Yankee Brew News Archive

What's Brewing: Connecticut

Originally Published: 02/97

By: Gregg Glaser

Mike Gettings, founding partner of New Haven/Elm City Brewing of New Haven, has resigned as an officer and director of the company he helped start in 1989. Gettings is the last of the original partners to leave the company and begin a new venture. He's teamed up with veteran New England brewer and consultant Jack Streich and Hartford-area businessman Bill McCarthy to open the Trout Brook Brewhouse, a 20-barrel microbrewery and restaurant combo in Hartford. Opening in late January, Trout Brook has taken a lease on an 11,000-square-foot, 200-seat former restaurant. Trout Brook will serve a light lager, California-style pale ale, alt, nut brown ale, porter and Czech pilsner as they open, as well as sell to draft accounts in Connecticut. Plans call for opening several Trout Brook restaurants in the Hartford area over the next two years.

The Boston-based John Harvard's Brew House group has new brewpubs planned for Manchester and Westport. The Manchester location, opening at the beginning of the year, is a 219-seat restaurant and will regularly serve nine ales and lagers, including one cask-conditioned ale. Head brewer Rob Leonard, formerly of New Haven Brewing and Blair Potts' Quality Assured Brewing consulting firm, will brew with a 14-barrel PUB brewhouse. The Westport location is scheduled to open in March.

Last November in Hartford the Second Annual Brew-Ho-Ho was held at Union Station's Grand Hall. Sponsored by the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation, the beneficiary of all proceeds from the beer festival, over 1,400 people attended the two-day event, tasting ales and lagers from 23 craft breweries. Eight New England breweries were represented, and the People's Choice award went to Connecticut's Farmington River Brewing for their Mahogany Ale.

The Alewife Grille & Brewery in Glastonbury, along with homebrew shop The Mad Capper, sponsored a homebrew competition last November 23. Winner of the day, with a Russian Imperial Stout, was homebrewer and recent American Brewers Guild graduate, Lee Schlesinger of Stamford. (Any brewery looking for a talented brewer?) Special beers on tap at Alewife for the winter are Haughty Brogue Holiday Ale (a 6.8% ABV beer) and White Chocolate Stout. Alewife is also planning pub crawl tours throughout New England. For a set price of about $50, participants will have breakfast at the Alewife, tour and taste beers at about six brewpubs, travel in a 48-seat limo, receive a T-shirt with the names of all brewpubs visited and the names of everyone on the tour and return to the Alewife for a full dinner. Taxis and shuttle buses will take home anyone not able to drive. The reservations number is 860-659-8686.

Bank Street Brewing Company, Stamford's brewpub, is co-sponsoring the Ninth Annual Southern New England Regional Homebrew Competition, along with homebrew shop Homemade Libations and the Underground Brewers of Connecticut homebrew club. Bank Street's head brewer and partner, Ted Steen, will choose a beer from the competition to brew as a special at Bank Street.

Phil Hopkins, owner of Hartford's brewpub, the Hartford Brewery, reports that his second location, in New Haven, has been renamed once again. Originally called the Pound Sterling Brewery and then the Brewery at Ninth Square, the brewpub's new moniker is the Nutmeg Brewery. The 10-barrel ale brewery is scheduled to open in February. Hopkins has also formed a new trade group, the Connecticut Brewpub Association, for the benefit of Connecticut's burgeoning brewpub owners.

New Haven/Elm City Brewing of New Haven has a new General Manager, Jeff Hook, since the departure of founding partner, Mike Gettings. Hook formerly worked as a rep for Nor'Wester Willamette Valley Brewing of Portland, Oregon. Elm City is stepping up its bottled beer production, brewed under contract at several regional breweries, to include Copper Ale (an alt), Broken English Ale (an ESB), Blackwell Stout, Golden Ale, Connecticut Ale and occasional seasonal beers. Elm City is also issuing a public stock offering early in 1997.

The Bru Rm @ BAR, New Haven's stylish brewpub, is offering several new ales for the winter season: Strong Winter Warmer, Sweet Potato Ale and a cask conditioned bitter.

The Indian Neck Brewery in Branford has had its zoning appeals heard in court and looks forward to opening early in the year. The 10-barrel brewery will produce British and Belgian ales and possibly lagers.

The Post Road Brewing Company, a Waterford brewpub, opened last October 8. Ales on tap include Nautilus Porter, Race Rock ESB, Ledgelight American Blond, Freemont IPA, Mud Head Brown Ale, a barley wine and an alt. The 150-seat restaurant offers casual dining with a full lunch and dinner menu. The 7-barrel brewhouse is headed by brewer Brad Perriello, formerly of the Modern Brewer.

New England Brewing Company, a Norwalk micro, has hired Roger Wutzl, a University of Connecticut MBA with an apprentice brewing credit at Vermont's Catamount Brewery, as the new VP of Operations. New England Brewing will brew a southern-German style hefe weizen later this year with a yeast strain obtained from Germany. This will be the first time the brewery has brewed with a different yeast since operations began in 1988.

Willimantic Brewing Company, a Willimantic brewpub long planned by Main Street Café owners David and Cindy Wollner, opened in January in a renovated 1910 post office. Serving guest beers at first, the brewery's 7-barrel brewhouse is expected to arrive no later than March 1.

Page 6 YBN Connecticut Column Feb-March 1997