malloy beer
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy drinking a Stony Creek (203) Lager after a ceremonial groundbreaking for the brewery in Branford, Conn.

Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Thursday at a ceremonial ground-breaking at Stony Creek Brewing Company in Branford that Connecticut was becoming known for its beer, and that he sees the craft beer industry in the state continuing to grow.

“When I travel, they know about Thomas Hooker [Brewing Company in Bloomfield], and those guys from Stratford [Two Roads Brewing Company] are becoming better known,” Malloy said after the ceremony.

Drinking a Stony Creek (203) Lager, Malloy said that he is happy about the number of new breweries increasing in the state, with approximately 15 new breweries coming on line during in the past two years.

“We are promoting the Beer Trail,” said Malloy, referring to the line-up of breweries in the state that lawmakers have tried to have officially designated a “trail” like the Connecticut wine trail, complete with signage. “Breweries have qualified for economic development dollars.”

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy (r.) with Stony Creek Brewing Company co-owner Edward Crowley Sr.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy (r.) with Stony Creek Brewing Company co-owner Edward Crowley Sr.

Malloy joined local Branford-area politicians to take part in a ceremonial groundbreaking and blessing of the formerly contaminated land where Stony Creek has been building its 30,000 square-foot brewery on the Branford River since May.

“What we are celebrating … is entrepreneurship,” Malloy said at the ceremony. “We should be proud of what [the owners of Stony Creek] have accomplished.”

Stony Creek was founded in 2011 and has so far been producing its beers at Thomas Hooker Brewing. Its representatives say it hopes to be brewing beer at the new site by winter of this year.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s