New England Brewing Company - Gold Stock Ale

Sit back, put your feet up, and get ready for a real treat. This is a truly unique, complex animal and you'll want to savor it. Immediately look for a very distinct big floral hop nose and a hint of oakiness in the nose of this deep golden ale. Brewed with a combination of two-row pale and caramel malts, you soon see why the hops are the real story behind this ale. The brewery uses Cascade, Northern Brewer and Perle hops in the boil and then dry hops with Czechoslovakian Saaz and Perle. Here's the twist. Oak chips are also added during the dry hopping stage. Look for a complex flavor profile. It starts with a hoppy bite, moves into a floral and malty sweetness and finishes with a bitter, tangy, oakiness the leaves you craving another sip. Overall, very complex, full of flavor and quite fresh. Enjoy!

In the 1800s, breweries flourished in New England, with Connecticut alone having 20 in operation. The small, local breweries began to disappear slowly after the turn of the century. Immediately following Prohibition, larger breweries bought many of the smaller breweries and mass marketing eventually diminished the ability of most regional breweries to compete and survive. New England Brewing, however, is doing its part to revive the craft-beer tradition in Connecticut, one fine beer at a time.

Two of this month's selections, Gold Stock Ale and India Pale Ale, come to you from the New England Brewing Co., located in Norwalk, CT. Founded by Dick and Marcia King in 1988, the New England Brewing Company is housed in a building that was built in the early 1920s. In 1995, the Kings added on a brewhouse restaurant. The brewery's beers are distributed throughout the tri-state area of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.

The brewery produces two other year-round beers, Atlantic Amber, which took the gold at the 1993 Great American Beer Festival, and their Light Lager. It also makes four seasonal/specialty beers: an American Wheat, Raspberry Wheat, Marzen Oktoberfest, and Spiced Holiday Ale, two of which won silver medals at the 1997 World Beer Championships.

For more information about the brewery and scheduled tours, call (203) 866-1339.