Filtering by Tag: Brewery,Farm to Table

Guide To Our Favorite CT Summer Farm Stands

Ingredients Features Best of CT Farmers Market Farm Stand CT Farms Local Farm Farm to Table

Maddie Phelps

With the glorious warmth that summer brings to Connecticut comes a plethora of delicious fruits, vegetables, and other produce that are sure to highlight any and every meal of the season. If you’re looking to get a taste of the incredible produce CT offers when the temperature is at its hottest, you’ll surely want to make a trip to some local farm stands. As late July is upon us, however, the number of summer days left are ticking away at a startling speed. But fear not; your life just got a little bit easier. Some of the best summer farm stands in the state are listed below, ranging from the eastern most points of Connecticut to down in Fairfield County. All you have to do is find one that catches your eye and take the drive.


Wood Fire Food Custom Catering Events with Chef Dan Sabia

Features Farm Dinner Catering Entertaining Farm to Table CT Farms

Maddie Phelps

When was the last time you thought about where each element of your dinner came from? The plates, the table, the meat, the cups; each item seems to come from an arbitrary supermarket, creating a culture where the process of making and eating food is incredibly solidarity. That, in a nutshell, is why Dan Sabia left the restaurant industry. And now, he’s using his work with wood, fire, and food to change that norm in a world where very few are trying. Chef Dan Sabia is changing the way we think about private catering with his innovative new business, Wood Fire Food.


Bear's Smokehouse BBQ Opens In-House Brewery in New Haven w/ Black Hog Brewing Co

Restaurant Brewery BBQ New Haven Openings Beer CT Beer Live Music

CTbites Team

 Bear’s Restaurant Group, which includes Bear’s Smokehouse BBQ in Windsor, Hartford, and South Windsor, and Blind Pig Pizza in Hartford, today announced the official opening of its in-house brewery. This past week, in partnership with Black Hog Brewing Co., the on-site brewery debuted its first five beers brewed in-house and will now be offering them for consumption on-site or to-go in 32-ounce crowlers.  

Pair these new brews with Bear’s Smokehouse BBQ favorites, smoked in the Kansas-City style that McDonald enjoyed growing up in Kansas City, Missouri. Some of these tasty morsels include: Baby Back Ribs, Pulled Pork, Pulled Chicken, Kielbasa, Turkey, Texas Sausage, Brisket and Burnt Ends served as a Sandwich, Entrée or Combo Plate. 


"Max Chef to Farm" Pop-Up Dinners At The Farm June-August 2019 Schedule

Features Farm Dinner Pop-Up Dinner CT Farms Farm to Table

CTbites Team

Max Chef to Farm, an award-winning group of events that celebrate the amazing food grown in our backyard, is heading into their 12th year. Guests are transported directly to the farm to experience seasonal and local food.  Their dinners are multi-course feasts showcasing the delicious bounty of Connecticut-grown produce and other locally-sourced ingredients prepared on site by Chef Steve Michalewicz of Max Catering & Events, Chef Hunter Morton, Culinary Director of the Max Restaurant Group, and the entire Max Chef to Farm team.

Max Chef to Farm dinners are adventurous events that celebrate and support CT-grown products. Their host farm for most events this season is the 160-acre Rosedale Farms, located in Simsbury, CT. They have many things in common with the Max Restaurant Group including a commitment to using sustainable farming and business practices. Speaking of support...


Connecticut’s Brewery Legitimus & Barden Farm Partner Again for 2nd CSABC (Community Supported Agriculture, Beer & Cheese) Share

Features CSA Local Artisan Local Farm CT Beer Cheese Farm to Table

CTbites Team

Brewery Legitimus, the 7 barrel craft brewery co-founded by husband and wife team Chris and Christina Sayer, is partnering once again with Barden Farm (New Hartford, CT), to bring a Community Supported Agriculture, Beer & Cheese (CSABC) Share to the community.  Back for a second year in a row, the 10-week “Farm, Beer and Cheese Share” begins July 11th and will run until September 12th. 

The first in the area, the CSABC share brings together locally grown produce from Barden Farm, locally crafted beer by Brewery Legitimus, and locally made cheese from several different farms in CT.

A CSABC share membership is $485 for the 10 Weeks and includes Craft Beer from Brewery Legitimus, Cheese and of course a Farm Share from Barden Farm. It works just like a CSA. Here’s what’s included:


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

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.


Hapa Food Truck Opens Restaurant at Decadent Ales Microbrewery

Restaurant Brewery Burgers Tacos Filipino Openings Hawaiian Homepage

Andrew Dominick

Over the past few years, Hapa Food Truck and chef/owner Chris Gonzalez have gained quite the following. I’m guilty of following up a few weightlifting sessions at Crunch Gym with a Hapa Burger or tacos when Gonzalez parked his trucked at the Priceline building. So, yes, I’m a fan just as much as all of you are. But every winter, Hapa goes into hibernation, leaving many of us yearning for warmer weather and his Filipino-Hawaiian inspired food. 

Well, friends, you don’t have to wait for spring and tracking Hapa down just got a whole lot easier. Gonzalez now has a physical Hapa location in Mamaroneck’s new microbrewery, Decadent Ales inside of the popular craft beer store, Half Time


Sneak Peek: Two Roads Brewing Opening $15 million "Area Two" Expansion, March 11th

Restaurant Features Openings Brewery Beer CT Beer

James Gribbon

I love taking people to the tasting room at Two Roads for the first time and showing them all the history you can touch in the place. Feel how the wooden floor is worn down here? This is where decades of workers had to walk to get between the machines of the factory. Look and you can see some of the machines they built and used, just off from the giant mash tuns which rise up through the floor behind the glass. The wooden floor they cut out for the tuns got chopped into pucks and laid down as the bar surface we're leaning on now. Cool, right? The building next door, Two Roads' 25,000 square foot, $15 million dollar expansion, Area Two, is brand new - but it already has plenty of stories to tell.

Area Two will open to the public on Monday, March 11. The new facility is a short walk across the hop yard from the mothership brewery, on the same side of the street. The focus of Area Two is the production of wild, sour, and spontaneously fermented beers. 


East Rock Brewing Company Opens In New Haven

Features New Haven Brewery Openings Beer Dinner CT Beer

James Gribbon

Pull back the hour hand on the clock of geologic time and the land in what was once New Haven begins to fill in. The sandstone rises up, glaciers come and go again in reverse, and the scenery levels off. The view across the water isn't Long Island - the glaciers pulled that land back with them - it's what will become Morocco. Now spin the clock forward again. The continents drift - ice, then not ice again - and the land erodes away until something seems to rise up again: the traprock scarp we know as East Rock. There's a lot of history here, and the newest bit to crop up is East Rock Brewing Company.


Rise Brewing Co: Nitro Cold Brew Coffee Made in CT

Ingredients Features Ingredients Coffee Brewery

CTbites Team

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.


Bailey’s Backyard Offers NEW Market Table Tasting Menu (Wednesdays Only!)

Restaurant Ridgefield Farm to Table American Lunch Homepage

Jessica Ryan

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this charming eatery in the heart of Ridgefield, Bailey’s Backyard first opened its doors nearly 20 years ago as a neighborhood coffee shop before transforming itself into a charming American restaurant with a simple concept; offer exceptional seasonal cuisine in a cozy, relaxed atmosphere. It would soon become a neighborhood hot spot, offering locals a new dining experience.  Several years ago Bailey’s evolved once again and the restaurant is now a farm-to-table establishment with a mission to create a menu based on the freshest local sources. Today meat and produce are still gathered from nearby farms, both in New York and Connecticut, and Seafood is garnered from Connecticut, Massachusetts and the Chesapeake Bay. 

I was recently invited to sample Bailey’s new Market Table Tasting Menu offered every Wednesday night. A new menu is introduced each week, giving diners the opportunity to try something new each time. The menu is Prix Fixe, $40 for four courses or $65 for the four courses and a wine pairing. 


5 Churches Brewing in New Britain: Craft Beer For Pizzaphiles

Restaurant Brewery New Britain CT Beer Pizza Lunch

James Gribbon

One of the greatest advantages of living in New England is our access to autumn. Our home in Connecticut means even if we live in urban convenience, the rural hills and river valleys of our state are a nearby drive away. This proximity gives us one of our best traditions: the fall weekend road trip. We can get out, see what nature has in store for us, and find ourselves in places which fall outside the rhythm and routine of our daily lives. Up towards the center of the state, past the historic colonial homes on Worthington Ridge in Berlin and into New Britain - a city many on the coast may not consider a destination - is 5 Churches Brewing, a place you should. 


Cross Culture Kombucha Opens Kombucha Taproom and Brewery in Danbury

Restaurant Ingredients Brewery Tea And Coffee Danbury Openings

Kristin L. Wolfe

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.


Friday Froth: An ESB Or Three?

Features Beer CT Beer Beer Garden Brewery

James Gribbon

This week we're going to look at some beers which could be confused for the country's least glitzy style, the Extra Special Bitter, or ESB. Most people who had access to beer, legally or not, in the Cro-The problem with taste sensations is their inevitable ubiquity. Like a new song quickly overplayed into agonizing repetition, the new hotness becomes common as mud or lobster mac and cheese. Bloody Mary gimmicks are an excellent example.

Magnon craft beer era of the 1990s will remember Red Hook ESB. It was a good touch bitter, with a sharp roast and a twinge of sweetness to its malt-forward profile. English inspired bones fleshed out by a toddling American craft beer industry, it sold a ton as a delicious change of pace from Bud/Miller/Coors/Molson/Corona, and was to be one of the first brands bought and ruined by "Big Beer," in this case Anheuser-Busch.


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

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?!?"


Sneak Peek at Tribus Beer Co. Opening In Milford

Features Friday Froth Beer CT Beer Brewery

James Gribbon

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.


Podcast: An Interview with Stony Creek Brewery Opening At Foxwoods!

Features Podcast Brewery Openings

Ken Tuccio

Stony Creek is opening up a brewery in Foxwoods. Yes, the casino. It's a big deal … not just for Stony Creek but for the Connecticut beer scene as a whole. Ken Tuccio traveled to Foxwoods to chat with Andy Schwartz from Stony Creek about how this Foxwoods brewery came to be, what it's been like working with Foxwoods and how this could be a great boom for Connecticut beer. Listen here. 


An Interview w/ CT's Thomas Hooker Brewing Co

Features CT Beer Beer Brewery Interview Podcast

Ken Tuccio

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.