Bike and Brew: Creature Brewing Company

I've made some pretty lengthy trips on these Bike and Brew outings. By my count they've taken me to breweries in half a dozen Connecticut towns so far, plus a few others in two different states. Sometimes that requires a ride that takes the better part of the day. In this latest trip, I made the grueling, arduous journey to a destination...a little more than a mile from my home.

Creature Brewing Company has been part of the New London community for just over a year now. They took over the former location of Tox Brewing Company, which has moved to a larger space downtown. When I previously covered Tox at this location, I opted to bulk up this route a bit by following a route along several coastal roads in New London and Waterford; this time around, I just decided to do a quick there-and-back-again jaunt.

The big change this time around: going tubeless! For some reason Connecticut roads seem predisposed to dealing out flat tires, and I've had to put on patches or swap out tubes thanks to everything from nails to sharp bits of gravel. My local bike shop, Wayfarer Bicycle, completed a conversion which will hopefully allow me to enjoy more time riding and less time attempting repairs.

The route from my home to Creature Brewing Company is, well, not exactly scenic. It's your standard neighborhood houses and a commercial strip. Then you reach this place where the road splits off right at the intersection of another road and the entryway to a shopping plaza. No one ever has any idea who the hell has the right of way here, but at least there are plans to replace it with a rotary.

And then I'm there!

Creature Brewing Company has a familiar background story -- a couple of home brewers who got interested in pursuing the craft as a business -- although they started out by running a home brew supply shop in downtown New London. They were also interested in selling their own brand of beer, though, and they couldn't pass up the opportunity to move into a turn-key brewing space in the former Tox space once that brewery moved into its new digs.

New brewery openings are getting rather rare in Connecticut, following an explosion of them in the 2010s. At its height, more than 100 unique breweries were in operation across the state. That number has started to taper off, with the closings at first mostly affecting some legacy brands that failed to adapt, a few hyper-specialized places that focused on individual types of beer, and the venues that failed to impress with their offerings.

More recently, unfortunately, we've seen shutdowns affecting a wider swath of craft breweries, seemingly a result of several factors including the higher costs of doing business, tighter household budgets, and younger populations showing less interest in alcohol. Of the 17 places I've previously been as part of this venture, five have closed: Cottrell Brewing Company, Noble Jay Brewing Company, Epicure Brewing, Barley Head Brewery, and Bank & Bridge Brewing (it also seems that Mohegan Cafe and Brewery on Block Island has downplayed any beermaking it still does, as it's now known as the Mohegan Restaurant and Bar).

That means that Creature is coming into a tougher market, but they've managed to hold on and there seems to be a growing awareness of them. It helps that the beers they have on tap really are quite good.

This wasn't my first time stopping at Creature, and I've found their beers to be consistently well-balanced, crisp, and delicious. They maintain a fairly tight menu of brews that work rather than experimenting with a variety of flavors, and the results are terrific. I opted to try out the Wraith, an American pale ale, and the Red Dwarf Crimson Ale, a red. I was particularly impressed by the latter.

The brewery has some quiet neighbors, as it's located just across the street from Cedar Grove Cemetery. Dating back to 1851, it's a peaceful, site that has preserved a lot of the forest and natural features nearby, making it a nice oasis in the city. So I suppose there's at least one scenic sight along this route.

The short ride back home is less bucolic. The most direct route takes me through the intersection of Broad Street and Colman Street, which has been nicknamed as "Car Dealership Corner" because it's home to every single dealership in the city. Well, some of them spill farther up Broad Street. Altogether there's something like nine of them, ranging from Ford to Lotus.

One last stop before wrapping up: this cute little community garden. It's maintained by FRESH New London, which helps encourage healthy eating and has set up a variety of gardens throughout the city, giving people a chance to rent beds and grow their own food and establishing "snack gardens" for people to grab some vegetables as they pass.

And so concludes the most unremarkable Bike and Brew distance-wise, but one that I hope brings some much deserved attention to Creature. 

Total mileage: 2.6 miles

Previous Bike and Brew Outings:

• Outer Light Brewing Company
• Beer'd Brewing Company
• Fox Farm Brewery
• Shelter Island Craft Brewery and Greenport Harbor Brewing Company
• Barley Head Brewery
• These Guys Brewing Company and Epicure Brewing
• Mohegan Cafe and Brewery
• Noble Jay Brewing Company
• Tox Brewing Company
• Niantic Public House and Brewery  Grey Sail Brewing and Cottrell Brewing Company
• Beer'd Brewing Company - The Silo
• Shunock River Brewing Company and Bank & Bridge Brewing

Bike and Brew: Shunock River Brewery and Bank & Bridge Brewing

Note: Bank & Bridge Brewing closed in the summer of 2025 with little notice. The site now features the Italian restaurant Cucina al Pantheon.

It's back! For whatever small audience reads this blog or stumbles across it, I have a new Bike and Brew adventure to report!

I haven't been keeping up with this blog much, but I have been trying to finish out these trips. Nevertheless, this one in the fall of 2024 was the first one I completed in about three-and-a-half years. What was once a good way to get out of the house while my wife slept after a night shift has become much less feasible after, you know, welcoming three children into our lives. But I recently got a chance to for a getaway, and was eager to explore some new spots. 

Bike and Brew has also had slimmer pickings since the craft beer industry, which was undergoing explosive growth in Connecticut when I started in 2016, has plateaued, if not retracted to a certain degree. The effect has been mixed in the southeastern part of the state. Tox Brewing Company recently opened a new and expanded space in downtown New London, and Fox Farm Brewery has won such widespread acclaim that some fans have compared it to the craft beer mecca that is Tree House Brewing Company in Charlton, Massachusetts.

At the same time, growing competition has caused several breweries to close their doors. Noble Jay Brewing Company quietly vanished in the midst of the COVID-19 disruptions. Cottrell Brewing closed in 2022 after its lease expired. Barley Head Brewery sold its space to some folks who opened a bar on site. Others blipped out before I had a chance to visit them, including Stranger Tides Brewing in Colchester, the Stony Creek brewpub at Foxwoods, Steady Habit Brewing Company in East Haddam, and Fat Orange Cat Brewing in East Hampton (which still produces beer but has closed its taproom location). 

For this trip, I paid a visit to Shunock River Brewery and Bank & Bridge Brewing, which have endured such disruptions and seem to be doing well for themselves.

So first thing's first: this was the first Bike and Brew where I've cheated a bit. Up until now, every journey has been a result of my leaving from my house and returning there under my own steam. For this trip, I disassembled the bike, put it in the trunk of our van, and hitched a ride with the wife and kids to Mystic Aquarium, shaving some ten miles off the journey before putting the bike back together.

Mystic Aquarium is one of the main tourist attractions in southeastern Connecticut, known for its beluga whales, penguins, and sea lions. Some friends of ours were having a birthday party for their son at the aquarium, and limiting the number of attending parents to one due to space constraints, so it turned out to be a good opportunity for some solo time. I said my farewells and set off.

...and immediately made a stop next door, because my morning coffee was catching up with me and i needed to use the restroom. Olde Mistick Village is another big tourist trap in the area, mixing a bunch of eclectic shops and restaurants in a faux New England village setting. Sure it's a little kitschy, but it's a nice place with lots of unique stores to check out.

The ride from Mystic to North Stonington was unexpectedly short. As in the ride to Grey Sail and Cottrell, it took me past Clyde's Cider Mill during it's busy season (ie, pretty much any time it's open during the last few months of the year).

The route then continued along Route 201, a straight shot to North Stonington with not much of note along the way. One of the exceptions is the Hoffman Evergreen Preserve, a protected area managed by the Avalonia Land Conservancy. The 200-acre forest features numerous evergreen species planted by Robert D. Hoffman, and Avalonia maintains 4.25 miles of hiking trails through the site.

The southeastern Connecticut shoreline is rather densely populated, so it's always a bit surprising to see how quickly it transitions to a more rural landscape once you get a little farther inland. I grew up across from a farm in western Massachusetts, and coming upon this scene brought me right back to my childhood.

It's also kind of amazing how much of a classic New England town center North Stonington has. Within a very concentrated area you'll find the town hall, the old town hall (now home to the resident state trooper), the Congregational church, the elementary school, the high school right next door, the library (a former school), the historical society (a former library) and a tiny town green/park carved out of some remaining space.

The Shunock River Brewery is named for the scenic river that winds its way through this hamlet. It's located in what used to be another classic village feature, the general store and hardware shop. 

The brewery had its grand opening in November 2019 with pretty much zero fanfare. One day, it was just there. It managed to survive through the COVID-19 pandemic, and continues to be something of a low-key attraction that's apparently known more to the locals than anything. They even stopped updating their Facebook in 2023, though their Instagram remains active.

Shunock River Brewery has a cozy, wood-heavy interior, which I forgot to snap a picture of. This image should be up to date. In a bit of deja vu, the bartender during my visit was Nate, the same welcoming, effusive fellow who greeted my wife and I when we visited a few years earlier. 

The brewery offers wood-fired pizzas, but I opted to just get a beer and head to my next destination. Being close to a number of farms, Shunock River Brewery puts an emphasis on sourcing locally for ingredients, as well as brewing batches weekly to ensure freshness. I chose the No. Sto. Pumpkin to enjoy on the back deck overlooking the river. It didn't have much of a pumpkin flavor to it, but I still rated it as a nice easy drinking beer.

The route down to Mystic took me through some surprisingly sedate areas. These are the type of roads where you really only encounter a vehicle if it's someone driving to or from their home, and it was a very lovely and peaceful ride past farms, fields of corn stubble, and old cemeteries. Once the golf club showed up, though, it was obvious we were getting closer to the more populated and monied part of the community.

Somewhat hidden along the way is the Mystic Dark Room. This has been the home to the Mystic Ballet since 2015, and they host occasional performances in an intimate little theater with landscaping that's heavy on statues.

I arrived in Mystic to once again get caught on the wrong side of its famous drawbridge as it lifted up to let a few boats past. Mystic remains a lovely little town to stroll about and discover unique shops and restaurants, but on this occasion I didn't have time for such niceties and simply went straight to my second destination.

Bank & Bridge Brewing is another venue that opened with rather minimal fanfare, although being on the main drag in Mystic (and right next door to the tourist trap that is Mystic Pizza) gives it quite a bit of natural visibility. The building used to be a bank and was serving as the law office of Walt Bansley, who had opened a brewery in 2019, when he decided that a brewpub on the Main Street in Mystic would be a better use for the structure. Bank & Bridge quietly opened in 2021, but has since become a very recognizable part of the community.

Some of the bank infrastructure is still in place, most prominently the safe. Beyond that it's a ragtag mix of neon signs, leather furniture, large-scale paintings, and the brewing tanks on one end of the space. There's an immense amount of room in here, so everything feels kind of dwarfed, but it succeeds as a reasonably casual setting.

Bank & Bridge's menu is full of items designed to help you cheat on your diet, with buttermilk fried chicken as a specialty. It was high time for lunch, so I ordered a sandwich as well as Waves of Ska, a hazy IPA. I also opted to kick back a little more with a Celestial Navigation double IPA. Both were tasty and refreshing after the long ride.

The trip back through Groton was more pleasant than I expected, especially after a heavy lunch. After negotiating the hills leading out of Mystic, I took some back routes through Groton. There was some nice pastoral scenery along the way, including this pumpkin patch at Whittle's Willow Spring Farm.

I decided to make a quick stop at the Copp Family Park in Groton, which turns out to be a surprisingly expansive property. I mostly knew it as a favorite place for dog lovers, due to its substantial dog park, but it also has a lengthy trail network open for hiking and biking. I tried to take a brief jaunt to the remains of a historic homestead, but decided against it after the trail got a bit rough. My bike is still only a commuter one, after all.

Finally, a bittersweet moment: what may be the last Bike & Brew trip across the godawful Gold Star Bridge. 

The Shunock River Brewery and Bank & Bridge Brewing were the last places I needed to visit on the east end of the Thames River, and it's likely to stay that way as new breweries are becoming rarer. Currently the only possibility of one in the region is the Trillium Farm in North Stonington, which is owned by the popular Trillium Brewing Company in Boston. The farm has been growing ingredients for the brewery's beer; it may open as a destination brewery at some point, but right now there's no indication of when that might occur.

So until that happens, I'm taking a break from the bridge and its narrow pathway and hoping it gets its much-needed improvements soon. Time to turn my sights to the west!

Total mileage: 27.3 miles

Previous Bike and Brew Outings:

• Outer Light Brewing Company
• Beer'd Brewing Company
• Fox Farm Brewery
• Shelter Island Craft Brewery and Greenport Harbor Brewing Company
• Barley Head Brewery
• These Guys Brewing Company and Epicure Brewing
• Mohegan Cafe and Brewery
• Noble Jay Brewing Company
• Tox Brewing Company
• Niantic Public House and Brewery  Grey Sail Brewing and Cottrell Brewing Company
• Beer'd Brewing Company - The Silo

Bike and Brew: Beer'd Brewing Company - The Silo

How difficult is it to keep up with personal writing when you've got a hectic new job and newly arrived twins during a global pandemic? Well, I made this trip to the Beer'd Brewing Company's second location about a year ago and am only just getting around to writing it up now.

Craft breweries have exploded in Connecticut in the 2010s. Steve Wood, the guy behind the robust brewery and Connecticut cultural resource CTMQ.org, originally hoped to sample every beer brewed in Connecticut before he got bowled over by a tidal wave of new taps and turned his focus instead to profiling individual breweries. 

I've experienced something similar since making my first Bike and Brew outing in 2016: a goal to visit every brewery within biking distance became less and less feasible as first one, then two more children arrived, limiting the potential to take a lengthy solo ride. Meanwhile, beer entrepreneurs keep adding to the tally of potential places to visit nearby.

The COVID-19 pandemic has, unfortunately, diminished this number a bit. Noble Jay Brewing Company, which I previously visited, closed up shop in the summer of 2020. Stony Creek Brewery at Foxwoods, a secondary site of the Branford-based Stony Creek Brewery, shuttered recently before I had a chance to plot a ride there.

But there are still some outings left to do, assuming I can get around to them. One such opportunity came in the early summer of 2020, when my wonderful wife urged me to get out of the house and have a few hours to myself while she wrangled two babies and a preschooler. The result was a trip to The Silo, the second location of the previously reviewed Beer'd Brewing Company.

Which means once more over the Gold Star Bridge, my friends. It's the second to last time, assuming nothing new opens east of the Thames, as I still need to visit the Shunock River Brewery in North Stonington.

After the usual harrowing trip over the Gold Star Bridge and strip malls of Poquonnock Road, I took a turn into quieter territory. The route passes the Avery Homestead, an oft-overlooked historic landmark located next to a railroad bridge. Captain James Avery built his home here in 1671, and "The Hive" housed generations of the Avery family until sparks from a passing train burned it down in 1894.

The Avery Memorial Association was founded in 1900 to commemorate the homestead, and also runs the separate Ebenezer Avery House museum. It's still active, and the group had restored the memorial a few days before my ride.

During the early scuttlebutt about the second Beer'd location, there was only a vague idea that it would be "near the airport." The Groton-New London Airport is pretty impressive for a municipal airfield. It previously supported an airline or two for commuter flights, currently supports the Coast Guard's ice patrol missions (which utilize a massive C-130 plane), includes a National Guard wing, and regularly brings in Air Force One when the President comes to speak at the Coast Guard Academy commencement in New London.

When Beer'd finally did open its second location, it was in a small industrial park near the airport. It's kind of an odd mix of businesses here: a variety of technological/manufacturing/logistics/whatever concerns, the main lot for the city's school buses, some automotive businesses, and a brewery perched next to a cheese shop.

Beer'd began brewing operations at the Airport Business Park back in 2018 but didn't open a taproom until early in 2020. According to an article on The Silo's opening, Beer'd was going for something a little more industrial than the more rustic tone of their main location in Stonington's Velvet Mill. It's unclear if The Silo offers anything distinct to the location; apparently the site includes a one-barrel brewhouse for experimental offerings.

I'd hoped to get a better sense of The Silo with my visit, but unfortunately the pandemic was still prohibiting people from actually going inside and checking it out. I'd also been hindered on a previous visit where I hoped to bring my daughter along after a hike, as The Silo is one of the few breweries in the state limited to ages 21 and older. So the interior remains a mystery to me.

The Silo is also remote enough that it had limited itself to pickup orders instead of bringing in a food truck or other dining options like several breweries have opted to do. Thus the sign with the detailed instructions that awaited me upon my arrival. I called in, ordered a couple of four-packs, and said they could bring it out front to the guy on the bike.

So instead of the pre-pandemic routine of trying a beer or two before heading home, I was presented with eight beers to haul home in my backpack. One was a mix pack of some Beer'd offerings, while the other was their delicious Midnight Oil oatmeal stout, one of my wife's favorites.

I soon knocked the count down to seven. The Silo had hauled in all of their outdoor seating out of caution, so I stopped at a picnic table outside one of the business park buildings and savored a Midnight Oil while reading a book about the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Nearly a year later, we're still grappling with the pandemic but vaccination efforts are giving cause for optimism. The twins are still a screaming handful, but are starting to get a little more communicative and easier to manage alongside a three-year-old. The occasional weekend Bike and Brew outing may not be out of the question.

Out-and-back journeys are becoming increasingly rare, though. Aside from Shunock River Brewing and the potential to visit the imminently opening Bank & Bridge Brewing in Mystic, my options are going to be limited to point-to-point rides ending in Old Saybrook, Chester, Colchester, and maybe even the famous Willibrew in Willimantic. Time will tell.

Total mileage: 13 miles

Previous Bike and Brew Outings:
Outer Light Brewing Company
Beer'd Brewing Company
Fox Farm Brewery
Shelter Island Craft Brewery and Greenport Harbor Brewing Company
Barley Head Brewery
These Guys Brewing Company and Epicure Brewing
Mohegan Cafe and Brewery
Noble Jay Brewing Company
Tox Brewing Company
Niantic Public House and Brewery

Grey Sail Brewing and Cottrell Brewing Company

I Make Fun of State Quarters: Iowa

Given that our American democracy includes aspects such as occasionally flipping a coin to decide who presidential candidate delegates will be awarded to and general elections that can be won without actually earning the most votes, it shouldn't be any surprise that a great deal of importance is assigned to the first contest in the 50-state process of selecting a party's candidate for the highest office in the land.

And so we get the regular flocking of presidential hopefuls to Iowa, where the first caucus of the 2020 election will take place in February. They're all expected to indulge in state fair fare like fried butter, hobknob with the locals, and pledge their undying loyalty to all things corn. Which always strikes me as a little odd, since they could just surrender this race and suck up to granite interests instead to make a bid for the New Hampshire primary.

Anyway, what does this mean for the Iowa state quarter? Will they celebrate their vaunted status as the first place to start choosing who might end up in the White House? Is the winner going to have to engage in pandering and the unending ingestion of enough artery-clogging fried food to give it six coronaries? Will the residents of Iowa just demand that the quarter be made of corn?

(Source)

NO CORN? Are you kidding me?

This is a highly unlikely scenario. Not just because Iowa residents are roughly 40 percent corn themselves, but because just about every one of the finalists for this state quarter were trumpeting Iowa's farm industry.

But let's face it, Iowa's agriculture really is quite impressive. The state is indeed the first in the nation for corn production, but a lot of that crop goes toward supporting livestock as well - putting Iowa among the top ranks for dairy and meet production as well. It also claims to be the second largest producer of soybeans and a main supplier of turkey for Subway restaurants, among other things.

So being the "Breadbasket of the World" is certainly something to be proud of. At the same time, I'm sure Iowans were a little reticent about making their representation on the state quarter focus on literally the one thing the rest of the country knows them for. They would be like the kid who excitedly runs to his friends to deliver some news only to find out that they already found out about it three days earlier.

So when state residents were asked to submit their designs, they came up with plenty more than just variations on how to prepare corn on the cob. They included, well, farmland with corn that wasn't quite ready yet...

(Source)

And that Grant Wood painting of a mopey farmer and his sour wife...

(Source)

And a tribute to the Sullivan brothers, a group of five siblings from the Iowa town of Waterloo who all served together on the cruiser USS Juneau and died when the ship was sunk during the Battle of Guadalcanal. They became a potent symbol of patriotic duty and hometown heroes in Iowa, understandably, but personally I think this quarter design would have been a little shortsighted. It would have basically said, "Behold, nation, these hero brothers who gave their lives for the country! Also, 682 other people from elsewhere in the United States died on this ship, but whatever."

(Source)

Iowa naturally gravitated away from showcasing wartime tragedy, but also decided that going heavy on the corn or farm theme wasn't the best thing to do. Instead, their final design is basically a facsimile of the painting "Arbor Day" by Grant Wood, an Iowa native (the state's residents are no doubt a fan of his quote, "I had to go to France to appreciate Iowa."). This work shows a teacher at a one-room schoolhouse helping a group of children plant a tree for the occasion.

(Source)

It's a little strange that the quarter highlights Iowa's "Foundation in Iowa" when the painting itself is about a holiday that celebrates trees. That and the fact that a quick search on Iowa's educational history immediately brought up an academic essay noting how the state's rural schools at the turn of the century suffered from "poor quality" and "inexperienced and poorly prepared teachers." So that teacher helping the kids with the tree might be really bad at her job.

But credit where credit is due, Iowa's current educational rankings are quite good. According to the U.S. News and World Report rankings, it ranks ninth in the nation for education, including eighth in higher education and 13th in K-12 schooling.

So there you have it. Iowa wants you to know that they have a good educational system, and that they're really quite a lovely state overall. That's fair.

But to be honest, the design actually seems to be lacking without corn. It's like if you had a cookout and didn't toss a few ears on the grill. At least throw a stalk in the background, guys.