Local CT brewer and beer recommendations

Tree House is in MA, not CT.

 

Yes, but for many of us in CT (Not Fairfield County as the OP mentioned) Tree House still considered a local brewery if you're looking for top quality brews.

 

I understand, but OP was asking for CT Breweries, TH is not one of them.

 

FWIW

Now I still wouldn't consider Tree House local to Fairfield by any stretch....Plan Bee in Fishkill though would probably qualify.

 

thats fine that the specific request was for "CT" breweries, As I stated there are only 2 worth mentioning. New england brewing, and Tree house. even if you live in fairfield county, or just at the boarder of NY, TH and NEBCO are the only 2 worth spending any money at. while the geographical location isn't in the boundaries of CT, its the only thing worth drinking around here. the rest is a waste of time. you may be able to enjoy it but your money is better spent at these establishment. drinking local is not defined as drinking in your specific state. to me TH is more local then nebco. I choose to only support these two establishments as they have a bottom up approach to the business, and both have been hustling to be where they are. all these new breweries that keep popping up are just flooding the market with garbage. theres way to many breweries in CT that suck and are a waste of space and resources. if your not striving to brew beer like these two mentioned, why bother in the first place.

 

"all these new breweries that keep popping up are just flooding the market with garbage. theres way to many breweries in CT that suck and are a waste of space and resources."

Some are bad, some are good, some are excellent. Your generalized statement is ridiculous.

 

To each there own, spend your money how you'd like.

 

lets make a less general statement to clear things up. in terms of general revanue available in the beer market today you are looking at a very specific population. this population of alcohol consumers is divided up into sub categories: booze, wine, then beer. so already the amount of money available to be made in this industry is limited. couple that with the fierce competition from the beer brewing giants how sell complete crap ingredient, GMO, canned sorry excuse for a beer, when looking at the profit available in the craft beer your looking at a small percentage from the beer drinkers. less then 50% for sure. on top of that, we have supper large breweries kicking out awesome beers. founders, GI, stone ect that get imported from out of state. these have a large presence in the craft beer section, and sell quality products. that takes up a large precent of profit available for craft beer drinkers in this state away from local breweries. so for example while I did not mention back east brewing, it is a perfect example of a brewery that IMHO is not brewing better beers then founders, who have a porter on the shelf for the better half of the year, likely for a better price as well, in my store its in the same cooler.

just the other day I was talking to this woman who is planning on getting a lone to start a brewery. she has never heard of tree house, new england brewing, AKA the real competition. she said her pale ale won an award in a chili cook off beer competition (I assumed the one in east hartford every year). she indicated that her beer was selected to be the best of the bunch of dozens including yin ling . she told me they (her and her husband) were in the process of taking the loan out and were looking at sites to open this place up. 1 in vernon, and 1 some where coastal. she said the one in vernon did have the space they were looking for and said they want bigger. I said how much space do you need? she said that the place didn't have enough room for the large tap room they planned to open, which will hurt they're business because the business model is that people will come to the tap room, drink some pints and then buy a growler to take home. kind of like, there was no way people would buy they're beer unless they were buzzed. how these people get through the door is beyond me. but anyway I digress. you see whats happening here?

last year I was at modern pizza in new haven grabbing some grub before going to NEBCO. I overheard a meeting behind me taking place between a few guys who I learned had the space, money, and were deep into the works of opening up the brewery. This meeting was more or less a meeting in which somebody else not in the partnership was explaining to them how much beer they could make with they're equipment, and the basics of brewing. these 2 guys had no idea. they had money, brewed a home brew, and had a dream. does this sound like a sound business plan?

it is a known fact that the market is inflated with crappy beer, in the end it will fold on itself and these crappy breweries will flip over on their heads. the problem is it hurts the good local breweries i.e. money taking out of their percentage profits from the market due to confusion from the consumers, market saturation.

indeed there exists a different tier of breweries in CT then I mentioned. dozens of flat out horrible beer, less then a dozen decent beer (that is not any better then out of state breweries available on the shelf) and 2 breweries with stand out beer that have had great success in the industry, and have worked hard through all this bull shit. NEBCO is top quality and they've been hustling for years. tree house hasn't been around in the market tha tong, but they're business story is touching. last time I was they're the guy was telling of a story how when they first started brewing beer, they're goal was to be featured at arms by abby. that was the end, extent of the dream. no huge brewery, no large tap room. they opened up a brewery in two sheds pushed together and started slinging growlers. BOOM their shit is fire!

 

I agree with a lot you said by my god man, you're spelling and punctuation gives me a headache.

 

Haha that funny. I think it's like the BA catch to point out grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in users posts. For what it's worth I wasent preparing an essay, and my BA posts at 5am from my cell phone are not reflective of my English, writing and literature course grades from uconn which are all -A, 3.7 gpa overall. In fact I've taken the general university requirements for writing intensive courses, and several other courses which grades depended on only in class writting essays on spot from multiple text readings over a semester, plus the GRE. I guess I'm in the minority here but I usually don't proof read my BA posts over before I post. Like for instance in that last sentence on my phone I typed prof, my phone corrected it to proff. I caught it quickly and changed it to proof.

Not sure if anybody has heard of the phenomena such as auto correct on cell phones, inaccurate hitting of keys on cell phone key board combined with auto correct can create a totally different word than was originally stated. Comon people!

Ps pleae don't mistaken my post as hasteful, more or less it's meant to be comical. I'm glad we can see eye to eye on these serious issues in my message through my incoherent gargon.

 

Could not have summed it up better. NEBCO is certainly my favorite CT brewer, but Beer'd has some outstanding IPAs. I would add in The Cask Republic in New Haven and Eli Cannons in Middletown as places to check out in the area. Also, Tree House is just over the CT border in MA and definitely worth the drive!

 

I don't like to be the grammar cop...but I will say that "gargon", as well as you listing your GPA and supposed writing qualifications had me laughing pretty hard. Yikes.

 

This is the space where I was going to leave a comment.

 

I really do want to just add one thing and it isn't in objection to anything said in particular. I fucking love Nebco and anyone who knows me knows that and knows how much I love the brewery and how much I love them as people. But, Nebco wasn't always the Nebco it is today. Their beer wasn't as good as it is now years back. Who's to say one or 2 of the breweries who aren't churning out ISO quality beer won't improve over time and experience the success Nebco is experiencing now?

 

And you - and who else - are the arbiters of what is crappy beer? I have an opinion, so do a million others. C'mon, just because BA agrees a beer is either terrible or fantastic, has almost (not none, but almost) no bearing on the ultimate success of that local brewer. One thing I think you forgot: more people are being exposed to craft beer than ever before. And most of that "craft beer" is still better than the swill they have been drinking, even those many of us agree it is not good.

Look, there is mediocre beer everywhere. Who decides who succeeds long term? Not people on BA, that's for sure. We are the outliers. The public has mediocre taste. THAT is a known fact. Distribution, marketing, and other factors will determine who succeeds and who fails. It would be GREAT if the only factor was the quality of the beer. But we all know that's not the case.

The breweries that make terrible beer will fail. The breweries that make mediocre beer have a decent chance (unfortunately) IF they can reach the general public who have mediocre tastes. The breweries that make exceptional beer cannot, currently, keep up with demand (NEBCo, Beer'd) locally. OEC was a top ten location on untappd today...nationally. Whoa. But you know what? The vast, vast majority of people will never, ever go to OEC and will never try their beer. My point: success is determined by many different factors, not just quality. Two Roads will be and is hugely successful. I think most of their beer (except special releases) is mediocre. But the general public loves them. And I'm happy for them.

So those anecdotal stories you shared about overhearing conversations...so what? Every Joe Blow who ever home brewed a clone recipe thinks their beer is the shit. And their friends think so too. Let them open a brewery. The market will determine if they're successful. And the market is much, much bigger than people on BA.

 

everybody has their own opinion, however the vast majority of people can clearly see that half the crap isn't better then stuff put out by inbev, which is at a cheeper rate. I can tell you more anecdotal stories regarding wine drinkers, booze drinkers, and inbev lovers being turned off by local beer when tasting the breweries near me… so what? if you think that craft beer holds more in the market share than any other alcoholic beverage, your plain wrong. look at the statistics, maybe in small areas there is an influx however this is only a local phenomena. you guys can have all the crappy beer its ok with me. and if my opinion differs from yours and it rustles your jimmies then good. get used to it. in this diverse world we live in today, you should be used to it by now. or you can post about how MY OPINION isn't true, because it differs from yours.

and apperantly I'm not alone with my feelings:
http://refrigerators.reviewed.com/features/is-a-bubble-brewing-in-the-craft-beer-industry
http://myslightobsession.com/2014/04/15/craft-beers-explosive-future/
http://www.steadyserv.com/craft-beer-industry-saturation-or-market-gain/
http://www.businessinsider.com/alchemist-craft-beer-market-boom-bubble-outlook-2013-12


the point I bring to the table is, currently in CT today the top 2 industries are Chinese food, and brewing beer . in my geographical location there are 4 breweries within 15 miles, all of them are garbage. one of them opened up a year ago. garbage. there are chinese take out places across the street from each other selling the same crap, maybe 7 total in my town. they all suck. so who cares right. fuck it theres crap all over the place. this is a pretty crappy state with super high taxes, one of the top 5 in the country.

 

I went to Firefly Hollow on Friday afternoon for the first time. I highly recommend people put this one on their radar. Real cool atmosphere, good people and great beer. They had a smoked hop brown ale on cask that was fabulous and their Cone Flakes IIPA was great as well. Rumor has it they will be canning in the near future. My prediction is that canned Cone Flakes is going to be highly sought after. It's much better than Pallet Mallet, that's for sure, but not quite up to NEBCO's best, but in the future, who knows....

 

some tl;dr rants above, but i take it they're contentious? meh.

my recommendation since it doesn't seem to have been made yet:

http://steadyhabitbrewing.com/
http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/steady-habit-brewing.248490/
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/37514/

really impressive stuff.

other than that,

NEBCO (amazing beer)

willibrew (great food, generally good beer with some misses)

stubborn beauty (seemed hit or miss when they opened but showed real talent; want to try again)

beer'd (haven't tried yet, but i've heard great things)

olde burnside (good food beer, 10penny, and their occasional barrel aged beer or sour beer is nice. 10penny reserve is nice too)

 

I agree, I'd also put Firefly up there with Beer'd, OEC, and Nebco as breweries to take time and see in CT. Steady Habit is a new brewery that is in Haddam CT, and they are doing GREAT things... If anyone hasn't already, you got to check out what they are doing! It is just a matter of time before they catch fire.
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/37514/