Sunday, June 26, 2016

Two Roads Brewery & #RoadJamFest 2016

Two Roads Brewing Company held their third annual Road Jam Beer and Concert Festival yesterday on the brewery grounds, and Sally and I attended.  $30 got you admission and a beer, with subsequent beers available for $5 apiece via the many beer trucks and tap-tents set up around the yard.


Two Roads set the yard up with two stages.  Stage 1 sat in the main parking lot across from the front door, facing Two Roads' beergarden and lawn games.  Sally and I arrived about midway into the set played by the Alpaca Gnomes, a local rock/folk band from Fairfield County, CT, with a strong following.  "Gnomies" are known for their distinctive gnomish hats, which we saw scattered around the festival the rest of the day.

The Gnomes' Benny on acoustic guitar and vocals.
The Alpaca Gnomes
Obligatory selfie in front of the Gnomes.
My wife is a total hippie.  She's also smokin' hot!
I enjoyed the Gnomes' set a Hell of a lot, and they flat brought the house down with their rendition of The Devil Went Down to Georgia.  What's funny about that is that the song is famously about a fiddling contest between the Devil and a boy named Johnny, "the best there's ever been".  You know that, I'm sure.  What you probably hadn't noticed is that the part the Devil plays is, in every sense, musically superior, harder to play, and much more interesting.

Basically, the Devil kicks Johnny's ass.

This is really obvious when you hear the song played live by a a band that really knows how to play it.


Stage 1 was the "Ol’ Factory Stage", named after Two Roads' pilsner.  Its set list was as follows:
 - 2:30-3:30: Alpaca Gnomes
 - 4:00-5:00: Stop Light Observations
 - 5:30-6:30: Turkuaz

Stage 2 was the Hopyard Stage, and yes, it was set out in an actual hopyard.  This was also the side with food trucks' Clustertruck, consisting of some dozen or more food trucks in a ring around a large outdoor pavilion tent.

Hopyard Stage Set List:
 - 2:00-3:00 Rudeyna
 - 3:30-5:00 RIPE
 - 6:00-7:00 Moon HOOCH
 - 7:30-8:45 Deep Banana Blackout

Sally and I spent most of our time around Stage 1.  This wasn't some plan; we just dropped our chairs, found some of our friends, and wound up listening to the bands.  We also competed in lawn games against another couple, but I'm sorry to say that we lost 21-6, with Sally herself scoring all six of our points.  We watched the Gnomes, went over and grabbed some lunch at the Clustertruck, and then headed back and caught Stop Light Observations and Turkuaz.

Lawn games.  We played our friends and got smoked!
Two Roads' main entrance.
The Clustertruck was great, and I regret that I didn't get any pictures of it.  Between the Clustertruck, Stage 2, and the open air hop yard, this side of the festival was actually much bigger than the other side, though it's not where we spent most of our time.  Within the Cluster Truck, there were several barbecue and smoked meat trucks, a gourmet cupcake truck, and my favorite, Chief Brody's Banh Mi, a French/Vietnamese Fusion truck where Sally ordered a vegan sausage roll with the works, and I had a German-style beer brat covered with kimchi.  With this on my plate, I quipped to Sally that it wasn't really a "French/Vietnamese" food truck so much as it was a "Wars of the American Century" food truck.

We washed all of this down with Two Roads' No Limits Hefeweizen.

Two Roads has a wide selection of beers in their tap room, but they only had six on offer out in the yard:
 - Ol' Factory Pils
 - Lil Heaven Session IPA
 - Workers Comp Saison
 - Honeyspot Road IPA
 - No Limits Hefeweizen
 - Road Jam Raspberry Wheat

Conspicuously absent from this list was their Road 2 Ruin Double IPA, my favorite of Two Roads' year-round offerings.  This annoyed at first.  In the long run, though, it was probably a good thing considering how much sun we got yesterday afternoon. We spent most of the day drinking the hefeweizen, which was on-theme with the beer garden, drinking pavilions, and the rest.

The main taproom.
The yard in front of Stage 1.
My phone died around 5, so I don't have many pictures past that, unfortunately.  Turkuaz in particular kicked ass.  They're a funk band out of Brooklyn, and they have a massive following and their own traveling merchandise booth.  They're a big band, too, with a full-on horn section, color-coordinated back-up singers, coordinated dance moves, and the whole bit.  I was super impressed.






We were way back in the back for Deep Banana Blackout, but we danced our butts off.  This was perhaps the highlight of my day.



If you like beer, I strongly recommend a visit to Two Roads.  The brewery is located on Stratford Avenue about a mile from the Stratford Train Station, right off Exit 31 if you take I-95.  They're open from Tuesday to Saturday, 12-9, and on Sunday from 12-7.  They've done a heck of a lot of good for our little town, and they put on a terrific Road Jam.  If you're a beer fan, Two Roads is a must!  

We'll see you next year at Road Jam, that's for sure.
By -
Labels: , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)