Five Churches Brewing, New Britain CT
21 April 2024
After playing for church this morning, a trip to Five Churches seemed like a great idea. I’d never been there before and was intrigued by the name as well as their online tap list.
Five Churches’ taproom is on the second floor of a building and there’s a small outdoor deck area if the weather is nice. Seating is mostly at high-tops but there are a good number of chairs at the bar. They have a small kitchen turning out primarily 10″ pizzas (which aren’t bad). It wasn’t the calmest place to be today as there was some kind of fundraiser going on so there were a lot of families and kids. This is what it looked like shortly after I arrived:
That photo shows about two-thirds of the seating space and the small kitchen is in the corner at the back of the photo. Behind me as I took this photo was the bar with the brewing area behind that. I loved the tap handles in the shape of church steeples with little stained glass windows.
I started with a flight, of course, described left to right.
Men Are from Märzen – Märzen, 5.1% – The more I sipped this one, the more it grew on me; I ended up following this with a pint and then a 4-pack to go (along with a 4-pack of their Pilsner). It really hit the spot today and was very well balanced.
Zwickel Me Elmo – Kellerbier, 5.1% – Some beers of this style are really odd; this one was quite tasty. There was a very slight mustiness to it as expected from the style and it was just that little bit that kept me from having a pint of it.
Pew Pew – American IPA, 6.5% – I think this is one of the staples in their lineup and it was very good, a great session beer (ABV notwithstanding). It wasn’t particularly bitter and didn’t have the overbearing sweetness that you sometimes get from a New England IPA; it reminded me more of the West Coast style.
Steeple People – Imperial IPA, 7.8% – What a great beer! It wasn’t heavy on the alcohol and they kept it just this side of too sweet. I was really tempted to see if they had this in cans.
Of course, there was a pizza, sausage and mushroom, accompanied by the pint of Märzen mentioned previously (and what a beautiful color it is!).
I appreciated the size of the pizza; there was plenty of food but not so much that I felt too stuffed.
Finally, I’ll just leave you with their tap list and the nice graphic at the bottom of the page showing the five nearby churches. Five Churches Brewing isn’t near me by any means, but I’ll definitely keep it in mind for future trips to this part of CT.
