Join us at The Brewery for Trivia Night on Friday nights. 

We start Fridays with Happy Hour from 3-5pm where drinks are $1 off.  Find a comfy spot and settle in for Trivia starting between 5:30-6pm.  First place winners get a $30 gift card, Second place winners get a $20 gift card and Third place winners get a $10 gift card for future use at The Brewery.

The Brewery will be open until 8pm and the back fields of the farm will be accessible until dusk.  We'll be offering self-guided tours of the farm all day, Pony Rides from 1-3pm, Live music at 3pm, a new beer release in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Granby Road Race and a selection of vendors set up around our Brewery Lawn. We'll have Meet The Farmer talks, a Hay Bale Throwing Contest, and a new beer released in honor of the 50th Annual Granby Road Race also on September 18.  Follow our social media for more details!

Friday afternoons on the farm are made more fun when it is Happy Hour! The Brewery at Maple View Farm has Happy Hour every Friday from 3-5pm (Happy 2-Hours anyone??).  Get $1 any beer you buy during those hours.  Sit outside with friends in our comfortable Adirondak chairs, or hang out inside around our big communal table.  Having fun? Then stay for our weekly Trivia game from 6-8pm!

$20 per carload​

Come down to the farm for Pony Rides from 1-3pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

Join us for fun on the Farm for Father's Day weekend.
The Brewery will be open on Friday 3-8pm with Happy Hour ($1 off beers) from 3-5pm and then TRIVIA starting at 6pm.  1st 2nd and 3rd place winners will win gift cards for a return visit to The Brewery. The Z Catering food truck will be with us.
Saturday The Brewery is open from 1-8pm and we'll have LIVE MUSIC from J. Lamm and Finn at 3pm. We'll also have dad's favorite Bear's Barbeque Food Truck.
On Sunday we'll be open from 1-6pm with Hannah's Field playing at 3pm.  Dolly's Dogs and Tots will be serving up delicious hot dogs and tater tots. 
The Farms own Farm Picnic will be available for purchase any day The Brewery is open. 

We are about to watch another cornfield in town get developed - houses, condos, roads and driveways. I’m sure the people who will live there would love our little farm town.  But will it still be a farm town when they get here? What makes a farm town? Are you still a farm town if travelers through town don’t see any farming? 

We are 3rd generation farmers. in 1950, my husband’s grandparents moved from their small plot in East Hartford, to a beautiful piece of land in just south of the center of town on Rt. 10 in Granby. They noted how flat it was and how the brook wandered through it, bisecting the 50 acres and therefore providing easy access to water - something coveted by farmers.  But they didn’t start the farm.  It was already a working dairy farm and the cows and tractors came with the land, written right on the deed registered in town hall.  Our land that provides food for our family and our neighbors has been farmed back to Granby’s settlement in 1635, with the land along the southern part of Route 10 divided in long strips from the road down to the Salmon Brook.  

Passing the farm through generations can be tough.  Many "farm kids” don’t want to come back to the family land.  Too much work.  Not enough money.  And this is reality for lots of family farms. But really, a family farm is a small business.  In order for the family farm to survive, the small business has to thrive. Otherwise, the only option is to sell the land. When we patronize family farms, we’re not just supporting the current farmers, we’re encouraging the next generation as well.  Thriving family businesses are more likely to be handed down generation to generation and therefore farmland is more likely to stay in farming.

Many farms are doing a great job diversifying, adding value added products and creating multiple income streams: veggie farms that use the produce they grow in their on-farm restaurant, goat farms offering soap, vineyards offering a space for weddings.  Our farm just opened an on-farm brewery where we feed our spent brewer’s grains to our pigs.

By the time the developer is talking to the planning and zoning board it is too late.  Some sort of development is under way.  The time to save farmland is right now - so get out and stop at a local farm store, eat brunch or a slice of pie, have a beer, or a glass of wine.  Our Farm Town depends on it.

You know it’s “cool” to eat local – to call yourself a locavore, wear a man-bun and grind your own fair trade coffee.  You feel good about yourself because your banana farmer in South America is getting paid a fair wage and you know the names of your local farmer’s kids.  But really – What’s in it for YOU to shop local?  I mean, it’s expensive, it’s time consuming, right?  Maybe not so much when you consider the whole picture.
 

1. TRUST.  Do you want to know how your food is produced?  Looking into the eyes of the person who made it means a lot more than any certification from the US government. (Or even worse – other countries’ governments – did you know that agreement about Organic Practices varies from country to country?)  We’re taking other countries at their word when they put it on their label.  Your local farmer eats what she produces, feeds it to her family, hosts friends with that food and sells it in the community in which he lives.  Where his children go to school, where their family goes to church and where her family has lived for generations.  There’s no higher stakes at getting something right than that.
2. LAND PRESERVATION.  Farmer’s are a great deal for a local tax base.  For every dollar in taxes that a Connecticut farm pays, they only use $0.31 in services.  That’s land preservation at its very cheapest.  Get it- by supporting your local farm, you are saving on YOUR taxes!  To maintain a rural feel to your town, the public must support local agriculture.  You won’t be driving by a hay field if you don’t buy the local farmer’s beef.  You won’t enjoy vistas of tomato fields if you don’t join your local CSA.  Farms are businesses and they need customers to stay solvent.
3. CONVENIENCE.  It may not seem like it’s convenient to stop at a couple of farms on your way home from work, or on Saturday morning, or with the kids in the back seat, but maybe give it a try.  You might find out it’s even MORE convenient than the local big box shop.  I mean – you can’t exactly leave your kids in the car while you go into the grocery store, but you might be able to park right outside a small farm store while the kids watch the cows from the comfort of their car seats.  You might find that one of your favorite Farm Stores sells a little bit of everything – meat and veggies from their farm, plus milk and cheese from a neighbor farm.  Sometimes making a new routine can be a challenge, but you find out it’s actually easier for you in the end.
4. VALUE.  If you compare, dollar for dollar, locally produces food, you might find that the local stuff seems more expensive.  But sometimes it’s not.  Be careful about how you compare.  Don’t compare a pound of pasture-raised beef from your local farmer to the stuff on sale in the big box that came from who-knows-where and was made from animals that lived who-knows-how.  Compare apples to apples (no pun intended) when you shop – are items advertised with their price per pound, or priced per item?  Many times the price per pound is quite similar.  When you shop local, 100% of your money stays in your community – double that of when you shop in a big box. 
5. EDUCATION.  Never heard of kohlrhabi?  Don’t know how to cook a beef shank?  Your local farmer will help you!  Check out the farm website, or CSA emails for recipes and directions.  Show up to Open Farm days and ask questions of your farmer.  Bring your kids and let them “meet their meat” and pick their own berries.  It’s important to know that pork chops come from a pig and that blackberries grow on thorny canes.  It’s  only then that we have a true appreciation for our food.  It should matter how the pig was raised before you put a piece of bacon on your plate.  It’s only when you walk out into a field that you understand how little of the broccoli plant is the crown part.  Understanding provides motivation not to waste.  It’s what makes you want to use the leftover bacon in a frittata the next day and chop up the broccoli stems for your stir fry.  And that the start.  The little bit that each one of us can do to make our earth a better place to live.
6. HEALTH.  Americans suffer unnecessarily from diet related disease and chronic illness including diabetes, heart disease, and even some cancers.  We struggle to find the “PERFECT” diet – Paleo? Mediterranean? Atkins? Vegan?  What’s at the root of all these diets is that they all put an emphasis on eating REAL FOOD.  Shopping local means eating real food.  Not stuff that comes out of a package.  And everyone from the Surgeon General to Dr. Oz agrees that the path to health is not paved with processed food.  Fruits and vegetables, high quality meat and dairy (along with plenty of movement) are the backbone to healthy living.  The health of you and your family are affected by the food you choose to buy.  You are making healthcare decisions three times per day.

 
So, that’s what’s in it for you:  A lot.  Hope to see you soon.
 
-Farmer Kate