It’s hard to imagine what starting a brewery would have been like 30 years ago, when there were like, I don’t know, two craft breweries in the U.S. Could you imagine going to a bank in the ‘80s and asking for money to start a brewery?
“Like Budweiser?” The suit holding the money would probably say.
“No. Nothing like Budweiser,” the would-be brewer would respond.
“Like Milwaukee’s Best?”
It takes guts to start a brewery in 2014, when the craft beer market is bullish, but can you imagine the cajones on that first generation of brewers in the ‘70s and ‘80s? The first batch of brewers to say, “I think we can do this better. And I think people will buy it.”
Bridgeport was there in the beginning, part of that first wave of visionaries who knew they could reimagine American beer, and they’ve decided to take a victory lap 30 years later by releasing a series of three beers—the Bridgeport Trilogy. Think of this series as a walk down beer memory lane—a chance to revisit some of the breweries history while also hinting at the future.
And who can blame Bridgeport for being proud? Three decades is nothing to sneeze at. What else has lasted 30 years? Menudo. Menudo lasted 30 years (32 years, actually) but they just changed those kids out like dirty underwear, so I don’t think that counts.
But I digress.
Bridgeport has released each of the Trilogy beers individually throughout 2014, and now that all three have reached the public, they want us to vote on our favorite. The winning beer comes back next year.
Paste had the chance to sample each of the Trilogy as they were released, but now that Bridgeport wants to pick a winner, we’ve decided to revisit all three beers in one sitting.