GROTON, CONNECTICUT

Following the success of its Stonington pub at American Velvet Mill, BEER’D BREWING COMPANY opened “The Silo” in nearby Groton’s Airport Business Park during January, 2020. Inside a gray aluminum cement-floored warehouse with large beige silo and casual front deck, the pristine black-walled Industrial art deco pub features a slate top, 12-seat, slate top bar containing 24 tap handles and black pendant lighting.

There are several tables and chairs fronting the bar and a few cool canvassed mod art designs hanging sparsely along the walls. The distinct Beer’d insignia sits across from the bar.

Producing 6,000 gallons of beer yearly at Groton’s 12,000 square-foot operation will increase production threefold for convivial entrepreneurial partners, Aaren Simoncini and Precious Putnam.

My wife and I stumbled upon four previously untried beers on my initial November ’21 stopover.

Stylishly offbeat, quirkily fruited, Huell Melon/ Mandarina Bavaria-hopped pilsner, Connecticut Casual, plied salty grapefruit-pineapple bittering to lemony sour-candied Gummy Bear tartness above its straw-dried bohemian pilsner malt floor.

Dry Imperial IPA, Riff, let floral grapefruit-peeled orange pith bittering and lacquered pineapple-passionfruit-mango tropicalia pick up musky herbal pining and slight grassy hop astringency above glass-candied crystal malting.

Cold-brewed coffee infiltrated P^2 (with Coffee), a full-bodied java-based cold one with cocoa-smoked roasted chocolate grazing tobacco-chawed bittering.

Nutty roasted espresso beaning led Russian Imperial Stout, Roulette, a rich nightcap with dark cocoa and black coffee riffs settling above tarry hop-charred oats.