Somehow all of our Saturday plans this weekend got cancelled at the last minute. After way too many weeks of consecutive travel and last weekend's stomach bug, I was secretly relieved to have a whole day to ourselves. My coworker had told me about Two Road's Brewery in Stratford - a quick 30 minute train ride from Stamford (1.5 hrs from NYC). You text them two hours before you plan to arrive and the "12-pack," their custom vintage mini-bus, comes to pick you up at the train station!
They were testing Saturday tours every half hour instead of on the hour, so we lucked out and ended up the only two people on the tour. This also meant that the two of us had two full growlers to polish off... ended up a pretty tipsy little Saturday ;)
I've been on a bunch of brewery, vineyard, and whiskey tours, and I will say this one was almost my favorite, second only to our private tour of Woodford Reserve lead by their master distiller. Not sure I'll ever top that one! Our tour guide, Laura, was extremely knowledgable about Two Roads AND beer in general. The Two Roads Brewery itself was totally up my alley - they are housed in a converted metal factory that had been in operation making staples, nails, and even button fasteners for Levi Strauss from 1906 until 2008! The 100 year-old maple floors were to die for! After our hour-long tour wrapped up, we ended up hanging out at their bar until sunset. I was surprised to see that their bar seems to be a destination in it's self - it was packed! They also have a rotation of foodtrucks that camp out their every weekend. We didn't get a chance to try the wood-fired pizza that was there on Saturday but it looked amazing!
Two Roads, lead by the marketing mastermind responsible for the revival of Pabst Blue Ribbon as the utlimate hipster beer, brews and packages a full line of beers under their namesake label. They are ALSO the "surrogate mother" of tons of other popular beers you've probably heard of - Peak Organic, City Steam, and the infamous Sip of Sunshine to name a few. I was shocked to hear that have only been in business for a little less than three years. Pretty cool to see another Connecticut-based business growing so fast. I highly recommend paying them a visit!
1700 Stratford Ave.
Stratford, Conn. 06615
Text for a ride from Stratford Train Station: 203-449-1425