If you love CT history, Thomas Hooker Brewery at Colt is for you. This spinoff taproom/small batch brewery of one of the state’s true craft beer OGs is part of a former mid-19th century armory where for more than 130 years Colt firearms – another CT original -- manufactured that famous six-shooter revolver that tamed The Wild West. Southern yellow pine timbers from the armory’s old test firing range have been repurposed into a bar that’s truly “fully loaded” with beer, wine, liquor and hundreds of copper-clad lead bullets fired into it over the years. Whether sitting inside or outside on the patio at Hooker Brewery at Colt, you can quaff a fresh brewed pint while gazing upon the Hartford skyline and the distinctive onion-shaped blue dome topping one of the former Colt manufacturing buildings. The dome gets more due inside the taproom where the ceiling is painted to match the famous blue and gold star flecked dome. All your favorite Hooker year-round brews, seasonals and some limited releases are available with most available to go in cans or growlers. Food can be ordered from a neighboring café.
The Story
Thomas Hooker Brewery, founded in Hartford in the mid-1990s, is not just one the Nutmeg State’s oldest craft brewers, it’s named after the 17th century Puritan pastor who founded CT. The main brewery moved to Bloomfield in the mid-2000s, then opened the Hooker Brewery at Colt in late 2017 where it brews only about 100 gallons, or six full kegs, of beer at a time.
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