Leave it to our friends to host a 1-night camping trip in Rhode Island. But thats ok, there is plenty of beer off I-95 North to be had for our one night. We’ve got four stops on the agenda today and potentially a fifth is time allows.
Milford Point Brewing Company (Milford, CT)
Conveniently located off exit 40 on I-95 North, in a small industrial park is Milford’s 3-month old brewery. Milford Point Brewing Company of Milford, CT is a tiny 3-barrel brewery that opened on National Beer Day (April 7th). Despite not being able to sell full pints or flights, as there is no customer bathroom on premise, this small brewery has no problem stocking out of beer and according to Chris (brewer/owner).
Because they’re not allowed to sell fights yet, the tasting is free for the time being. There are four drafts available, so we “sampled” all four and settled on a growler of crowd pleasing liquid for our camping friends. The Pond Point Lager was a basic lager for the Craig Rolands of Milford. The West Shore DIPA hits the 8% mark, but was a bit more bitter than we would have liked.
The Silver Sands IPA was more our style with the perfect amount of mosaic. Tied for our favorite of the flight, and winner of a growler purchase was the ever crowd pleasing wheat style beer. Devon Wheat is a bit hoppier than your average wheat brew however, so wheat lovers be aware and try before you buy. But since I’m a hop head, I certainly enjoyed it more, and even Melissa appreciated the near perfect amount of dry hopping. According to Chris, Devon Wheat may no longer be dry hopped after this run as it seemingly displeased wheat drinkers. So I’m thinking keep a regular wheat, and make the dry hop formula a variant for the rest of us.
Milford Point is currently working on getting their bathroom up and running so they can upgrade the license; but we do not have an ETA on that. In the meantime swing on by for a free sample and don’t forget to grab a growler of the Silver Sands or the Devon Wheat. We expect good thing from Chris when we visit next time; so our preliminary rating is certainly subject to change next time we visit. This baby brewery earns a solid 3.25 out of 5.
Front Porch Brewery (Wallingford, CT)
In the first deviation of the day, Front Porch Brewery of Wallingford, CT is another baby brewery working off of a 1-barrel system and has been open since November of 2017. With only a 1-barrel system, this brewery has to crank out beer 2-3x a week just to keep pace with consumption in house and their local distribution. If beer isn’t your style, they also offer a wide selection of whiskeys which are by the glass or in flight form at reasonable pricing. Also a guest cider on tap from NE Cider Company which is conveniently down the road. If you’re in the area, definitely check New England Cider Company because there are some great and potent ciders.
The first thing we noticed about Front Porch was the prevalence of nerd culture: Chalkboard Rick, stocked N64, a real arcade style House of the Dead, racks of board games and Monday night Magic the Gathering club. This brewery was made by people like me, for people like me. And then we looked at the beer and realized they brewed to Melissa’s flavor profile.
Crepuscular: adjective – Zoology – Becoming active at twilight or before sunrise, as do bats and certain insects and birds. Apparently Melissa knew this was a word, and laughed at me when I couldn’t pronounce the word while trying to order the beer. Which by the way was a sour stout that we’re still not sure if we liked or not. The flavor was weird. It had a stout nose, tart front and malty chocolate backend. We really didn’t know what to make of it.
Finger Guns: Is a sour IPA that drank more like a farmhouse than an IPA. They used a strain of lacto (which previously wreaked havoc in their lines not longer than two months ago) which gave it the funk and they used a modest amount of Huell Melon hops which have a relatively mild alpha; reducing the bitter normally associated with the style. To be honest I was a tad disappointed.
Anemoia: A grisette beer is a poor man’s saison according to the internet. There was nothing really defining about the beer other than a few hints of spice. It was a good drink, but was certainly weaker in flavor than Finger Guns, and less tart than Crepuscular.
Parti Gal #4: The clear winner was our gal the Berlinner. Heavy notes of Kiwi and Strawberry came through with just enough sour to not outshine the fruit flavors. We haven’t met the other three, but if they were anything like #4, this series is certainly worth your time and money.
The deviation to Front Porch set us back a good 40 minutes to the campsite, but it was well worth the stop. If you show up on Monday, pack a Black Lotus and bring your A game because the house threw down a 4.25 out of 5.
Fat Orange Cat Brew Co. (East Hampton, CT)
We finally made it to Fat Orange Cat Brew Co (FoC) of East Hampton, CT. This brewery, for all intents and purposes, is in the middle of nowhere. However, there is a huge cult following/hype train behind this small, open seasonally, only open on Saturday and Sunday, brewery that we just had to see for ourselves.
The parking lot is jam packed an hour before last call (5 on Saturday/3 on Sunday), the tap room is a barn, there is occupied lawn furniture everywhere. We park the car and notice some some goats, and chickens, a wall full of cat pictures and we finally begin to understand the oasis appeal of the brewery. Sadly, the OG FoC, Billy has passed on but clearly still drink to his memory. Crazy enough the beer here is a $5 beer flight of four and you get to keep your very own FoC tulip glass.
Our top four were the Dont Like Mondays, Jalapeno Jack, Hop Secret and Breakfast in Bed. Dont Like Mondays is a citrus IPA (8.1%, so DIPA maybe?) that claims to have blueberry flavor; but we didn’t really taste it. We did notice the sweet profile; perhaps overly sweetened for an IPA. We thought we would be switching direction with the Jalapeno Jack; but in a surprising twist we did not. Jack is a pepper cream ale without a whole lot of Jalapeno kick; which may or may not be a good thing if you were expecting some heat. I hail from the land of God Complex which I cite often as my baseline for spicy beer; and this rates closer to a 2 out of 10 in terms of spice. The flavor however shines perfectly; a well executed cream ale with a veggie aroma and crisp jalapeno flavor. I imagine it would pair perfectly with fajitas.
Hop Secret is a murky DIPA if there ever was one. The body was so unfiltered you could probably call it chewy or chunky, but the citrus was out in full force; a real juice bomb. The winner of the tasting was Breakfast in Bed; a maple coffee stout (like you had to ask). Thicc maple, thicc coffee, thicc breakfast.
Last call has sounded, daylight is burning, a campsite is waiting so we grabbed two 4-packs and headed out. FoC might be in the middle of nowhere, but we understand the hype behind it now. Great beer, great atmosphere. The Fat Orange Cat has 8 remaining lives out of 9.
The Return Trip
Two for one brewery parking spaces are great! In the cozy town of Norwich, CT you will find one of those parking spaces for our next two breweries; Epicure and These Guys. They are even on the same street, on the same block about 50 feet apart making our jobs super easy today.
Epicure Brewing (Norwich, CT)
The Thursday through Sunday brewery serves up flights of 6 from it’s 16 tap handle capacity in a large, newly renovated, industrial feeling brick building in the middle of the downtown. There were 10 brews available for us to try today on our return trip from RI; so we grabbed a flight of the most interesting 6 and went to work.
In order of least to most favorite we had the Stay Pretty Blonde Ale, Damned Yankee IPA, BDubs Pale Ale, Lightning Struck Twice Oatmeal Stout, GBGB Rodenzok Sour Cherry Ale and the Little Coat DIPA. Stay Pretty was a run of the mill blonde that was lightly hopped; nothing crazy here. Damned Yankee IPA was not my favorite IPA of the flight but it has one of the more interesting stories we’ve seen for a beer so here is a copy-paste from Untappd:
“The beer is named after an event involving the notorious traitor, who was once an amazing patriot, Benedict Arnold. Benedict was born in Norwich. Prior to the war, Arnold was running a successful trading business. On a trip in Honduras, he angered a British sea captain named Croskie. When he went to apologize, the Englishman denounced him as “a damned Yankee, destitute of good manners.” Arnold demanded satisfaction, and the following day they squared off with pistols. Croskie shot first and missed. Arnold upon grazing Croksie’s arm, exclaimed “if you miss this time, I shall kill you!” Croskie apologized. This beer does not apologize for what she is.”
BDubs was not named after a famous American Patriot-turned-traitor; but a pup who had passed away in 2014. This citrus pale had notes of mango in the palate and resin (pine) in the nose. Lightning Struck twice Oatmeal Stout is a hearty beer, but not the thickest we’ve had as of late. The beer was certainly malty and there was no absence of flavor; but there was also no unique character to the profile making the stout just average in comparison.
GBGB Rodenzok Sour Cherry was Melissa’s number one pick of the flight; obviously. The kettle soured (See last paragraph here) beer was another in memoriam and was a touch too sour for my taste but hit just right for Melissa. We both agreed that the the cherry flavor was a tad too weak or the sour was just too strong and overpowering; either way we would like to taste more cherry from the next batch. The DIPA, Little Coat, was the main attraction in my opinion. Served up at a gentle 8.5%, the citrus and earthy blend imperial just hit all the right spots and I certainly recommend a glass. And yes, this beer was also brewed in remembrance of someone; the late comedian Chris Farley.
Epicure Brewing makes some all around good beers. The craziest of the bunch, Rodenzok, could be improved upon in our opinions, but I don’t think a beerventurer will find much else here. In memory of Epicure, we placed 3.5 flowers out of 5.
These Guys Brewing Company (Norwich, CT)
On the same block and 50 feet down the road from Epicure is These Guys Brewing Company; a brewpub with a great lunch assortment and a full liquor bar for your friends who don’t drink beer. The busy brewpub had 11 of their own beers on draft, and another 5 guest taps including one cider. We did a flight of 4 + 1 extra.
From least to most favorite we had the Prom Night, Blonde Berry Ale, Jeanne’s Dream Apricot Wheat, Power of Women and Coco Kaiser. Prom night is a flaked corn cream ale sitting at an extremely low 15 IBU; great for the anti-hop crowd. The Blonde Berry Ale is a strawberry puree, cascade hopped blonde that was too modest in flavor. The single hop profile provided a nice mild spice, slight citrus bitter that worked well on it’s own and maybe too well. The strawberry flavor was M.I.A.
Jeanne’s Dream Apricot Wheat fell into the same trap that the berry ale did; not enough fruit. When advertising a beer with fruit characteristics, the beer really should follow through on the promise otherwise expectations fall short. This seems to be todays problem.
Power of Women was a Falconers Flight and Equinox hop IPA to benefit the “Pink Boots Society” (https://www.pinkbootssociety.org/) which supports women entering the brewing profession. We had to look up the hop as I’m pretty sure this was our first encounter with Falconers. Falconers Flight hops are very exclusive; solely produced to honor a brewing legend, Glen Hay Falconer. Proceeds from the purchase of Falconers Flight hops support the Glen Falconer Foundation (http://glenfalconerfoundation.org/) which has been providing brewer scholarships since 2004.
Coco Kaiser was our best in show from These Guys Brewing Company. This 9% Imperial Stout had a creamy body, and a bold coconut taste. The one thing that needed to be toned down from this full bodied stout was the overt boozy notes. While we appreciate a stiff drink from time to time, Coco went full Wilhelm and really detracted from the rest of the otherwise perfect stout.
These guys get it. They have beer, liquor, food, and an aesthetically pleasing venue to serve it all up. The beer, like Epicure before it, was all well made but nothing really to draw a large detour off 95 if you’re traveling through that way. Let’s raise a glass to those guys and give them 3.5 cheers out of 5.
