Holy Mother of God, do I love IPAs." Thus did I begin acolumn from my early days as a beer writer here at the Bites of CT, and the bloom has yet to fall off that particular rose. Two of the beers in that review from 2011 aren't around anymore, one remains a permanent favorite, and today is a particularly good day for anyone who shares my adoration of the sainted hop.Happy National IPA Day, everyone.
Here's a quick rundown of a few spots who have reached out and let us know what's on tap. Anoint thy lips.
Burgers, beer, and bourbon are all girders in the framework of the American soul. Melting pot, mixed salad, however you'd like to characterize who we are as a nation, there aren't many spots on the map where our divisions don't disappear at the three Bs. Now that Plan B Burger Bar has officially come to Fairfield, there are fewer areas in Connecticut where all three of these cornerstones can't be had in the same place. CTBites was there a night before the official opening to bring you your first look.
Fairfield's is located at 1262 Post Road, in a 4,600sq. ft. building which used to be a post office.
No. Just no, NYC commissioner of the Department of Health, Mary Bassett - I will not avoid drinking beer on scorching hot summer days. Yes, I will drink some water, because I am not an idiot, but you can take a cold beer from my (still mostly warm), dead hand. Thankfully, this is 'murica, where many a dilapidated package store is hung with signs advertising the coldest beer in town (following Strong Bad's motto: "A One That Isn't Cold Is Scarcely A One At All"), thus saving us all from aloe vera vitamin drinks and the resultant loss of will to live.
A crisp beer on a hot day is a joy forever, as the poet probably said, so this week we're going to check out three hot weather beers, canned for your lawn mower riding, golf bag stuffing, back yard sitting pleasure.
The freshest beer news, delivered weekly, is one of my goals with Friday Froth. Tender, green shoots of hop aroma and flavor, seeded by the brewer, come to full fruition the moment you crack a young IPA, and tend to wilt when left to languish on a shelf. The hop plant is like knowledge that way, reaching its true potential when you use it to water yourself.
Bursting through the dewy soil of Connecticut's beer scene this week was a new leaf in the form of Shower Beer from Kent Falls Brewery. How new are we talking? The five gallon pilot batch sampled by myself and others at the latest Beers At The Beach event in Norwalk was the only one in existence, for now.
A single strawberry means a lot when you're in space. Commodities anywhere are delicacies somewhere, and so it is with beer. IPAs from New England Brewing and Two Roads are practically table beers here, but Sea Hag is a hard get just over the border in New York, and Will Gordoncouldn't even find a Lil Heaven in Massachusetts for his Drunkspin session IPA post. Add trophy hunters and the detestable trend of beer scalping into the market, and even local beers can become endangered species.
Today we're going to look at three beers brewed in New England which still manage to be rare birds in Connecticut. The real life James Bond was an ornithologist, which means he spent a lot of time looking for that short, elusive sighting. Prepare to do the same here, but I've selected three beers which I think are well worth the search.
The first ever Food Truck Rodeo & Music Festival rode into Stamford on June 20th, and a large crowd shrugged off the rain to get their grub on. More than twenty food and beverage trucks ringed Mill River Park, offering a diversity of selections ranging from BBQ, to pizza, Caribbean food, donuts, tacos, lobster rolls, pierogies, and grilled cheese. The coffee truck seemed to be doing a good business on a warm, drizzly day, but visitors were just as likely to be seen with a cup of beer from Blue Point Brewery in one hand and frisbee in the other in the Rodeo's beer garden.
Anyone who missed the Rodeo will get a second chance on July 18, when the food trucks and music return for Party In The Park. Advance tickets are $5, and double to $10 at the door.
The first ever Beers At The Beach micro-fest went down at Calf Pasture Beach in Norwalk earlier this month, and CTBites was there to give you a look. The party's host, Ken Tuccio of the Welcome To Connecticut podcast, created the event to showcase in-state breweries which don't have large distributions, and give people a chance to try the beers and meet the people who make them. The guest of honor on June 11th was Beer'd Brewing of Stonington.
Burgers and hot dogs were provided by Ripka's Beach Cafe as part of the party, and shrimp, clams and oysters were also on ice for bites al fresco. Beer'd took the opportunity to launch their new imperial amber,Get To The Choppa!
I've seen some pretty lazy beer writing on the internet in the last few years. It's sort of a natural outgrowth of macrobrewers and the mainstream media gradually rising from Cthulu-esque slumber and training a gummy eye on what the kids are up to with this whole ($19.6 billion) craft beer fad. Suits being suits, they've tried to jump on the wagon by inventing fake micros, denigrating craft beer drinkers, and generally trying to rastafy their corporate reputation by ten percent. I can abide - and laugh at - Dominos launching an "artisan pizza" line, as it affects me precisely none percent. I'll join others in opening mocking a list of 50 top New England breweries which managed to quarantine the entire state of Connecticut, but when Esquire's beer writer leaves this "turd" on the doorstep, I'm just barely miffed enough to write about it. You deserve better, dammit, so I'm offering a different kind of top ten this week.
"Raygun Gothic," they call it - all pneumatic curves and sleek fins blasting through air and space. This was the look of a future that meant rocket vacations to the moon, a fission reactor in every home, and wristwatch television walkie-talkies. Like Cicely, Alaska, I've always wanted to live there.
Humanity has accomplished some of this - I'm sure at least one of you reading this right now has an iWatch on your wrist - but the dream, the one Huge Gernsback had while writing inside his isolator and thinking about "Vacation City" suspended 20,000 feet in the clouds, is out of reach. Maybe not quite so far as I think, though, thanks to Beavertown Brewing of London, and late of America.
When we last left Friday Froth, your occasionally humble and rapidly expanding host wastalking American Craft Beer Week, and local offerings from OEC, Stony Creek and Stubborn Beauty. We'll continue the furthering rides the Connecticut beer bus this week as we take our minds on a drive to Bristol, Hartford, and Stratford. Buckle up, because it gets heavy.
Life is currently pretty fluid out there on the vast, rolling prairie of American craft beer. Everyone who lays hands on a mash paddle seems to be inventing a new style, or at least melting an existing style down and sculpting it into a new form. Much of this morphology arrives in the world with enough alcohol to sterilize minor gunshot wounds. These come stamped with labels marked "double" or "Imperial," which are largely interchangeable, and just mean "strong."
American Craft Beer Week was last week, and my pants hate me. You'd think massive doses of beer paired with little to no sleep for long periods of time would do a body good, but no. Anyone would tell you that if you'd just listen, but then you'd also have to hear about "healthy decisions" and "getting out of that bulldozer this instant," and anyway I can always buy new pants.
So, I'm fat now and here are some of the beers which left me with a) no regrets in that regard, and b) this red line under my navel.
Stony Creek Dock Time. For the past several years, the tasting room at Two Roads has reigned supreme in Connecticut. It is a massive, brightly lit space which fairly bubbles with history, it has an enormous central bar, and the stools have these bearings in them that let you spin around. Truly a top notch operation. Now, though, dare mention the Two Roads tasting room in any context and people will burst from out of nowhere shouting a chorus of "BUT HAVE YOU BEEN TO STONY CREEK" like it's the "fiiiiive gooold-en riiiiings" part in The Twelve Days of Christmas.
Welcome to Connecticut podcast host Ken Tuccio will debut "Beers At The Beach" at Calf Pasture Beach in Norwalk. The event will be held at Ripka's Beach Cafe, and is designed to be the first in a series of exclusive beer related events featuring breweries that are a bit out of the way if you live in Fairfield County, according to Tuccio.
The first event will featuring Beer'd Brewing from Stonington, and the taps open at 6:30p.m.Advance tickets are $35 ($45 at the door), and include your choice of hamburger, veggie burger, or two hot dogs from Ripka's. Attendance will be capped at 150 people, so it makes sense to get yours early and guarantee yourself a spot to grab a bite, taste beers, and participate in Tuccio's live interview with Aaren Simoncini of Beer'd Brewing.
This event WILL sell out, so we encourage you to purchase your tickets today.
The drinking population, increasingly located in cities as we carve through the invisible gelatin of time's future, has been separated from the earth. Beer taps in brick buildings reflect the light of televisions, and fluorescent light sears our retinas as we grab a shiny cardboard package from metal coolers. We obtain beer from chrome. The paradox is that brewing culture in the extravagantly digital 21st century has begun to bring us a little closer to the farm, and to the inextricable link between agriculture and beer.
Breweries were farms and farms were breweries, for most of human history. People fed themselves with what they grew and raised, but they also drank it, and the beers changed based on whatever crop was in season. We still drink the different styles of beer which resulted from these changes, but now we hardly ever see the farm. That's beginning to change, in food as well as beer.
Life is better when you're among friends, and people have been gathering together over a beer or a beer-like substance for thousands of years now. Everywhere there are humans, we gather in the sun, the shade of palm fronds, or under a warm tavern roof to enjoy a few drinks and catch up on what's new. We host bottle shares and beer festivals and, increasingly, brewers have been working together across brands to combine their experience, just to see what happens.
This week, Friday Froth is going to drink a few of the beers resulting from these evanescent partnerships between breweries. The beers themselves are friendship in a glass.
Apparently today is National Beer Day, so here are my notes from the first time I had Three Floyds Zombie Dust.
*Yep - not a Friday at all, but Tuesdays could stand a bit of Fridayness, anyway.
I have a friend out in Indiana who floated the idea of doing a beer trade; he'd send me some of his state's beer, and I'd send him a few selections from Connecticut. I sent him Sea Hag from New England Brewing and Two Roads Lil Heaven, and made one request of him: "Whatever you send, please send me some Zombie Dust, too." He did not disappoint. What follows is the result, word for word:
Grapefruit hop notes hit from two feet away as soon as it's poured. Barely cloudy amber, head forms and resolves into a thin ring. Big, juicy hops on nose, very fruity. It's hoppy on the tongue like a jungle is green - everywhere and all at once. Far cry from the punch of west coast IPAs. This is a smooth and flavorful pale ale. I want to turn back time and drink it again.
The waiter gave me a look that said "Dude - work with me here," because I was mumbling. It started like this:
Him: "What'll you have?" A perfectly reasonable question, and not an unexpected one, given that I'd just sat down. So I replied:
"Nmm nmm."
"What?"
"Nmm nmm... ee."
And that's when I got the look. So I said it louder, biting off each word:
"Nummy Nummy, please."
Dammit.
Look, I get it - it's fun to name your beer something ridiculous like "Buttface" or "Even More Jesus," but please, I humbly beseech you, the brewers of the world: please don't make it something I'm embarrassed to order in public. That said...
I like to let my face grow its own sweater for the colder months. Having a glossy layer of man-fur dulls the teeth of the winter wind, people seem to like my more avuncular look, and growing a beard takes slightly less work than shaving every day, so technically I'm conserving the planet's resources. You're welcome.
I've noticed the delicate liquid measurements, tweezing of botanicals, and arguing over the perfect shape for a single unit of ice has lead many adherents of cocktail culture to treat their faces like overly manicured topiary. There will always be respect and, above that, love in my heart for those who create finely constructed, strong and delicious cocktails, but an enthusiastic ransacking of my home will never turn up a single tin of mustache wax.
When I met Aaren Simoncini of Beer'd Brewing in Stonington, he was wearing a shirt that said "beer is art"and his beard didn't look like an aluminum foil swan full of lo mein. We nodded at each other and I approached.
One of the best moments of my year, every year, is dusk on spring evening when I first hear peepers. Spring seems - perpetually and annoyingly - to be just around the corner until those tiny frogs let me know it has officially arrived, and winter is finally at its end. We're not quite there yet, not that I've heard, anyhow, so sitting fireside atLittle Pub with a snifter of fresh Peeper from Maine Beer Company is about as close as I'm going to get.
Last Sunday I took a drive up Route 7, but not that far up Rt. 7, to attend the event at Little Pub's middle location in Wilton, roughly between their newest outpost in Cos Cob and their home base in Ridgefield. The reason was an evening of beer and food pairing hosted in conjunction with Maine Beer Co., of Freeport, and emceed by Little Pub personnel Dave "Mr. Beer" Newman and Tim "Fuzzy" Foley. MBC's motto is "Do What's Right" and 1% of the night's proceeds would be donated back to the brewery for use in their philanthropic outreach but, again, I was focused on that Peeper.
What happens when you get the owners and brewers of five Connecticut breweries in the same room at the same time and ask them pointed questions?
There's a scene in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou where Bill Murray, as Zissou, explains documentary filmmaking by saying "Nobody knows what's going to happen. And then we film it. That's the whole concept." I kept on thinking about that line as guests filed into a room at the Two Roads brewery in Stratford and watched Tony Pellino of OEC Brewing, Clement Pellani of Two Roads Brewery, Tyler Jones of Black Hog Brewing, Rich Visco of Shebeen Brewing and Conor Horrigan of Half Full Brewery take their seats in front of live mics. Whatever went down, it would all happen on the record.
On the record, in this case, means the proceedings would be recorded live for Ken Tuccio's Welcome To Connecticut podcast. The weekly podcast highlights businesses and personalities making an impact here in the Constitution State, and has previously broadcast with guests like Jerry Springer, Aaron Sanchez, Oh, Cassius!, the Nutmeg Curling Club, Miss Connecticut, and Anthony Bourdain's Russian sidekick, Zamir Gotta, among many others. The audio of the beer summit will go live on Thursday, March 19 on WelcomeCT.com, but CTBites was right there to bring you a first look.
A snowy night found guests piled into the close confines of 284 Tokeneke Rd. in Darien to sample offerings from the combined menus of Lobstercraft and Bounty food truck. The two outfits have come together to expand their catering services for private parties, weddings and both special events, and we have your first look.
"We thought the surf and turf idea between the best lobster and the best burger would make a great combo," Captain Mike Harden of Lobstercraft told CTBites. "We are working on bringing Bounty under the same roof so you can come to one place and get whatever you like."
Holy Mother of God, do I love IPAs." Thus did I begin acolumn from my early days as a beer writer here at the Bites of CT, and the bloom has yet to fall off that particular rose. Two of the beers in that review from 2011 aren't around anymore, one remains a permanent favorite, and today is a particularly good day for anyone who shares my adoration of the sainted hop.Happy National IPA Day, everyone. 
