Vue Brewing Company Puts a Low-Gluten Spin On Traditional Beers
- Philip Thibodeau
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
Note: this is the second in a three-part series on Southington’s breweries.
Last summer Justin Dawley and his wife Jessica opened up Vue Brewing Company in a 1,500 square-foot space on Triano Drive, which runs off Hart Street not far from the Southington Police Station. The site was the former home of Skygazer Brewing before it rebranded as Transcend Beer Crafters. When Transcend moved to Plainville in search of more room, Justin and Jessica took over the space and the equipment. In January of this year, they received approval from Planning and Zoning to open a taproom and an outdoor patio.
Vue Brewing offers a variety of traditional beer styles with a twist – all are brewed with reduced gluten. The Outsider sat down with Dawley on February 2 to learn more about their operation. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Tell me about your background and the history of this place.
I was at Firefly Hollow before they closed, for about eight years. I was a home brewer before that. When I was at Firefly, I went to school at the American Brewer’s Association school in Vermont and learned the science and engineering of brewing. It wasn’t just a hobby at that point. I loved making more traditional beers that weren’t chasing a trend.
I always wanted to open my own place. It was the natural progression of what my wife and I wanted to do. She still works full time, God bless her, but I’m full time owner, brewer, salesman. I’m the guy you can yell at if you run out of beer!
We opened June of last year. We literally just got approved by the Planning and Zoning board in Southington to have a tap room and a patio outside. Now you will be able to come down and get a pint if you want, plus a pack to-go. Outside, we’re going to have a 35’ by 35’ space.
This summer we saw that a good percent of our customers were coming from the bike path. We get a lot of business that is going to the other two breweries [Kinsmen and Witchdoctor]. We’ve had customers come all the way from New Haven. They hit all the places. We’re going to have a bike rack out there and maybe a tool station so you can hang out at the end of your ride.
All the beers you make here are low-gluten, is that correct?
Yes, the technical term that we use for our beer is ‘brewed to reduce gluten.’ It’s an enzyme that wraps up the gluten molecule so it’s easier on your stomach. We’ve had a couple batches tested and they were never over 17 ppm [parts per million]. The maximum that gluten-free bread can be is 23ppm.
It doesn’t affect the taste of the beer, or the haziness. You just won’t get a reaction if you’re gluten sensitive.
As far as I know, no one else in the state is doing reduced gluten as their entire portfolio. We like to focus on traditional styles with a twist. A lot of people haven’t tried anything beside an IPA, and we make everything from lagers to ales. We make a nice nitrostout similar to a Guinness. Not a lot of companies are doing that with a reduced gluten process.
What’s been your best seller in the past month?
It seems like our Pilsner is the beer we’ve made the most so far. We’ve had four batches of it. Second to that is Daily Double, our Double New England IPA. It won a bronze medal at an international beer tournament for a gluten-reduced IPA.
Our nitro stout is a fan favorite. We only sell that at bars and restaurants and in here. We don’t have it in cans because of the widget [that makes the foam]. It’s a good all-around drinking stout; it’s creamy, it’s smooth, it’s chocolatey.
People now aren’t really into the high ABV [alcohol by volume] beers. To this point we’ve been doing lower ABV, no higher than six percent, mostly around four to five. It’s a little more drinkable. You’re not drinking to get that ridiculous buzz. We want you to enjoy the beer and the process of the beer.
If we’re going to make something from a country, we’re going to use the ingredients from that country. We want people to be open to different styles, and know that it’s made to that style, it’s made the traditional way.
My favorite thing is when someone says, I only drink IPA’s, and I say, try this!, and then they try it and order up a glass.
How do you get the word out about this place, given that it’s not very visible?
Mainly we get the word out through our social media. My wife likes to joke that we’re the speakeasy of breweries: you don’t know about us until you know about us. We want to be a nice comfortable spot where you can have a couple beers. No music, no tv’s, just a projector. It’s an old-school type of brewery where you can come and talk to someone you don’t know and have a great conversation. I think a lot of old craft beer drinkers used to go to breweries that were smaller and got used to that kind of experience. Some people are looking for a little quieter space.
It’s amazing to us, my wife and I, that a lot of our customers are from out of state or not from the town. This weekend we had people from Oxford, Connecticut
, from Long Island, from New Jersey, which is mind-blowing. The great thing about Southington is that we are in the middle of a mecca. I never really understood that until I came here. You have Witchdoctor and Kinsmen. Ten minutes from here you have Counter Weight [Brewing Company, in Cheshire]. Ten minutes that way you have Transcend. You have Relic, you have Alvarium. We have a lot of customers who stay in Southington for events like soccer for their kids. They purposely stay in Southington so they can hit all the breweries while their kids are at soccer. I love that!
Have you been affected by tariffs and the rising costs of materials?
We’re pretty small, so we don’t see it as much as the bigger companies. It’s there, especially with grain if we’re getting it from another country. There are tariffs on grain and hops. Most of the hops that we get are from the US, but for the traditional styles we need to get them from overseas. We are still paying it a little, especially for aluminum cans, since aluminum is always fluctuating. Prices always rise, we just have to look at what we’re selling it for.
When it comes to beer do you have any personal preferences?
I like all styles. I couldn’t be a chef because I don’t like fish, but I have never met a beer I didn’t like. I like to get obsessed with styles. One month I get obsessed with IPA’s, and all I want to do is figure out how to make my IPA taste like something I found or do my own take on it. I’ve made a lot of different beers in the past and it’s nice to make them according to my own system.
Another thing is to make styles that haven’t been made for a long time in Connecticut. We’re trying to open things up for people who, say, have been into craft beer for like five years – but ten years ago they could have those ESB’s (Extra Special Bitter) or those browns. Bring them back and have people taste it for the first time. It might turn out to be their favorite style and they just don’t know it. It’s always fun to make different things and open the minds of the craft beer drinkers.
