Lock City brewery owners keep it small with in-house brews

Lock City Brewing co-founders Mike Bushnell, left, and Patrick Casciolo chat with customers as the taps begin flow during the Grand Opening of their new brewery on Saturday, July 22, 2017 in Stamford, Connecticut. less Lock City Brewing co-founders Mike Bushnell, left, and Patrick Casciolo chat with customers as the taps begin flow during the Grand Opening of their new brewery on Saturday, July 22, 2017 in Stamford, ... more Photo: Matthew Brown / Hearst Connecticut Media Buy photo Photo: Matthew Brown / Hearst Connecticut Media Image 1 of / 21 Caption Close Lock City brewery owners keep it small with in-house brews 1 / 21 Back to Gallery

STAMFORD — Before entering the booming craft beer industry, Mike Bushnell taught himself to brew in the laundry room of his Stamford townhome. The result, at first, was less than delicious.

“The first 10 or 15 batches I just dumped down the drain,” said Bushnell, a 41-year-old former financial controller, who took up the hobby while his wife was busy pursuing a doctoral degree. “Finally I got one that was right and I started handing it out to friends. They liked it, and it seemed pretty comparable to what we were drinking at the time.”

That initial success four years ago kicked off a long journey and many more batches that would eventually launch Fairfield County’s newest brewery, Lock City Brewing Co., which celebrated the opening of its taproom earlier this month.

The proliferation of small-batch brewers —Stamford’s Half Full, Stratford’s Two Roads and Bridgeport’s Brewport — doesn’t mean achieving profitability in this industry is easy, said Bushnell, who opened Lock City with business partner Patrick Casciolo.

“There are a lot more roadblocks and hurdles than there were a few years ago,” Bushnell said. “You go to a place like Cask Republic and they have 30 taps on the wall, and you go to Coalhouse where they have 75 taps, and probably 45 or 50 of them are being used. You have too many choices. Some beers sit on tap for two months and you can’t get rid of them.”

That perception has informed Bushnell and Casciolo’s business model for Lock City. Instead of distributing their beers to bars and restaurants, the duo wants to keep their product in-house, serving it at their Research Drive taproom three or four days a week and limiting keg distribution. In the fall, they’ll start canning small amounts.

“We’re not just going to sell it to the dive bar down on the corner, where most of those people are drinking Budweiser anyway,” Bushnell said.

Their model may prove successful in a state where the number of breweries has tripled since 2011. Connecticut’s 49 craft-beer manufacturers represent a nearly $570 million industry, according to the Brewers Association in Boulder, Colo. Craft beer sales nationwide were up 6 percent in 2016.

Casciolo, 42, said their business model is based on what they’ve seen work at their favorite brewers, like Trillium and Night Shift in Boston, Bissell Brothers in Portland, Maine, and Tree House in Charlton, Mass.

“Once your beer goes through distribution, you don’t have any control over what happens to it,” Casciolo said. “Especially fresh New England-style IPAs have to be consumed right away. There’s really no shelf-life for these beers.”

Last week, Lock City was mixing its fifth ever commercial batch at its 2,000-square-foot brewery and taproom, where patrons sip their pints feet from the tall metal vats used to ferment the beer just days or weeks before. Its latest creation is a stout made from 375 pounds of malt mash with a hint of cold-brew-style coffee.

“It’s hopefully going to be a lower-alcohol-type stout,” Bushnell said. “We’re still in the middle of tweaking, getting the pH right in the water. It’s going to take a hundred batches to get everything where we want it.”

As Lock City’s brewmaster, Bushnell is the scientist and mixologist behind the brand. His creations so far include Research Drive Blonde Ale and O.J. on Parole IPA. Meanwhile, Casciolo, a Darien resident who also owns an audio-video installation business, calls himself the face of Lock City. The two met years ago through their wives and decided together to join the craft-beer industry.

Besides developing recipes, the owners faced a hurdle in finding an available space that met their needs in an area with the type of industrial zoning that would permit them to operate a brewery. They eventually settled in an industrial section of Glenbrook.

Throughout their search, Bushnell and Caciolo were determined to have their brewery be a Stamford venture, reflected in its wholly Stamford name. Anyone who knows about Stamford history is familiar with Yale & Towne locks. The manufacturer flourished in the first half of the 20th Century, giving Stamford a lasting nickname that inspired the creators of the city’s second recent brewery.

Yale & Towne is represented in the retro-industrial decor of the taproom, which has the manufacturer’s metal locks displayed throughout. The vintage locks were easy to find on eBay, Bushnell said.

“We decided to bring some history back to the city and build community,” he said. “If you make a good product, people are going to find you.”

Lock City Brewing Co., at 54 Research Drive, is open Thursday through Friday, 5 to 9 p.m., and Saturday, from noon to 7 p.m.