Yankee Brew News Archive

Brewpub Review: The BrŸ Rm. at BAR

Originally Published: 06/96

By: Gregg Glaser

The BrŸ Rm. at BAR, one of Connecticut's newest brewpubs, opened for business last February 17 in downtown New Haven. To get a handle on the place, you have to go back to about 1991 when owners Randy Hoder and Stuart Press opened BAR.

Hoder, 36, a history graduate from Bates College, was living in New Haven and working as a designer of homes and commercial buildings. "I was going to night clubs that I thought were really bad," says Hoder, "and waiting in line to get into them. I thought there was a need in New Haven for a new type of club, and I loved the idea of designing one." Hoder and Press found a space they liked, secured a lease and held it while they raised the money necessary to renovate and equip their club.

BAR, a night spot where the action doesn't really begin until after 11:00 p.m., is divided into three rooms. The front room includes a bar, several long beer-drinking tables, a free pool table and large floor-to-ceiling glass garage doors that can be opened in summer. The music played over the large speakers is kept at a level where conversation can be held, and the play list is comparable to what you'd hear on a good FM rock station.

The middle room at BAR is a quiet lounge with overstuffed couches and soft lighting. The back room is purely for dancing. There's another bar, humongous speakers all over the place and a giant dance floor. "This room is built to move you," says Hoder. "We wanted to separate things so that there would be a place to talk and socialize apart from the loudness of the dancing room." Outside behind the dance floor is a large deck - with another bar, of course--for summertime use.

Hoder and Press never installed a kitchen at BAR, so until The BrŸ Rm. was built, food had never been a part of their business. "We thought a great way to do more business would be to expand our hours, and that adding food would be the way to do that," says Hoder. "I've always been a lover of good beer, and I thought that brewing beer would be a natural adjunct to what we did here."

The BrŸ Rm. is located on the opposite side of the building from the three rooms that make up BAR. It's a much quieter space. When you walk in the hallway entrance, you turn right for The BrŸ Rm. and left for BAR. "The BrŸ Rm. is getting a slightly older crowd than BAR," says Hoder. "Here we see more professional people, especially at lunch, and a lot of Yale graduate students. Also, with the opening of The BrŸ Rm. it's the first time we've ever had families and children in the place. We now have high chairs and booster seats."

The BrŸ Rm. was a parking garage in an earlier life. Hoder put his design talent to work and created an attractive room that combines elements of industrial technology with the warmth and coziness of a pub. Hoder explains his design theory for The BrŸ Rm.: "When you contrast something that's very refined and very beautiful with something that's more rugged, industrial or decrepit, it brings out the beauty of both through the contrast."

The gleaming copper brew kettle and mash/lauter tun (a 10-barrel Liquid Assets system) sit on a raised steel platform on the floor of the restaurant. An unpainted brick wall is behind the equipment. Fifteen-foot ceilings are constructed of wide beam wooden planks, from which fans hang. The front wall, facing the street, is made of floor-to-ceiling steel sash windows (not able to open like those in the front room of BAR), and a small area of unpainted brick wall. Off to one side of the room are three booths with tables and booth backs made of mahogany. Three blackboards are mounted on the wall behind the booths, with a colored chalk mural running between them. The current picture is a Renoir-like scene of people drinking beer in a field of grain. A catwalk above the booths holds five, 10-barrel serving tanks for The BrŸ Rm. beer, and mahogany tables with leather chairs make up the center of the room.

Behind a large three-sided bar is the most striking design element of the room. This is a huge wall made of Indian sandstone called "glowing zebra" stone. Two-foot by two-foot rough cut slates of varied and muted colors add a wonderful warmth to the room. And just to accentuate his industrial v. modern design, Hoder placed a large, old exhaust fan smack in the middle of this wall. The effect is striking.

In the back, on the main floor, is a brick oven for pizza, and another bar. Two 10-barrel and two 20-barrel fermenters sit in the front room of BAR, across the hallway.

The house beers are served throughout all the rooms of BAR and The BrŸ Rm., as well as commercial beers in the BAR bars. But Hoder says that since they've started brewing their own beers, sales of the commercial brews have fallen off dramatically. Guinness, Bass, Pilsner Urquell, Rolling Rock, Newcastle and Miller Lite are on tap, along with about twenty bottled beers, but most customers have switched over to the five BrŸ Rm beers.

What are The BrŸ Rm. beers? They're all ales, for starters. BAR Blonde is a clean, mild, malty ale of a low gravity (8¡ Plato) brewed with a touch of Munich malt and Liberty hops in the finish. Pale Ale is fruity and hoppy with great hop bitterness and aroma. Brewed to an original gravity of 12.4¡ Plato, Pale Ale is finished with Mount Hood hops and dry hopped with Goldings and Crystal (a new American variety). AmBAR Ale (14¡ Plato) is malty, with a touch of Mount Hood hops in the finish. Damn Good Stout is a creamy stout with a great head and lovely lacing on the glass. It has a big malt middle (15.5¡ Plato) that nicely carries the roasted barley.

The first seasonal special at The BrŸ Rm. (long gone by now, but scheduled to return next Fall) was Sweet Potato Ale (12.4¡ Plato), a nutmeg- and vanilla-spiced ale often mistaken for being a pumpkin ale. Unpeeled sweet potatoes were roasted in the brick pizza oven and mashed with the grains. Other seasonal specials slated to appear are Maple Oat Ale, Rose Petal Ale and Apricot Wheat. All the beers tasted at The BrŸ Rm. in February were exceptionally well made.

The BrŸ Rm. brewing facility and the first recipes were designed and formulated by Connecticut brewer Blair Potts. Potts, now VP of brewing operations at Norwalk's New England Brewing Company, was a founding partner and the original head brewer at New Haven's Elm City Brewing Company (originally New Haven Brewing.) Head brewers at The BrŸ Rm. are Jeff Shannon, a longtime homebrewer and a Ph.D. candidate at Yale in yeast genetics, and Don Reardon, an electrician and an old friend of Hoder's.

Beer prices are $5.50 for a sampler tray, $2.50 for a half-pint, $3.75 for a pint and $11.00 for a pitcher. Ten single malt Scotches, priced from $5.50 to $12.50 a glass, are also available. BrŸ Rm. birch beer, soda, juices, milk and coffee are served, as well. Extremely tasty, thin crust brick oven pizza (white or red with lots of toppings to choose from) range in price from $4.00 to $10.50. Salad ($5.50) is also served.

The BrŸ Rm. is open for lunch six days a week (there's no lunch on Mondays) and dinner nightly. On Friday and Saturdays after 10:00 p.m. there is a $6.00 cover charge to enter BAR and The BrŸ Rm. The night club and brewpub are located at 254 Crown Street in New Haven. Call 203-495-8924 for more information.

Photo caption:

The quasi-surreal photo adorning the invitation to New Haven's BrŸ Rm. hints that this is not your average New England brewpub.

Pull quote:

The BrŸ Rm. was a parking garage in an earlier life.

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THE BRÜ RM. at BAR