When in Connecticut do what craft beer fans of Connecticut would do and find some local craft breweries! Yeah, I know, Two Roads, but there's so much more to the craft beer scene of Connecticut beyond that one massive beer campus. Case in point: Tribus Beer Co., a solid brewing establishment that my buddies and I visited not too long ago with positive results.
Well, mostly positive. To start, you'll drive a bit off the beaten path to get to this industrial-ish looking area, but once there, Tribus is housing a pretty spacious interior with plenty of tables, bar seats, a whole separate back area with games (arcade/table top) and a section that definitely looks like it'll be opened up to good ol' Mother Nature once the weather cooperates.
Beyond the setup, let's jump into the most important thing, beer! Fifteen brews lined the beer list wall on that frigid January day with plenty of style variation to choose from. Now let's play the pro/con game. Starting negatively, a con about Tribus is the lack of a classic flight. This makes it a little harder to try all these beers. The pro? A 5oz taster will only set you back a couple of dollars (most are $3/$4).
Not being the driver that day, but also knowing that we were going to be hitting up Two Roads after this stop (sorry, Tribus), I only had three of these tasters for myself. Luckily, my buddies got a few different ones from my own choices and so we were able to sample around half of the available beers. "Dipped" was one of them, a chocolate cherry sour that had a really exquisite balance between sweet and tart. After that one, we did dabble with "Milk Down" (chocolate milk stout), "Aw Ye Beb" (helles lager), "Lil' Boozy" (session imperial stout) and "After Party" (fruity IPA), though none of these were truly memorable. Don't get me wrong, they weren't bad, but I'd probably order some of the other choices next time and steer away from those.
There was one more beer we tasted. Just as we were getting ready to finish up for the afternoon, one of my buddies saw the description and color of another beer on the list. It's name was "Brick" and it was supposed to hold some juicy, subtle, hoppy flavors. Intrigued, I split one more 5oz with mi amigo and with that first sip my eyes lit up with happiness...okay, maybe they didn't, but dang, "Brick", you were tasty. So tasty that we bought a four pack of cans to experience at a later time and date (still got a few hanging around). With cans in hand, it was a positive ending to the first leg of this beer adventure.
Overall, Tribus Beer Co. didn't blow me away with some of their beers, but a few of them were definitely memorable. Plus, anytime you walk away with cans says something about the beer being made. We didn't get to try all of the suds on tap that day and with the nice digs and decent pricing, tentatively consider this round one in an eventual return to Tribus in the future. More craft beer awaits in Connecticut! Well, one of these days... read more