PLAINVILLE, CONNECTICUT

Just a few short miles south of Hartford lies garage-like RELIC BREWING, a tiny nanobrewery centering an industrial mall in Plainville, Connecticut. Opened around February 2012 by entrepreneurial spirit, Mark Sigman, Relic typically serves samplers and fills growlers on site during Friday evenings from 5 to 7 PM. And that’s when I stopped in for a quick May sojourn.

A dozen local denizens wait on line as Sigman and a few female assistants keep busy pouring a…

 On tap at Copper Mine, astounding dry-bodied stout maintains extraordinary Malawi coffee roast, embittering and overpowering ancillary dark chocolate creaminess and peppery hop char. Espresso notes abound, enhancing all-encompassing coffee theme. An undeniable after dinner relaxer.  

Understated English Pale Ale retains delicate caramel malting, mild mandarin orange tartness and gentle hop-spiced fizz. Minty herbal tinge detected.

Subtly rewarding Belgian-styled tripel soft enough to be labeled a blond. Billowy-tongued sourdough malting brings baguette, barley biscuit, French bread and buttered crumpet tones to the fore. Carbolic fizz tickles delicate grassy-hopped citric spicing. Lemon-candied peach wisp embeds honeyed wheat base and sweet corn reminder.  

Casual sessionable moderate body punctuates dry-wooded Chinook hops with prickly grapefruit-peeled bittering to biscuit-y wheat backdrop. Lemon rind, green grape and apple illusions fade in and out of salty bottom.

Subdued session ale in a can retains dry soft-toned nature. Delicate hop-spiced fruiting stays just beneath helles lager-like honeyed biscuit surface. Effervescent apricot, pink grapefruit, pineapple and orange tang sweetens almond-toasted caramel malting. Metallic twang brings minor astringency to pleasant light body.

Debatable cherry-soured American Wild Ale with Flemish Red Ale leanings (and labeled a Belgian kriek) lacks efficient carbolic nature but scores points as a brettanomyces-laden Sour Ale. Aged in oak barrels, its tart cherry pucker gets underscored by cork-y cider dryness, vinous green grape tannins, raspberry vinaigrette musk and frisky white-peppered snip. Leathery farmhouse funk saddles oaken cherry theme.

Gruff Eastern European-styled corn-grained malt liquor astringency and burly Dutch-like pungent bitterness softened precipitously by doughy yeast sweetness. Grassy-hopped husked wheat dryness contrasts perfumed citrus mildness and mild floral nuance to biscuit-y bottom. Sessionable lawnmower fodder. 

Wayward altbier with ‘crisp German lager’ tendencies and a ‘hoppy pale ale punch’ brings ‘brown ale malt backbone’ to nebulous nutty finish. Acrid phenol astringency overrides any taciturn flavoring. Ashy peanut-shelled oiling negates frail walnut-hazelnut-pecan pinch as mired mocha malting dissipates. Crusty burnt bread reminder seeps into dirty earthen graining.

Everlasting piney-hopped grapefruit rind bittering sticks to spice-malted tongue. Tropical pineapple-mango conflux and apple-peach undertones sweeten resinous hop oils. Wispy floral potpourri serenades citric juicing. A hop-head delight.