CT Breweries/Beers

The dopplebock was a bottle that I bought at a retail store...

 

Relic's IPA's have been very enjoyable and Queen Anne's Revenge, an Imperial Porter is one of the best of the style I've had in some time. Mark is eager to experiment and push the envelope whenever he can as evidenced in most of his beers. Give him more time and I think those who haven't tried Relic or don't like the few they've had will be converted. NEBCO anything is solid. Igor's Dream from Two Roads was an excellent effort and I'm hoping they do fewer pedestrian styles that everyone brews and more interesting palate teasers such as ID. I agree with the general sentiment that quantity does not necessarily mean quality. More breweries are great but more cutting edge brews and flavor complexity is what we all want.

 

Strictly speaking from a business side, how much of total beer consumption are BA users? Probably less than 1%. So while we enjoy our over the top triple IPAs and quad barrel aged barley wines, we are a small minority, vocal yet small. The majority of beer is purchased by someone who is brand loyal and doesn't move around much, so Two Roads is catering to those people.

 

Not sure if anyine has tried Beer'd brewings black ipa but it is awesome! Great citrusy hop profile. Also thier Wit was solid as well. Imp stout was not good. Try the wit and black ipa before writung them off though.
quote="sandman3479, post: 1286584, member: 110799"]I agree with you two as well. NEBCO, then a FAR FAR falloff.

I didn't mind Road 2 Ruin, especially at the bomber pricepoint. Thought the White IPA was terrible, that may have been through dirty lines though.

Also thought that Backeast's Imperial Stout was good for it's pricepoint (9.99/750ml). And yes, Relic could use some work.

Was VERY disappointed with Beer'd Brewings Imperial Stout. Was REALLY light with next to no taste.[/quote]

 

Agree with NEBCO's awesomeness.

I do enjoy Cavarly's brown ale.

 

Here is an article from the Danbury paper about CT breweries;

http://www.newstimes.com/local/article/State-breweries-launch-promo-campaign-4508243.php

 

I really like the Back East Brewing companies porter and I am also looking forward to the release of their summer ale next Friday.

 

Going to Shebeen today. Hoping it's atleast decent.

 

Ha

 

I thought a few of my friends and I were the only ones who...well, now that I really think about it I should have known...

 

Been very impressed with Shebeen's offerings the times I've been there. Creative beers with balance.

 

I thought they were ok. The kolsh was decent, as west their West Coast Pale Ale. Some of my buddies liked the Rye Porter.

The Grape Saison was a huge letdown. The Canoli Beer was an interesting gimmick, but I couldn't imagine drinking more than the 5oz taster they gave me.

Like the place itself though. Pretty good vibe, easy to find, busy but not TOO busy. I'd go again.

 

About Two Roads... I see that most people in this thread simply think that they are OK at best and mainy qualify them as part of a crowd of breweries that are a distant second to NEBCO. But when I look at their beers, they are rated (on this site) better than "just OK" or many of the descriptors used here. Also, the reviews are not too far behind NEBCO beers; versus being a distant second as most people describe in this thread. And while they aren't exceptionally high ratings, breweries and beers that are just OK, should be getting mid to low 70's on their beers, yet the absolute lowest rated beer of theirs is an 81 (good). And I am not looking to see if people in the thread may have been over generous or not in their review versus the opinion that they really walked away with. The whole reason that I mentioned this is because of how many reviews that have on here. For a brewery that has existed for just 5 months, to have multiple beers accumulating 70+ to almost 80 reviews already, is really unusual. I was just wondering how a brewery receives that many reviews over just 5 months that are almost 40% as many reviews as NEBCO's omnipresent Elm City has taken 9 years to get.

I have seen a lot of new breweries come onto this site, many with solid funding and distribution right out the gate and nobody that I have seen has accumulated reviews this rapidly. I am not trying to spin a conspiracy theory here, but just want some insight as to what type of marketing to the BA community has very successfully gotten such a rapidly growing number of reviews and reviews that seem to be disproportionately higher then how people on this site generally speak about the brewery and their beers.

 

two roads is an enormous brewery, and more people casually review than post actively on the NE forum.

 

I tried to make all the relevant qualifiers in that post and included knowing breweries of similar size and distribution that still don't get reviews that rapidly. An easy comparison would be Golden Road in Los Angeles:

http://www.brewbound.com/news/golden-road-growing-capacity-to-60000-barrels

And that is a year old article, to give you an idea of how large they are in a state (CA) that has far more active BA reviewers than CT. Also, Two Roads capacity is being shared for contracted production, which makes the Golden Road comparison very close.

And I am admiring the marketing to the BA community to get reviews so rapidly and reviews that seem exceptionally generous to what I was reading here.

 

i don't know. maybe there's a conspiracy.

 

There was a lot of hype about Phil Markowski taking over with boat loads of money... They opened in a good location, for both access to the brewery and the type of cliental they wanted living near by.

 

The "quick rating" feature has a lot to do with the # of reviews they have. If you look closely they don't have nearly as many full reviews. I think that their high number of reviews is based on the fact that they started off as a new (enormous!) brewery that was visited by a lot of people, and their limited opening portfolio of Two Roads beers only gave you a few options to review. Now that they are pumping out more styles and as their opening hype has slowed I would be surprised if further offerings get the same number of reviews so quickly.

Also, I had a chance to visit Shebeen Brewing and overall I was pleased with the visit. The location in Wolcott wasn't too hard to get to and the brewery itself is a nice size for a start-up. The atmosphere was very pleasant and I really enjoyed the fact that they are pushing creative styles on the CT beer scene. I wasn't blown away by any off their offerings, but most were very solid and the Cannoli Beer was a ton of fun to try! The staff and brewers were enthusiastic and pleasant, and if they stay on their current course I will be happy to support them. So for those who haven't yet visited, pop on over with a couple of friends and enjoy the tasting if you have an hour to kill on the weekend. The prices are REASONABLE too, so grab a growler on your way out. Overall, I'm glad Shebeen has opened and I wish them the best as they continue to help improve our CT beer scene.

 

I also think Two Roads likely has so many reviews because with the money involved they could try things out before they opened and they hit the market with 4 different 12 oz bottled offerings that were very widely available in CT. Almost no start up can pull that off. Throw in that none of these suck and add in the buzz from such a large facility in CT and the number of reviews is not surprising really ...

 

I would argue the White IPA sucks. Sucks might not even be strong enough, actually...