After getting knocked out of my first tournament by an 83-year-old geezer who chased his flush and hit it on the river over my flopped set of sevens, I decided to head west about a half-hour from my hotel to the pretty little town of 
Willimantic, CT, and check out the Willimantic Brewing Company brewpub and restaurant. These guys are brewing some great beer here on site in what looked to me to be an old federal building of some sort....in fact it was an old post office building I have now learned that was abandoned by the government and lay vacant for almost thirty years. They have done a beautiful restoration/reinvention process here. Their 60' mahogany bar (photo below) in the pub is truly a thing a beauty. I have to say this is one of the most unique brewpubs I have ever visited - and there have been a lot. Not to mention their beer is outstanding!
Willimantic, CT, and check out the Willimantic Brewing Company brewpub and restaurant. These guys are brewing some great beer here on site in what looked to me to be an old federal building of some sort....in fact it was an old post office building I have now learned that was abandoned by the government and lay vacant for almost thirty years. They have done a beautiful restoration/reinvention process here. Their 60' mahogany bar (photo below) in the pub is truly a thing a beauty. I have to say this is one of the most unique brewpubs I have ever visited - and there have been a lot. Not to mention their beer is outstanding! I started with the Most Wanted IPA and it was deliciously hoppy and smooth. My second choice was the Downtown Willi India Dark Ale (IDA), an extremely inventive and well-crafted dark beer that maintains a nice hoppy aroma and flavor despite it's appearance. I have only seen this style of beer done one other time and that is from Terrapin Brewing in Athens, GA, which they call their India Bro
wn Ale. This IDA wasn't as nutty at the Terrapin, so definitely not an exact replica. I would have liked to sample more of their nice selection of beers including another IPA that had on tap, but I just couldn't and drive back to my hotel because this is real beer being produced here that packs a real wallop.
wn Ale. This IDA wasn't as nutty at the Terrapin, so definitely not an exact replica. I would have liked to sample more of their nice selection of beers including another IPA that had on tap, but I just couldn't and drive back to my hotel because this is real beer being produced here that packs a real wallop.Day 2 found me at the nearby Mohegan Sun Casino after another unispiring run on the Fozwoods poker tables. The Mohegan is a newer casino and is quite beautiful, and while they do have a nice poker room, they weren't running any tournaments that caught my interest that day, but they did boast a brewpub on the premesis. Before I sought it out I sat down at a great burger bar for lunch called Bobby's Burger Palace. Yummo! The Italian-style burger I had was delicous and the double bonus was they had a couple of microbrews on tap as well. I tried the Ten Penny Ale from East Hartford's Olde Burnside Brewing. It was a dynamite Scotch Ale strong in body and taste.
After lunch I located the Mohegan Sun Brewpub. It's located in the casino's race book area, so you have to navigate around old gamblers hacking up their lungs between cigarette drags while squinting at horses racing on a TV screen...I just don't get it, but, hey, to each his own. The beer is actually brewed on site and while their two meager selections available - a lager and an ale - weren't anything real inventive, they weren't half bad in terms of taste. And that was an opinion I formed before I found out the generous tastings I had been given were free and included a small complimentary tasting glass. You gotta love casinos giving away baubles hoping to get bullion in return. They call their lager Thunder Moon. The ale was called Sachem Ale. Weirdest thing was that the bartender showed me a letter from the brewer stating that both of these beers had been changed fairly drastically in style. The Sachem went from a cream ale to a pale ale, and Thunder Moon went from lager characteristics to pilsner? Well, why keep the same name
? Might be a casino copyright thing
, who knows. I do appreciate the effort of Mohegan to create and endorse craft beer ( a site more than Foxwoods which had nothing available that I saw other than the mass produced beers of the "sheeple").
? Might be a casino copyright thing
, who knows. I do appreciate the effort of Mohegan to create and endorse craft beer ( a site more than Foxwoods which had nothing available that I saw other than the mass produced beers of the "sheeple").Day 3 of the short trip saw me packing up and heading back west to Hartford for my afternoon flight. My plan was to stop at a brewpub near the airport called The Cambridge House for lunch and have a few beers before my flight, but that was halted by the fact that the place is closed on Mondays. It was Monday, July 5th, of course, and I feel very forturnate to have found the City Steam Cafe and Brewery in downtown Hartford thanks to a speedy internet search and even more lucky to see that it was open on this federal holiday because basically the rest of Hartford was closed up tight. Man, it was like the biggest ghost town in the world. Even most other restaurants were closed. I was the first one in the door at 11:30 AM, but before long a few others drifted in for lunch and a brew or two as well. City Steam went from being a hasty substitute to actually being a great find on my beer journeys. A beautiful non-chain pub in the bottom floor of a historic building with a beer and food menu that was very, very good. I did a five-sample of draughts (photo below) and have nothing bad to say about any of them. They were as follows: The Naughty Nurse Amber Ale, The Alcapulco Gold Summer IPA, The Innocent Ale, The Careless Love Ale and their Summer Stout. I absolutely loved the Innocent Ale (front row, left) which was bascially a nice, hoppy pale ale, and would usually have ordered that as my full pint, but the Alcapulco Gold Summer IPA was so unique that I just had to try more. This was an IPA almost gold in color like a pilsner (back row, middle) and light to the taste yet still holding on to that hoppy flavor that IPA's are known for. This is beautiful, creative brewing in my opinion. I was very impressed. The Summer Stout was si
milar in fashion by being light to the taste (still dark in color - hey, it's a stout) but still retaining that smokey flavor you are looking for in a stout. My barkeep, Justin, was very knowledgeable in beer and we traded favorite microbrew brands. He drives to Florida about once a year he said and I gave him some southern brews to be on the lookout for while he was down our way. He gave me my pint for free "for coming so far to try our beer" but I just turned around and gave it back to him in a tip. Again, what a lucky and great find.
milar in fashion by being light to the taste (still dark in color - hey, it's a stout) but still retaining that smokey flavor you are looking for in a stout. My barkeep, Justin, was very knowledgeable in beer and we traded favorite microbrew brands. He drives to Florida about once a year he said and I gave him some southern brews to be on the lookout for while he was down our way. He gave me my pint for free "for coming so far to try our beer" but I just turned around and gave it back to him in a tip. Again, what a lucky and great find.I expected the lines in the Hartford Airport check-in and security to be worse than they were for the end of a holiday weekend, so I had plenty of time to kill waiting on my flight to take off. Right past security is the Black Bear Tavern, so I ambled up to see if they had anything interesting on tap. Bingo! An excellent selection for a airport bar with several regional brews on tap like Harpoon IPA out of Boston which is in my Top Ten List. They had three brews I had not had before and I knocked them off one after the other followed by a big plate of "Irish nachos" - these were quite similar to the "durty fries" I used to have at my beloved (and now sadly defunct) Durty Nelly's Irish Pub in Chattanooga. The first beer was Wolaver's Organic Oatmeal Stout - good the last dark organic drop! This product is from Otter Creek Brewing in Vermont. That brewery name reminded me of my last trip up this way involving me, the Providence, Rhode Island airport, a long layover, Otter Creek Beer and a slurred call to my wife telling her that I only had to have two more to get a free glass! Yep, I still got the glass!
Next was m
y biggest disappointment, beer-wise, of the trip. It was Blue Point Brewing's Toasted Lager which is a medal-winning beer from this New York brewery, and a favorite among the bartenders there, but I thought it tasted like soap. Just not for my palette I guess. Yuck! I had to chase that bad taste away with a blonde hooker...no wait, check that, it was a Hooker Blonde...whew, that was close! Hooker Brewing is a Connecticut-based brewery that I had heard about and even considered trying to tour while in the area but the limited tour times conflicted with my poker playing - tsk, tsk. The blonde, of course, is a summer wheat which was as good as can be for a wheat beer in my opinion since it isn't my favorite style of brewing. I asked for and added an orange slice to it more to help kill the taste of the previous beer than to aid the taste of this one. Speaking of airports, I also had an Obrycki's Amber Lager during a layover at BWI on the up. Nothing great, but not a bad brew for a place known for their crabs, not their beer.
y biggest disappointment, beer-wise, of the trip. It was Blue Point Brewing's Toasted Lager which is a medal-winning beer from this New York brewery, and a favorite among the bartenders there, but I thought it tasted like soap. Just not for my palette I guess. Yuck! I had to chase that bad taste away with a blonde hooker...no wait, check that, it was a Hooker Blonde...whew, that was close! Hooker Brewing is a Connecticut-based brewery that I had heard about and even considered trying to tour while in the area but the limited tour times conflicted with my poker playing - tsk, tsk. The blonde, of course, is a summer wheat which was as good as can be for a wheat beer in my opinion since it isn't my favorite style of brewing. I asked for and added an orange slice to it more to help kill the taste of the previous beer than to aid the taste of this one. Speaking of airports, I also had an Obrycki's Amber Lager during a layover at BWI on the up. Nothing great, but not a bad brew for a place known for their crabs, not their beer.Overall, a good beer trip to Connecticut. Definitely better than the poker where I had no success at all. But such is that game and now that I know it's an easy drive to Foxwoods and Mohegan from the Hartford Airport and that there is good beer around to sooth me if need be, I will more than likely return someday to this area and get re-connected again with the poker and the beer.
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