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Health & Fitness

Thomas Hooker Brewery Installs New Visitor's Center

A conversation with Curt Cameron (president of Thomas Hooker Brewery) about the new visitor's center.

Thomas Hooker Brewery of Bloomfield has recently (as of a few months ago) installed a brand-new visitor center. This has freed up enough space to install so much equipment that their production output stands exponentially increased (read: they can make tons more beer).

The new visitor center at Thomas Hooker used to be offices set in the second half of the larger building in which Thomas Hooker Brewery is housed. The offices were bought out and broken down within days. The visitor center was opened in March, after being delayed by snow. The big upgrades have the whole staff excited, as now there is more room to brew, maneuver the beer in and out, and more space to open the brewery up for different events.   

As Curt Cameron said, he would rather put in more investment to the building while they were moving things around anyway, rather than waiting and just have to move everything all over again the next time he wanted to upgrade. The new machinery increases the bottling capacity to 110 bottles a minute, and enables Hooker Brewery to load the palates with a forklift: previous to this the palates would all have to be loaded by hand. In the old days, as Cameron says, everything had to be done by hand or manual machines.

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This upgrade changes that completely. The brewery also has new tanks installed that exponentially increase the amount of beer that can be brewed at one time. The new bottling line opened in April, with the tanks and other heavy equipment being currently installed. Other upgrades include a new hot water system that cuts fuel costs in half. In this way, with unlimited water potential, Thomas Hooker can brew as many batches as they want per day, rather than before when two batches would cause them to run out of hot water. 

The Visitor Center itself is used for many venues. On the 1st and 3rd Friday's of the month, Thomas Hooker Brewery holds their Friday Night Open House, with the proceeds going to The Village, a local organization that focuses on promoting health and well being for children and families. The event typically attracts around 280 people and, as Cameron reported, has its fair share of guests that have come since the first tasting.

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Cameron has pictures from every tasting and loves to go through the pictures to see the yearly growth of people, with some pictures having the same people in the crowd for years straight!    

The tasting always attracts a large crowd because of the quality that Hooker has come to be known by. Hooker screens their beer rigorously to maintain quality control. Cameron says that once a customer knows how a beer tastes, then it is important to keep that taste exactly the same, even if it is years down the road. In this way the customer can always know what to expect with a particular type of beer. Though important to keep good beer the same, it is also important to make new varieties of good beer, as Cameron said, "You don't want to keep things the same all the time."

For more of the interview with Thomas Hooker President Curt Cameron and pictures of the center, visit my blog: Malted Musings (and keep frequent with me on Twitter @Malted_Musings). Also be sure to come down for the next beer tasting (Sept. 24 or Oc. 1) or Friday Open House (Oct. 7) at Thomas Hooker Brewery. 

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