crisis, loss of tax revenue, and the creation of modern organized crime, all evidenced the spectacular failure of the hated Volstead Act, and ensured its repeal in 1933. But from that January in 1919 - a time when even young people could remember the 1800s - all the way into the second decade of the 21st century, Fairfield County had not produced a single drop of legal spirits. Robert Schulten changed nearly 100 years of history when he opened Asylum Distillery in Bridgeport in May of 2016. CTBites decided to drop by. Here's what we saw. Read More
Friday Froth: Half Full Brewery, Oktoberfest & Other Fall Beers Ingredients Recipe Beer Brewery CT Beer Friday Froth James Gribbon September 16, 2016 You may have noticed we've been playing around with the structure of Friday Froth for the past several months. This space has been everything from event coverage, to brewpub openings, to a travel diary, but this week we're going back to something more like a classic Froth. I began writing this column way back in ye olden days of 2009 with the idea of expressing a renaissance. The growth of American craft brewing was every bit as compelling as the culinary scene in terms of new ideas, personalities, and dedication to ingredients and flavors, but most people were still pretty lost when it came to picking out something new to try. Glance at the patrons in front of the craft case at the rare well stocked liquor store at the time, and they'd be wearing expressions like someone at MoMA trying to decide if what they were looking at was the intentional work of an artist, or construction debris. I started Froth just to give people a heads up. So, without going on too long I hope, that's what we're doing today. Read More
Kent Falls Brewing Begins Bottle Sales At The Farm: A First Look Ingredients Restaurant Beer Beer Garden Brewery CT Beer James Gribbon June 03, 2016 If, in an alternate world, you'd bought stock in Kent Falls Brewing Co. the first time you read about the small, Connecticut based brewer here on CTBites, you'd be rich by now. The brewery isn't actually public in the financial sense, but it will welcome the public to its farm in Kent, Conn. for the first time on June 11. Kent Falls beer has previously only been available on tap, in bottles at a few shops, and at single farmer's market. All that changes this summer, and anyone up for a drive to the NW corner will be able to buy it bottled at the source, Saturdays from 11a.m.-5p.m., with a focus on special releases like brewery-only IPAs and barrel aged beers. A special bottle release is planned for the grand opening on the 11th. Kent Falls has seen its popularity skyrocket lately and, as I've said several times before, the beer justifies the acclaim. The announcement of their new retail sales plan ended up being just the push I needed to finally visit their brewery and the working farm in which it's seated. Here is your first look. Read More
