Moving on. We got on the road at 11 in the morning. Go us! What a civilized way to travel. Getting up, puttering around, doing whatever needed doing without hurrying, keeping stress to a minimum. Yay low stress!
The drive was uneventful. Yippee! There are some really bad drivers out there. Then again, some people may think that I am a bad driver. And I am sure we all have our bad driving moments. My GPS took us on an adventure, which I think it thinks I like. Which I do. Instead of taking the interstate from MA to CT, it took us on little back roads to beautiful Bloomfield, CT. Huzzah! Interesting scenery, less gas usage. Mom kept exclaiming over all the churches. That is a good thing.
We got to the Thomas Hooker Brewing Company about an hour early. I had been anticipating a lot of traffic that just never materialized. They were very kind and let us in early for their bi-weekly open house. Mom and I sat on the sofa and watched them prepare. The owner, Curt, kindly brought me a bottle of their IPA, fresh from their new bottling line. In fact just bottled a few minutes before he handed it to me - the label was still wet! Decent example of the style, too! I met Mike, one of the brewers, Stephen, a worker and Lisa, their sales and marketing person. All very nice. The deal was - $10 (some of which goes to charity) for a tasting glass - well, a tasting plastic cup. One can taste for 3 hours if one so desires. When you leave, you trade your plastic cup for a Thomas Hooker Pint glass. Not a bad deal. They also had pizza for sale.
I tasted all the styles they had available - I think there were seven. The standout was their watermelon ale! Yum city! Their Irish Red was pretty good too. Nothing really bad, which is good. I would definitely try anything they made.
We stayed for about an hour after the open house opened. Then off to our next destination - City Steam Brewery Cafe. Karl (my brother and the reason for our trip to CT) called as we were parking to check in. Turns out that he had frequented the City Steam BC when he was getting his nursing degree. Small world.
Caitlin was our server and was very personable (high praise, by the way). She acceded to our every whim and was never away for long without hovering. The manager didn't even come out to say hello when I asked to see him - which left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Oh well, I don't have to include every brewpub that I go to in my book. I am sure there are other brewpubs in Connecticut that will be more eager. We shall see. Anyway, we had yummy food - mom had swordfish (though there was too much "glop" on it for her tastes) and I had prosciutto chicken which was tasty. And a taster of five of their seven beers. The standout here was their farmhouse ale. I even went so far as to have a pint of that. Very good!
Then, after a long day, we found our way to the Vernon Comfort Inn and went to bed. And to sleep almost immediately. Zzzzzzzz
Pictures from July 15, 2011:
Four of Thomas Hooker's taps - one of which was the watermelon ale!
The rings on the paper show which beers I got samples of. Yippee!
Our lovely room!
No comments:
Post a Comment