New England Brewing Company

About

New England Brewing Co. is a microbrewery based in Woodbridge, CT that crafts a handful of savory brews including Atlantic Amber, Elm City Lager, and Sea Hag IPA. Owner and brewer Rob Leonard started making beer in his kitchen. Like many home brewers he eventually grew in knowledge and recipes and wanted to make more and different beers. He landed that home brewers dream job at New Haven Brewing in 1992 cleaning kegs and packing cases. But his obvious passion for the brewing craft led him to the title assistant brewer and eventually head brewer in short three years. At that time he joined forces with former NHB colleague Blair Potts to run Quality Assured Brewing, a consulting service for microbreweries throughout the North East. 1996 saw Rob as the Brew Master for both the Manchester and Westport, CT locations in The John Harvard’s Brew House chain. While there, Rob won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival in the German Altbier category. Southern Connecticut, especially Norwalk, took a liking to Rob and that was where he became the brewmaster and operations manager for New England Brewing. He learned the sales end of beer and when the owners wanted to get out of the brewery business, Rob immediately took the opportunity to acquire the name of the company and re-locate the whole business just down the street from the kitchen where he first started making beer.