Light-roast coffee tones pick up mild nuttiness, dark-roast hop oiling and raw molasses bittering. Freeze-dried coffee finish gains black chocolate sway.
All posts by John Fortunato
BLACK POND OLD PUT IN A BARREL
Dry Milan & Greene whiskey barrel-aged brown ale coalesces dewy peat soiling with barleycorn sour mash, rye molasses breading and cocoa bean sedation before flattening out to tannic red-wined black grape musk.
BLACK POND MACHU PICCHU JALAPENO SAISON
Green jalapeno chili peppering intensively heats up moderate-bodied, yellow cleared, flat headed sour saison. Lemony acidity and green grape vinegaring add bitter edge above leathery barnyard acridity.
BLACK POND HOLD MY JUICEBOX NEW ENGLAND IPA
Straightforward Mosaic-Amarillo-Simcoe-hopped NEIPA offers mellow yellow grapefruit zing and pineapple-salted guava, passionfruit and guava tartness to lightly embittered dry wood tones.
BLACK POND MOVES NEW ENGLAND IPA
Light ‘n lively dry-bodied NEIPA loads sharply spiced yellow grapefruit, pineapple and peach zesting atop pale malt sugaring. Gentle citric bittering retains mild floral-daubed pine resin.
BLACK POND TEARS OF AMBER ALE
Tosted amber graining occupies (nearly) harsh red-orange-yellow fruiting and astringent leafy hops, picking up sour whims knocking back desolate caramelized sweetness.
BLACK POND HELLA LITE LAGER
Dry ‘American light lager” places pilsner-malted rice adjunct alongside raw-honeyed straw grain astringency to its bready sourdough base. Mild orange oiled green grape tartness and wispy plantain snips waver.
BLACK POND FOAM ECONOMICS PILSNER
Easygoing straw-hazed pils lets Saaz/Loral hop combo provide delicate lemon spiced spritz and grassy wood tones for musky wet grained oated pilsner malt stead. Slight corn liquor snip as it warms.
TWELVE PERCENT BEER PROJECT
NORTH HAVEN, CONNECTICUT
Home of Quinnipiac University, North Haven’s TWELVE PERCENT BEER PROJECT came to fruition February 2020. Inside a pristine beige-walled manufacturing warehouse, Twelve Percent does a great job of source brewing for new businesses as well as supplementing established brewers’ canned and draught product thru quality distribution.
A pallet-enclosed patio with plastic furnishings guides patrons to the entrance door. Inside, the cement-floored pub features a few four-seat formica tables, two community tables, a loungey couch area, pillowed banquet wall unit and two overhead doors.
The left side formica-topped bar offered ten seats and twenty white tiled draught lines. An enormous high ceilinged brewing operation occupies the rear glass-encased section.
A bunch of families with young children seize upon Twelve Percent on a cold Saturday at noon, March ’22.
During initial stopover, quaffed Twelve Percent’s proprietary Snappy! American Lager and Connecticut Witbier while purchasing fab brews from Abomination, Skygazer, Fat Orange Cat, Marlowe, Barclay and Timber Ales to go (all reviewed in Beer index).
The sky’s the limit for this ample distribution center with on-site draughts for sale.
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During March ’25 on a Sunday at noon, revisited Twelve Percent, buying several beers for the road (reviewed in Beer Index) while enjoying Evil Twin This Deli Needs A Bigger Double Kiwi Lime Coconut Muffin Lassi Gose – Marshmallow Treatment, a capaciously kaleidoscopic milk-sugared collab with innovative Swedish brewers, Omnipollo. Its marshmallow-fluffed coconut creaming spread thru kiwi-limed salinity in fab Smoothie-like pastry fashion.
Also, met indie brewing heavyweight and part-time bartender, Dino Acquarelli, an interesting brewhound who’s downed 32,000 different beers and ales – 8,000 more than I have as of March ’25.
NIANTIC PUBLIC HOUSE – 2022
NIANTIC, CONNECTICUT
After perusing this Long Island Sound-bound watering hole during 2019, NIANTIC PUBLIC HOUSE grew in brewing capacity if not size. But during my March ’22 revisit, Niantic was filled to capacity on Saturday evening so I only grabbed one excellent stout, but returned for more brews at its 1 PM opening on Sunday.
Inside a shared grey brick building across from the boardwalk, this friendly neighborhood tavern has increased their stylish recipes from a mere two (pale ale and Imperial IPA) just three years hence to a full dozen (including seltzers). There were benches set up outside in the parking lot and the 30-seat wood lacquered right side bar (currently with two draught boards) served the front-windowed community tables and a few left side tables.
Also, the owners have done a helluva job with Niantic’s colorful walled artwork. The backbar’s aqua-geared underwater monkey’s a hoot, the orange octopus-occupied front wall’s a gas and the left side’s large whale mural’s simply marvelous.
After consuming the bold stout Saturday eve, I delved into five delightfully divergent IPA’s, a delicate weizenbock, a Belgian blonde and a Czech pils.
Mild golden-cleared Czech pilsner, Conplan – 8888 Motueka, utilized lemon-limed Motueka hops to enliven its peppery herbal tinge above bread crusted graining (and leaving wispy passionfruit-guava snips).
Lemony banana clove sweetness and navel orange tanginess embraced spritzy candi-sugared Belgian blonde moderation, Dog Pile, picking up ancillary lemon meringue, orange marmalade and orange banana cake illusions.
Soft-toned weizenbock, Brian’s Hops For Hope, let mossy dew drip into sweetly soured dried plum, stewed prune and date above subtle caramel malt sugaring.
Evenly spread grapefruit, orange and lemon spicing perked up Imperial IPA, It Takes A Village, putting a lacquered pine veneer on its pale malt sugaring.
Softer and sweeter on the tongue than Villian, polite NEIPA, Honu Sky, spread vanilla cream across orange-peeled grapefruit tanginess and candied lemon licks.
A spicier orange-peeled grapefruit tang occupied wonderful Imperial IPA, Knapp Time, a lightly pined medium body with peachy pineapple dalliances.
Candied mango soaked into mossy fungi gunk for NEIPA, MIPA, plying lemony grapefruit souring to its wet hop stead.
The cleanest, brightest, juiciest NEIPA may’ve been Mosaic-Citra-hopped Mystery Of Juiceboxin’, regaling zesty lemon, tangerine, navel orange and clementine briskness as well as mild pine resin and quirky passionfruit-guava tropicalia.
As for the robustly rich 6th Dimension Milk Stout, its coffee-stained dark chocolate syruping seeped into wood-burnt dark roast hop bittering and tarry charred nuttiness.
HARDYWOOD BOURBON BARREL GBS
“Festive” bourbon-barreled milk stout loads wildflower honey upon variant’s fulsome cinnamon-toasted gingerbread stead. Along the way, thick black chocolate syruping and vanilla bean resonance soak into bruised black cherry, blackberry and redcurrant licks as well as raspy anise spicing, cinnamon coffee sweetness and whiskeyed peat swagger.
MAGNIFY S’MORES MIND OVER MATTER DOUBLE CHOCOLATE MILK STOUT
On tap at Taphouse 15, dandy Mind Over Matter offshoot, “the next iteration of the 8% double chocolate milk stout series,” gets conditioned on cocoa nibs, Graham Crackers and marshmallow. Creamy vanilla licks further sweeten lactic milk chocolate fudging. Wispy black cherry, blackberry and anise snips add to confectionery sweet-toothed S’mores knockoff.
