Fox Farm Brewery

The road in tries to warn you. Speed limits dropping in stages like someone is slowly turning down the volume on civilization, farms materializing on either side with the ancient indifference of things that predate your entire value system, and then the pavement just gives up entirely. Gravel. Dirt. Rocks. The rental car making sounds that are absolutely not covered under the agreement you signed at Logan without reading. You rattle through it and the property detonates in front of you, green and open and aggressively photogenic, the kind of place that looks like it was assembled by people who understood that beauty is a liability and built it anyway.

The population had self-organized into two factions and there was no neutral ground. Faction one: children, small, operating at a frequency that should require federal licensing, ricocheting off every surface with the pure kinetic joy of creatures who have not yet learned consequences. Faction two: adults who had made their peace with the afternoon approximately three pints ago and were now conducting themselves accordingly. I moved between them like a foreign correspondent who had landed in a country whose war he did not start and did not intend to finish.

The cask ales saved my life. Welly arrived first, a proper British bitter, cold and honest and completely unbothered by everything happening around it. The kind of beer that sits in your hand and radiates the particular calm of something that has been made the same way for three hundred years and has no interest in your opinions about it. Then Barmy, a Burton ale, fuller and deeper, the sort of thing you drink and briefly understand why entire empires were built around access to this specific water profile. Real britbonger stuff. The kind of beers that make you grip the glass a little tighter and feel quietly angry that we spent fifteen years chasing haze and forgot these existed.

Cans were acquired with the systematic efficiency of a man who has done the suitcase math, knows exactly where the fifty pound ceiling is, and intends to approach it with scientific precision.

I sat in the Connecticut sun and watched the lawn faction achieve full derangement and I thought, not for the first time on this trip, that I was watching something true about the human animal. The need to be outside. The need to be slightly too loud. The need to spill something. I felt the pull of it. I spend most of my life being the loudest, most unhinged presence in any given room and this was my furlough from that particular duty. So I went inside instead, found the bar, and talked baseball with locals who needed someone to argue with. Yankees-Sox. I offered the west coast angle. They received it with the polite bafflement of people who know, on a theoretical level, that other baseball teams exist out there somewhere beyond the treeline.

Fox Farm is what happens when people who understand beer also understand land. Go when the sun is out. Drink the cask first. Leave with more cans than you planned. Try not to join the lawn.

 

great vibe with the farm location - on a nice day people were sitting around outside enjoying the weather. inside there is a service bar and then some wooden tables on the first and upper floors. Great mix of traditional style beers and modern IPAs. They have a streamlined online ordering system and you can order by the individual can so easy to get a good mix of to-go beer.

Week after Memorial Day Connecticut weekend bounce around, what to do what to do what to do. Well, obviously Fox Farm (again), ‘cause we really love the place, that’s why. I’ve got to tell you, it ain’t easy gettings to. But then, working for it makes the beer taste better, am I right? It’s kind of jamming this afternoon, as well a late Spring Saturday beautiful day ought to be…

Farmhouse looking building, silo and all. Enter in, bar to the left, a table or two & bar counter space off to the right, and the brewery space to the rear. Concrete floors, white painted walls over vertical wood plank lowers, and horizontal wood ceiling & upstairs walls. It’s just clean, neat, & simplistic.

‘L’ shaped wood plank topped bar with a dark panel base framed wrapping around to barback counter. Seating for none; get your beer, then stand clear. A row of a dozen shovel handled taps on a box row on barback center + 2 Lukrs on a standup cylinder alongside (if you like that sort of thing), and a gravity pour barrel in the corner today, hooray! Tap selections are printed on horizontal boards on the barback wall in 3 rows (beer, style, ABV, full & half pour pricing as applicable), with windows in between the tap board rows. Cans & bottles displayed shelved on the end. Caged filament bulb lighting tracing the bar. Merch & Em books on the far wall.

Get your beer and then head upside or outside. Damn, it smells of new wood up here in the mez today; our seating reserved, away from decent folks. We got that 4-seater next to the window and the breeze is, how do you say, awesome. Some 6 set ups here; chairs, tables, chairs, milk jug, tables with chairs, etc. Wood railings with steel bar spindles 4 sides around. Drop pan lamps and a center spinny + lanterny lamps mounted. It’s a cool little mezzanine. Strangely, the other tables are empty and there’s nobody else up here. Too nice a day to be inside, I suppose.

Block slate patio, a few tables umbrella’d up. Barrels and seating and lawn just to sit on and set up. Lots of space out here. There’s that cool looking building over there (me, pointing) where barrels probably live if I had to guess, and some smaller ‘time out’ shed like structures.

Okay, so 13 beers up today. A real nice mix of easy drinking and crispys (Tiddly, English Style Dark Mild, 3.8%; Pip, 10P Lager, 4.2%; The Cabin, Smoked Helles Lager, 5.3%; Bower, Kolsch Style Ale, 5.3%; Gather, German Style Pils, 5.5%; Stet, Dusseldorf Style Altbier, 5.6%), Farmhouse (Rove, Farmhouse Pale Ale, 5%; Susurrus, Farmhouse Ale with Sumac, Yarrow, Black Raspberries & Blackberries, 5.4%; Avalonia: Black, Ale aged in wine barrels w/Black Raspberries & Blackberries, 5.6%), hop (Tussle, APA, 5.5%; Pora, IPA, 6.8%; Burst, IPA, 7%), and roast (Woodline, Oatmeal Stout, 8.3%). Great Caesar’s ghost! The Cabin, Smoked Helles & Tiddly, English Style Dark Mild are on Lukr, and Bower, Kolsch Style Ale, is on a gravity pour.

I may get into some shortys, just sayin’. Tiddly, English Style Dark Mild, had to start here, nutty, malty, toasty, toffee, love; Stet, Duddeldorf Style Altbier, brown bready, malty, roasty, delicious, I’m down with the German Brown; Woodline, Oatmeal Stout, a big, rich, chewy sonofabitch with no apologies or adjunct bullshit; Bower, Kolsch Style Ale, clean, lightly fruity, slightly bitter, absolute fire; Pip, 10P Lager, crisp, dry, earth, grainy, really goddamn good; Avalonia: Black Ale aged in wine barrels, vinous, jammy, kind of totally fucking crazy Lambrusco; and oh, two IPAs? How are they different? Excellent question. Pora was all Riwaka & Burst was a 5 hop IPA (not telling which hops they are). Went with Pora and damn, dank, citrus, just wonderful. Tiddly, Stet, Woodline, & Pip for the wins but there are no clunkers here.

Good beer begets a crowd of good beer drinkers who want to drink said good beer. Service is always on point (Oh, hey Dave). A beautiful day, chill crowd, light tunes, excellent beers. Fun fact; they’re the best brewery in Connecticut. I am constantly amazed by this place, well worth the bit of a trip it is to get out here to see the what what.

 

 

 

 

Beautiful place nestled in the woods in the wilds of Connecticut. Love the brewery's woodwork, very comfortable place to hang and have a top-shelf brew. Don't quite understand why there's a 2 beer limit, but it wasn't an issue for me as I was getting beer to-go.

 

Wonderful and relaxed spot. Not particularly large, but as the name suggests, it's very laid back and rustic. Appointments are available online, or you can simply grab a spot on the lawn (with plenty of flowers and friendly bees).

Draught list is split three ways: traditional lagers, IPAs, and farmhouse ales (including sours). This means that while whatever beer(s) drew you to Fox Farm in the first place may not be on tap, you're pretty much guaranteed to find a style you like. And they just so happen to do every style very well (although their specialty are, without a doubt, their phenomenal lagers and farmhouse ales).

Love the beer; love the ambiance. There's very little to complain about here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my happy place. Relaxing, clean, friendly and a great selection of beer. It's nice to have a mini version of HF closer to me.

 

 

 

 

Not a lot of diversity. Strict 2 beer limit. Otherwise it’s a great spot! Great outside area. Definitely worth a visit!

Fox Farm beer has always been one of my favorites, so it was marvelous to visit the brewery & try their beers fresh off the tap. My parents came along with me, & they weren't as much of a fan as myself, but they were just discovering the joys of craft beer & a nice hazy IPA, so I don't let it bother me. It had a pretty cool vibe, definitely a clean interior. The beer was great but in retrospect I should have picked up a bottle of their Witch Meadow. Instead I came home with a four pack of Graze tallboy cans, which I had over my vacation week. I hope to make another visit to their brewery soon. The staff seemed fairly friendly (but serious) so hope they will loosen up a little. Cheers friends!

 

Super friendly and helpful staff. They helped provide full descriptions of the beer and were really knowledgeable. All of their beers are done well and the ones I’ve been down on are merely because I am not a fan of a particular hops. They usually have a wide style of beers available to go and on tap. I went on a Friday around three so it was a little quiet. I had my two pours and left just as it was picking up. There was an upstairs that admittedly I didn’t check out but it seemed a little out of place for me. You had to keep going up and down a decent flight of stairs to get yours pours. Obviously anything that generates more seating is typically a bonus so this is nitpicking I suppose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is how Connecticut should be regarded. The surrounding area has an old world feel and the barn itself lends to that description. Once inside I was really impressed with the quality of the woodwork and the construction of the building. Place was very clean and the staff was present. A comfortable place to enjoy there beer. Will have to return.

 

 

Fox Farm is tremendous in every way. Great beer, great people, great location. It has a terrific vibe, easy to get beer whether tasting or getting a growler fill. An exceptional brewery already and should get even better!