On Saturday, join Connecticut & Western Massachusetts Mensa’s own Jim Henke at two handpicked local breweries with a lunch break. Attendees are responsible for arranging their own transportation and paying their own tab. Carpooling is encouraged. Please drive responsibly. Aside from the noon start, these are softish times.
New Park Brewing 485 New Park Ave, West Hartford, CT 06110 – Noon
West Hartford’s first brewery. Cloudscape IPA is the flagship but their Blender series of fruited beers really blew up the can sale scene. They share their building with the Vintage HiFi Museum if you feel like a wander around.
Lunch at Parkville Market 1400 Park St, Hartford, CT 06106 – 1:00 PM
A Food Hall in the style of a Reading Terminal or Faneuil Hall. There are twenty-ish food stands serving multiple styles of food (Brazilian, Jamaican, Salvadoran, Poke, Pizza, BBQ, Nashville Chicken, Ice Cream, Peruvian, Mexican). Twisted Italian has won awards. There is a wine bar on the Park Road side and a beer bar on the parking lot side. Grab your food and we’ll meet in the cocktail bar (“The Local”) upstairs overlooking Park Road.
Hog River Brewing – 2:00 PM.
If you feel like you are in the wrong place, you are probably in the right place. Their street address is 1429 Park St, Hartford, CT 06106 but I think you’re going to want to use 30 Bartholomew Ave, Hartford, CT 06106. The building is directly across the street from Parkville Market. There is a crosswalk but put as much trust in that as you would a dental floss bungee cord. The entrance to the brewery is tucked away in the alley behind 1429 Park Street and to the right of 30 Bartholomew Avenue. Parking is available in the lot on Bartholomew in spots that are not designated for the apartments. You can either park at Parkville Market and walk across to the brewery after lunch or park at the brewery and walk to Parkville Market before lunch (I’m doing the latter). The space used to be a factory and there are a lot of cool old industrial presses and things that people decided were too heavy to move. The building also houses ax throwing, pole dancing and the Curioporium an “immersive haunted shopping experience.”
That officially concludes our tour. If people want to get crazy, WeHa Brewing and Roasting is back near New Park and could make a before or after stop. It makes more sense before the tour but I can’t ask anyone to drink before noon (Do as I say, not as I do). Also, there is a brewery slated to open minutes up the road from the hotel. Dudleytown Brewing has a “2023 Early Spring Target Opening”. As of this writing, they are not open. Will they be open come SNERG Weekend??