Your Ship Comes In: Twelve Guns Brewing drops anchor in Bristol

From award-winning homebrewer to brewery owner: Kyle Michaud takes the helm of Twelve Guns Brewing and docks her in the scenic, seaside town of Bristol.

I met with Kyle on a blustery Wednesday morning to tour his soon-to-be-open brewery and taproom.

The name Twelve Guns, Kyle tells me, comes from the Revolutionary War naval vessel, the U.S.S. Providence, which, as you may have guessed, boasted 12 guns. There’s a mural of the sloop, in all its magnificent glory, on the port side taproom wall.

The space is intimate; wherever you stand or sit while drinking your beer, you’ll be no more than 50 feet from an active brew day or a tank fermenting away. The brewhouse and taproom are adjascent, sharing the modest square footage. This front-row show is a great concept for beer drinkers who want to know more about the process of beer-making. Just don’t pet the brewers, please.

Twelve Guns is outfitted with a reverse-osmosis water system, which gives brewers the ability to build their brewing water profiles from scratch. With the addition of brewing salts, they can replicate beer styles that taste authentic to their homelands. For example, with one sip of their cranberry Berliner Weisse you’ll be transported back to that study-abroad trip you took to Germany where you got drunk and danced around in lederhosen. You get the point.

On opening day, which is planned for mid-to-late August, you’ll have your choice to drink or sample eight different beers — an American blond ale, a citrus pale ale, a toasted coconut stout, a cranberry Berliner Weisse. a red IPA, a NEIPA,  Belgian wit and a nitro cream ale.

“[The beer lineup] covers a wide variety of styles that are most popular here in America,” Kyle says. “It also introduces people to styles that they haven’t tried before.”

Check their Facebook for updates

Twelvegunsbrewing.com 549 Metacom Ave, Bristol