Fox Farm Brewery in Salem
Jake Snyder/Red Skies Photography
Fox Farm Brewery
62 Music Vale Road, Salem
As you drive down Music Vale Road in rural Salem, don’t be surprised if you’re greeted by a flurry of chickens before you even get to the ticket office.
Once parked, enter the red and white barn, with a grain silo in the back left, because the word “farm” in Fox Farm is not kitsch. You are on a real farm that grows grapes, raspberries, blackberries and other brambles used to fructify the farm’s beers and sours.
But make no mistake about the beer selection, it’s not all fruity or heavy IPA juice bomb. Fox Farm may have the most balanced roster of styles in the state, and each one is incredibly well made. While Burst is an unfiltered New England-style IPA that will make the juices happy, Fox Farm is loud and proud with a roster of Czech pilsners, smoky helle lagers, and sweet, malty doppelbocks. They even pour barrel-aged table beers and throw an ESB (Extra Special Bitter) on nitro.
For most of Connecticut, Salem is a ways to get there. Forget distance and traffic. Fox Farm and its beer is a destination. stay a while Try a bunch of 7- or 13-ounce pours on the premise. BYO food and a board game. Get cans and bottles to take home. Well worth the day trip. —Andrew Dominick