BREWING
Fox Farm has a commitment to farm- house ales, brewing with a proprietary mixed fermentation yeast strain that’s reminiscent of tart Meyer lemons. Adams hired Stephen Andrews, a Connecticut resident, to be the head brewer in November 2017. He previ- ously oversaw the barrel programme at Nogne O in Norway. Fox Farm’s other full time employee is Zack’s brother Dave, who oversees business opera- tions from tasting room to sales. One of the most interesting parts of Fox Farm is the brewing system and where it came from. The18hL system was supplied by Quality Tank Solu- tions, a Wisconsin-based metalworking company that also services the dairy industry. Adams was drawn to this connection when he purchased the two-vessel brewing system. Fox Farm is currently in the works to build a barrel barn similar to Kent Falls and it also has two dozen fruit trees on order. It currently grows cherries, blue- berries, raspberries, blackberries and botanicals in small quantities. Like a farmer, Adams and Andrews start their days early. They work until the sun goes down, cleaning (Fox Farm is the cleanest brewery I’ve ever seen), brewing, and doing the quality work themselves. With Adams living on the property, he can check up on his beers at all hours. When I ask Adams if he considers himself a farmer, he instantly agrees. “I think it’s a fair comparison,” he says, “coming here at odd times and pacing around. It’s the same routines that pre- vious farmers had gone through in the same building.”
Petals, a barrel-aged farmhouse ale, uses
dandelions foraged from the property and a barley variety called Synergy, which grows well in Connecticut.
The barn Farm breweries also have a commitment to repurposing. Fox Farm in Salem, CT (full disclosure, I help out in the tasting room of this brewery a few days a week) took an old dairy barn built in the 1960s and transformed the neglected space into a state-of-the-art brewing area and tasting room. Set off a pastoral residen- tial street, it has become a destination for out-of-state hazebros (connoisseurs who enjoy beer that has not been clari ed) as well as local residents. Fox Farm is the brainchild of cele- brated homebrewer Zack Adams, 32, who won the Samuel Adams Longshot competition in 2012 with an Imperial IPA that showcased seven hop varieties. This is a yearly competition for homebrewers where the winners have beer produced on a national scale by Samuel Adams. Zack bought the 30-acre property in the spring of 2012 and immediately set to work by rstly building a home for his family on the property. The work was a long, steady process. Adams says that in the beginning they just started chip- ping away at cleaning up the barn (it had been previously owned by a hoard- er so the barn was lled to the rafters with stuff) plus reclaiming the land from years of overgrowth and neglect. He was aided in the project by local workers (who now congregate at nights in the tasting room for pints of Fox Farm’s lagers), good friends and Ad- ams’ many family members. His father- in-law has 6,000 grape vines a quarter of a mile away which Adams uses in a couple of beers including Near and Far, a double IPA – and Annata, a wild ale.
After many years of steady work, the brewery opened in May of 2017 and now has a tasting room which operates Thursday to Sunday. The operation uses local malts and hops when available but also uses malts from Weyermann and Simpsons. Many of the beers include Nelson Sauvin, one of Adams’ favourite hops. Fox Farm’s beers run the gamut. In November of 2018, it received two hori- zontal lager tanks to beef up production of lagers like The Cabin Smoked Helles style lager, Gather German style Pils, and Quiet Life, a Czech style Pilsner. It recently put in a new Lukr dis- pense tower that has two side pull taps. In addition to its line forming NEIPAs,
The unusual taproom handles dispense the Fox Farm ales; the authentic Lukr tower (left) is for the Czech-style Pilsners
BREWER AND DISTILLER INTERNATIONAL ● 4
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