SPRING, AND BEER, ARE IN THE AIR
After COVID halt, Two Roads Brewing continues tradition
STRATFORD — Spring was in the air this week at Two Roads Brewing — and for a moment, so was some delicious beer.
Mayor Laura Hoydick joined CEO Brad Hittle on Thursday to ceremonially tap the year’s first keg of “Herzonner” Maibock beer, echoing an Old World Bavarian tradition.
As “Ride of the Valkyries” boomed on the sound system, a crane hoisted a keg full of the amber lager to the brewery’s second floor taproom, and employees carried it to the bar.
With Hittle holding the tap in place, the mayor swung a wooden mallet — but not hard enough at first, forcing a not insignificant amount of suds to spray and splash.
“Again! Again! Again!” onlookers shouted, as Hoydick followed up with a few more mallet- taps and the spillage was cleaned up.
“Am I ever going to live that down?” she
joked later as dozens of people tasted samples.
Master Brewer and cofounder Phil Markowski said Two Roads has been brewing Maibock, a strong lager created to celebrate the coming of spring, since 2013.
“The Bavarian tradition is that the burgermeister, or the mayor, would tap the first keg,” Markowski said.
It was initially called “Hizzoner,” an irreverent take on “his honor,” because the town’s former mayor was a man. When Hoydick came into office, the name was changed to “Herzzoner.”
And though Thursday’s event was a celebration of spring, after more than a year of a pandemic which forced the cancellation of so many annual gatherings, those in attendance were celebrating all the more.
“This is the greatest day in two years because of stupid COVID,” Hittle said after climbing the bar to begin the ceremony. “This is an awesome ceremony we have normally every year — last year was an aberration and I don’t even want to think about it. We’re moving on from that.”
Hittle thanked the mayor for supporting the business over the years. “I couldn’t ask for a better home for Two Roads than Stratford, Connecticut.”
Hoydick credited the company with being at the forefront of the craft beer movement.
“They’ve been such visionaries,” she said. “They’ve made Stratford the beer capital of Connecticut.”
The company weathered last year’s downturn “well,” Hittle said before the ceremony, “considering the fact that prior to COVID, 40 percent of our sales were made to bars and restaurants. So you can imagine the shock we went through a year ago.”
After those sales dipped, however, the company recouped some of the loss through increased “offpremises” sales to liquor stores.
“Our team here responded beautifully,” Hittle said. “We had some brief periods of pay cuts that everybody accepted and understood, then we very quickly got everybody back because the demand for packaged beer suddenly went way high.
“Overall, the craft beer industry was down about 9 percent in 2020 and we matched that,” he added. “It could have been worse. Because of our products, our team, our distributors, we did better than we thought.”
Markowski said the company planned to open the hopyard between its main facility and its newer Area 2 brewery this weekend, since the state has lifted some restrictions that had limited the number of tables.
“We’ll still have tables distant, but less distant than we did last year,” he said.
The company has a section of its website updating visitors on COVID-19 guidelines.
Markowski said it will ultimately be the customers driving when and how the company re-opens fully.
Outdoor areas will be open weather permitting, with indoor seating continuing by appointment for at least a couple more weeks before more restrictive regulations are lifted May 19.
“Since COVID began and regulations have been altered or slowly lifted incrementally, we’ve never jumped on an exact date,” Markowski said. “We’ll watch how people are responding and reacting and see what they’re comfortable with.”
“We’re like in an airplane,” Hittle said. “The nose was down and now we’re pitching up again. We can see the sky through the clouds and everybody’s super excited about the next few weeks. I’m kind of getting goosebumps thinking about it.”