Bow Beer Garden offers picnic vibes
Some dreams are realized all at once; others happen one step at a time.
Dan Thomas from Hoptimystic Brewing (71 Main St., Sunapee, hoptimysticbrewing.com) has wanted to open a new brewery and restaurant in Bow for several years.
“We have been working on it for like three years,” he said, “and we finally got something to fruition. We were hoping to open a full build-out of a brewery and restaurant, but we hit a bunch of hurdles and this is what we could do — we created a completely outdoor space here in Bow, right on South Street.”
The Bow Beer Garden will have a definite picnic theme this first year, Thomas said.
“It’s 100 percent outdoors. It’s definitely an outdoor New Hampshire rustic vibe. It’s a wood chip base, and we’ve got picnic tables. We’ve got some shade, some sun. We have a modified shipping container that has a concession window in it, so everything is ordered right out of there. You order your beer, your pizza, all of it, in a one-stop shop, right out of the container. We’re using the food truck more as just a mobile kitchen. Although it’s there, the customers won’t really interact with that at all. It’s definitely a very, very low-key casual vibe. You’ll walk away with your beer, but if you’re getting pizza you’ll get a buzzer. And when your buzzer goes off, come up to the window, grab your pizza and off you go.”
The food side of the Beer Garden will be addressed by a local pizza institution, Thomas said. “We found a great partner in 900 Degrees from Manchester. We’re doing the beer and we’re offering a very limited menu from 900 Degrees, but it’s the pizzas that folks already know. We have six different pizzas available — all 10-inch pizzas.”
On the beer side, Thomas and his staff plan to serve some proven winners.
“We came up with a beer for 900 Degrees called the House Pie Pilsner,” he said. “That’s something that we’re brewing for them. We’ve had that on tap since Day 1, and that’s been a huge hit for us. It’s a nice, light, crisp, refreshing beer. It’s not the hoppiest beer for real craft beer enthusiasts, but it really attracts the masses. Then, one of my personal favorites, more for the craft beer enthusiasts, is our Smooth Operator IPA. That’s one we’re excited about. The thing about us, and we do this in our other tasting rooms, although we have a couple core beers that stay on tap, we’re constantly changing. So you’ll see in a couple of weeks we’ll have a couple of sours. We’ve got a Creamsicle IPA that we do once a year, which is super refreshing and popular. I think the thing about us is not so much that there’s one beer that defines us. We’ve had folks posting on some social media about how they appreciate the fact that we have variety.”
Thomas said that he has a good feeling about the new beer garden. “We’re still a work in progress for sure,” he said, “but we’ve got heating, we’ve got cold beer, and we’ve got hot pizza. Some of the aesthetic stuff we’re still working on. Every week, when you come, it’s going to look a little better. We’ve done a couple things this last week from when we opened, from the week prior. This week we’ve got a couple more things coming, and next week we’ve got a few more things coming. Every week we’re getting a little bit better. It was important for us to get open. And when folks come down, we’re happy to serve them.”
The Bow Beer Garden
Hours: Wednesday and Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday from noon to 9 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 7 p.m.
More: Visit the Beer Garden’s website at hoptimysticbrewing.com/new-page, which is also a work in progress.
Featured photo: Courtesy photo.