Fox Farm Brewery (2021)

The barn that houses the taproom and the brew house (and coolship) was the existing structure. They built the barrel building. The small structure in front of the barrel house were there, used for chickens I think.

 

Thinking of making a trip down there from Central Mass next week. Is there any place near FF to get solid New Haven style pizza for dinner afterward? Google maps shows one option but it looks like it's inside a casino, which doesn't interest us.

 

Not knowing exactly where you are in Central MA, but there's a Frank Pepe in Manchester which is likely not terribly out of the way if your return is up Route 2 towards Hartford. If your return was up 395 then totally out of your way. Others may have more, but generally speaking true NH style pizza doesn't make it far from NH / Hamden area. It might seem like NH style further out but short of the Pepes joints, it isn't.

 

Thank you. We'll be heading back up 395. Maybe we'll just have to make a separate trip to CT for pizza.

 

Very, very nice story.

 

And, in case anyone is wondering, I’m traveling for the next one of these long-ass bad boy reads in Sept. Not revealing who/where though.

 

There is a Frank Pepe at Mohegan Sun, so not terribly far but it’s a casino FWIW. Damnit now I am hungry…

 

Brick and Basil in Norwich. Not apizza but damn fine pizza and your best option if you don't want Pepes in the casino.

 

As a failed journalist, I appreciate your gift of word. That was excellently written. Almost like a love letter to the brewery itself.

 

It's important for me to express that having good beer doesn't necessarily make me want to write a story about a place. I feel like that's the problem with beer journalism (and, to be quite honest, journalism in general) is that stories are approached like, "I like the IPAs a lot at this place I want to write about them."

There's a story at Fox Farm. It's about the land and the culture at the place. That, to me, was the draw over the beer, which is excellent. In fact, I even made a scouting trip down to Salem to see if there was anything there, story-wise. I figured worst case scenario I'd come home with good beer.

 

This part of the story is the best part of the story. Good stuff.

 

I could definitely feel your appreciation for the grounds and the people there than the beer itself. I just stopped there for the first time last month and didn’t get to stay a fraction of the time I’d have liked to so it was nice to read about how it all came together and know I’m spending my money at a place the people put real love into their product.

For 4,000 words, and reading at 1:30am and almost 10 hours into my 16 hour shift at my job, it was a breeze to read and very engrossing. You’re a talented writer for sure. Cheers

 

His piece made me miss writing incredibly, I’m not gonna lie. It certainly doesn’t hurt that it was excellently written. I wrote for two major newspapers back in the day and chose the “safe” route of a job in transit with a pension as opposed to possibly, always, chasing it as a writer. I actually did both jobs for like 5-6 years, pre-kids. It probably was the right choice but I still think about that choice often.

Back in 2011-12 I was doing my own little column for the front page for a message board that was sports (especially NFL football) driven. They wanted any content possible so I started doing this thing I called “What I’m drinking (and why you should care)” and the guy running the SEO told me I was getting 3,000 hits a piece. My dumb ass had no idea what that meant but he told me that was pretty impressive considering we were new.

About a year in, and 8 or 9 beer pieces written myself (I was doing EPL footie and NFL scandal stuff too) we got hacked twice and the guy designing the site said he was done with it and that was my career as a beer writer.

I read a piece like what Matt wrote and that’s what a well articulated and well researched story should look like.

 

Super kind of you to say.

I actually cut my teeth on sports writing. I was a sports editor at a small weekly out in So. Cal that folded, bounced around the freelance circuit out there and have been doing it here for almost a decade now. I miss writing about sports and I would be doing it if it was an option. But it's almost impossible now to get the access to the stories you need unless you're employed by a major publication. Closest I came was Vice Sports when it was in its heyday. RIP to that beautiful site.

 

Not to sidetrack the thread (any more than I already have, hehe) but I did read your bio too at the bottom of the page. We’d get along famously, you being a Boston sports enthusiast and me being a Jets fan

I wrote for the Poughkeepsie Journal and for Newsday doing high school sports and sports medicine type stuff. That feels like a lifetime ago though now. Please link anything you write when you write it. Thanks for sharing.

 

Sons of bitches turned me down for an internship way back when! I love Long Island. Spent too many nights down at the bar across the street from Hofstra. Now we spent our visits out on the North Fork or down on Long Beach.

 

Haha, that’s a big step up from those Hofstra bars, for sure.

 

Are they growing grain or other stuff they use in the beer there? I feel like most of the story was about how the property was kind of abandoned and the previous owners (e.g. Jackie Robinson's widow). There are breweries that...you know...actually use their land to contribute to their beer. I get that there are numerous ways to talk about land, but I think that my mind goes more with estate grain/produce and the terroir for the sense of place.

 

I don’t think anything is grown on-site, but they do purchase “most” of the grapes from his in-laws farm. I believe most of the malt is purchased from Thrall in Windsor or Valley Malt. The fruits is all sourced, as far as I can recall, on the same road.