Dead Language Beer Project

Magna Cervisia
Dead Language Beer Project, Hartford
May 2024

Yo.

Get yourself to Hartford. Parkville, specifically. Don’t be scared.

And don’t act like you don’t know that there are plenty of suburbanites who are scared. I read their ignorant comments all the time on various outlets. There are good reasons to go into Hartford, and Dead Language Beer Project, which I’ll get to in a minute, is certainly a top one.

Parkville is a small section of Hartford that has seen some difficult times, but I’ve been championing it since I began CTMQ in 2006. (Actually, my appreciation goes back further than that, but you didn’t know me then.) Park Street itself hosts a trove of family-owned, affordable, ethnic eateries; Vietnamese, Brazilian, Portuguese, Peruvian, Thai, Jamaican… on and on.

Then there’s the Parkville Market, a large collection of restaurants in a cool, vibrant, and fun setting. You know, something like real cities have. A block away is Dead Language, which opened in March of 2024 in the space previously inhabited by Hog River Brewing. It is a large, open, industrial space – and Dead Language has even expanded a bit and now there are more nooks and crannies for patrons to hang.

Hog River was an excellent brewery and a fun spot to chill. They called it “Hartford’s Living Room” and I always loved that, as it played into the whole multicultural vibe of Parkville. Hog River closed in March 2023 due to… reasons, but their beer is still brewed on contract and sold in stores a year later.

And since we’re talking about a closed brewery, I feel compelled to mention that we old heads remember Trout Brook Brewing, which was right across Bartholomew Avenue in the old Spaghetti Warehouse space. Trout Brook closed in 2000 when the brewery partner decided he wanted his own thing in Bloomfield… and Hooker Brewing was born. I mention this because at the time, in the late 1990’s, Parkville wasn’t awesome. Crime was pretty rampant and I remember car theft being a big issue at Trout Brook.

I don’t even worry about that much anymore – maybe because car and wheel theft is just as likely in my suburban enclave as in Hartford these days.

Okay, so Hog River had a nice run here. Replace “Hog River” with “Dead Language” below and it’s still apt:

And they’ve more or less achieved that goal. Hog River is open and airy, with tables situated under and near the massive hammer presses and gears of days gone by. “Industrial” isn’t just an aesthetic here, it’s everything. And yet, the taproom is still warm, inviting, and just straight-up cool.

Who is Dead Language and how did they get up and running relatively quickly?

It is owned and led by Chris DeGasero and his wife Kyle. If that name sounds familiar it’s because Chris (both?) was an owner and head brewer at Alvarium Beer Company in New Britain. They left Alvarium a couple years before opening Dead Language and began looking for their own space.

From The Courant, which I no longer bother linking for a million reasons:

“I have known [Owner and brewer at Hog River, Ben Braddock] for a long time, he’s my longest brewing friend,” Chris said. “So when he told me he was looking to sell, we immediately jumped right in. We wanted to be in Hartford somewhere and this just felt like the perfect fit for us. It’s great because we’re in this little artist enclave with art galleries, tattoo shops, and restaurants all around us. It’s great to be in this neighborhood. It’s really hopping now.”

And now here we are.

Chris did a different interview with the Hartford Business Journal in which he described the area thusly:

“It’s ideal to have it in the Parkville neighborhood, which is kind of artsy, it has the Brooklyn, up-and-coming feel. We wanted it to be in a cool and hip area.” Don’t laugh. I agree with him. And no one laughs at me.

Just kidding. Everyone laughs at me. Just ask my wife and sons.

Parkville section of Hartford. It’s hip. It’s hopping. It’s cool. It has a the Brooklyn feel.

And I really, really want Dead Language to not only survive, but to thrive. With a such a large space, it can feel kind of empty. That’s how it was when I first visited on a Saturday afternoon even though there were a good 20 patrons scattered about. I knew the brewery was different than most before arriving, but I didn’t appreciate how different.

Holy cow, I love it.

Dead Language is reviving dead beer styles. Okay, not dead, certainly diminished in the US in the 20-teens and twenties anyway: traditional lagers. Czech and German lagers.

Now, I’d heard this before going, but again, I wasn’t prepared for the breadth and depth of their offerings. And, oh, there’s more… but here’s a smattering of their beer offerings: Czech Dark Lager, Czech Pilsner, Czech Amber Lager, Japanese Rice Lager, German Pilsner, German Weissbier, Polish Grodziskie, German Rotbier… and most of those are planned to be on tap every day, all year.

Wow.

When I visited, the entire taplist was pretty much this plus one “American IPA.” ONE! Is this sustainable? One can only hope.

“It’s pretty unique, and really, we just wanted to try to do this our way,” she said. “Every (Connecticut) town has a wonderful brewery already. So we decided if we’re going to open another brewery, it has to be different…So we’re going for more of a cafe/lounge feel, taproom focus with the Euro lagers.”

Chris does recognize that East Rock in New Haven is the current king of traditional European style lagers in interviews, but why not try to match them 45 minutes north?

Beyond the beers themselves, which are mostly wonderfully low alcohol and incredibly low-priced (again, is this sustainable?!) they are served in traditional glassware (no way is that sustainable) and poured/pulled per your whim.

After a beer tourism trip to the Czech Republic, The DeGaseros purchased four LUKR faucets from Plzen and offer the four traditional styles of Czech Lager (Pale, Pils, Amber and Dark), along with all three pouring styles (Hladinka, Snyt, and Mliko). Seriously.

Hladinka is the standard pour with the thick head on top. This is what you’ll get if you don’t specify anything. Mliko is the milk pour – creamy and smooth. They also have Underberg which is an awful sort of apertif that is served in a boilermaker with a mliko Czech pour or just as a shot for true hipsters.

But let’s take a minute to appreciate the Snyt pour. Ah, be still my heart.

Snyt pours are half pours. For old men like me not trying to drink too much, but who appreciate good beer in variety, it’s fantastic that Dead Language offers this. In their giant glasses and mugs! The three pictures you see on this page of my beers were four bucks each. FOUR! They’re seven dollars each for full pours. (No way sustainable.)

I started with the Little Death, which is the Czech Dark Lager. Honestly, I could start and stop here. (This is a Tmavé Pivo for you nerds that care – a bit maltier and fuller than a schwarzbier, but very close in style.) And shout out for naming a beer after a wonderful song by The Beths. (My friend noted other beers share names with songs by Phish and The Adam Neely Band, but I can’t pretend to know or care about either. There is a Dead Head vibe here that goes beyond the “Dead” in the name, perhaps my only complaint.)

The décor here is, oh I don’t know, shabby chic? Lots of thrifted furniture that looks like thrifted furniture, but everything was clean and solid. There was a Foo Fighters pinball machine! There were attractive beer menus all over the place for perusal and explanation. Dead Language promotes other local businesses like Petrolhead next door which is a (checks notes) BBQ coffee shop? Okay. I guess?

My second beer here was Felix, the straight up German Pilsner. It’s bright and good and dry and crisp and, well, a European lager. It was a little sweeter than I’d expected, but maybe that’s because I don’t know what I should have expected.

My final choice on this first visit (I’ve since returned, by the way) was the Grodziskie called Peace Pipe. Certainly not at the top of my list, but curiosity got the best of me. (It’s a traditional smoked malt beer.) The menu describes its taste profile as “honey wheat cracker and smoldering beech and oak.” They use beech and oak smoked malts to achieve this and while the smokiness here was muted and probably close to what is served in Poland, it’s just not my thing. The base beer was good, but I just don’t have a need for the smoke. (But people love it! It’s one of their most popular beers.)

I enjoyed the early spring sunshine outside their side entrance and took in the scene. This is a true city bar. Hulking industrial buildings, a train line, an interstate highway, and the noises and rhythms of at least a dozen different cultures from Central America and different continents all within earshot at any given time.

Nothing dead about Parkville these days.

Dead Language Beer Project
CTMQ’s page on CT Breweries and Brewpubs