NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT

Homebrewers Austin Scott and Sean Ricci began crafting beer, March 2018, joining New Haven’s Beeracks collaborative brewing co-operative with Overshores, Armada, Front Porch and Nighthawk around 2022. Working under the guise of HOAX BREWING COMPANY, Scott and Ricci have found local success with well rounded liquid fare and wood-fired pizzas.

An outdoor front deck leads to the front door of the mod-designed tan brick warehouse housing Hoax. The epoxy-floored pub features a slate top 12-seat bar under an enclave (with ten draught handles), three opposing couch booths, windowed purple couches and rear brew tanks. A loft mezzanine area offers further seating. Black exposed pipes and zapped lighting hang from the aluminum ceiling.

My wife and I gathered at Hoax’s Beeracks joint to down a few suds on a cold Friday afternoon, March ’25.

Crushable pilsner-malted House Lager retained easygoing corn-liquored whiskey bent for perfumed orange riffs.

Easygoing blonde ale, Lightening Strike, slid lightly spiced yellow fruiting across mildly perfumed hops.

Ultra-dry pine lacquering coated lemony grapefruit bittering and musky orange oiling as well as floral-perfumed juniper swagger of ‘experimental hopped’ Imperial IPA, Apres Apizza.

Lemon-soured raspberry tartness outdistanced light marshmallow chocolate sweetness of moderately acidic fruited sour, Raspberry Toasted Marshmallow Sleight Of Hand.

Salted raspberry, pineapple and pink guava pucker outdid banana-chipped sweetness of Tropic Thunder, a sassier fruited sour.

Day-old coffee roast stained sugar cookie and vanilla adjuncts as sour cherry seeped thru bitterer-than-sweet pastry stout, Stout Darn Time.

Rich milk-sugared coffee and sweet vanilla creaming got draped by maple syrup for golden stout, Mugsys Morning, leaving wintry cinnamon, nutmeg and cumin spicing on its vanilla coffee stead.