Dan Doyle, an award-winning designer of disc-golf courses, was running his father’s steel-fabrication business in 2011 when he envisioned a place to live, design his own disc-golf course, and build a gathering place for food and drinks. Fence Road Farm Brewery in Warwick is the serendipitous result.
Doyle found a 47-acre farm about a mile and a half from Warwick’s village center, coincidentally across the street from a town park with two disc-golf courses. Soon, an 18-hole course came to life at Oasis of Warwick, his new name for the farm. “An oasis is a place to provide nourishment, whether that’s physical, spiritual, or emotional,” Doyle says.
Doyle was a freshman at Rutgers University in 1974 when what he calls “cosmic serendipity” struck. “It’s typically defined as fate, but I add a mythological twist to it: I believe there’s a ‘cosmic puppeteer,’ and we are all connected to it with our ‘life strings,’” Doyle explains. “The puppeteer makes connections between people, and it’s up to us to do something about it.” Out his dorm window, he saw two young men doing trick throws with Frisbee discs. Well-known in disc-golf circles, they were Irv “Dr. I” Kalb and Dan “Stork” Roddick.
“Looking back, I realize it was like watching Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig having a catch with a baseball,” Doyle said. He ran down to the field, they saw his potential. Fast-forward 52 years, and Doyle has played on four world-championship Ultimate Frisbee teams, has designed 35 disc-golf courses, and last October was named to the World Disc Golf Hall of Fame. Doyle is currently designing disc golf courses at Winding Hills and Hickory Hill golf courses in Orange County. “That’s my art,” he explains. “Nature is my blank canvas.”
A Farm Brewery is Born
Before Doyle sold Brakewell Steel Fabricators in 2021, he set his sights on 18 acres of retirement paradise on Prince Edward Island. His culinary-skilled son, Zack, changed his mind and became Doyle’s first hire. “At an age when most people are considering retirement, I decide to do something ridiculous like build all of this from scratch,” Doyle says. The gleam in his eye reveals that his decision came with no regrets.
The brewery is a surprise for first-time visitors, who expect a rustic space in the huge red barn facing the road. Nope, that’s actually a barn—keep going. The driveway opens into a parking lot adjacent to a monolithic, modern building, beautifully lit inside and out. The first door opens not into the brewery, but into the Oasis Disc Golf Pro Shop (not a “Frisbee store”), where Mojo, a 28-year-old Macaw, entertains visitors among a wide range of flying discs and disc-golf-centric apparel.
Back outside, a rustic-beamed portico welcomes guests into the brewery’s lobby, which sports a polished wooden swing fashioned from peeled logs (smaller wooden art pieces are for sale in the pro shop). Among event posters and Beatles memorabilia are paintings sporting almost-hidden disc-golf baskets. From there, enter the taproom, a soaring, black-walled space with tables and plush chairs. Leafy layers on pendants lighting the moody space are reminiscent of hops. An outdoor bar off the taproom has tables within sight of the disc-golf course.
“This was sort of a design-build that evolved over many years,” says Doyle. “I just kind of rode the horse in the direction it was going.”
Bespoke Brews and Elevated Eats
Behind the taproom’s bar, taps connect to a wall of serving tanks, which in turn connect to 217-gallon brew tanks in the production room. Very little is wasted here: A nearby animal sanctuary uses the spent grains.
Most of the 15 taps serve in-house brews and meads—the exception are some guest taps for Warwick-based Doc’s Cider. House brews are varied and exceptional: farmhouse ales, IPAs, pilsners, stouts, and Passion Pony, a hard seltzer brewed from prickly pear.
Like a certain brew? Buy a growler or some cans to bring home. Fence Road Farm Brewery also sells kegs of their home brews to other local vendors. Heading up the process is brewmaster/co-owner Charlie Holmgren, who’s also a disc-golf champion. The meads are brewed in-house by master meadmaker Tony Forder, also a disc golfer.
The food, too, is elevated. “Sometimes, I don’t know if we’re a brewery with a restaurant, or a restaurant with a brewery,” Doyle says. Among the chicken wings and burgers are unexpected dishes like delicately fried squash blossoms ($16), Korean mac and cheese with kimchi, gochujang, and a ginger garlic crunch ($22), and sandwiches like the Bacon Apple & Brie Jammer ($16) on fresh sourdough. Wood-fired pizza ($15-$19) is heaven on a perfectly charred crust.
Zack Doyle and head chef Jess Troeller conceive the menu and its specials, culling from indoor hydroponic farms in two onsite freight containers that grow greens, tomatoes, and other vegetables under the watch of horticulturist Kerry Malone. In the growing season, there’s a full-fledged farm including fruit trees and berry bushes to flavor Forder’s meads. Farm-to-table is coming soon, and Doyle imagines potential “pond-to-table” dishes with catfish, trout, and bass stocked onsite. The “cosmic puppeteer” will likely steer Doyle to the right consultant: “I learned I’m really smart at knowing I’m not really smart, so I surround myself with experts who are,” he says.
A covered courtyard near the entrance opens to a 125-person event space with floor-to-ceiling garage doors opening to the verdant views (the taproom has one, too). It hosts weddings, events, and community gatherings.
Poker nights, live music, board-game nights, and other fun events are also popular. This eclectic place epitomizes a word Doyle coined to encompass nourishing the body, soul, and spirit: Fungriculture. The “cosmic puppeteer” probably had a hand in that, too.
Fence Road Farm Brewery is located at 11 Fence Road in Warwick. It is closed Monday and Tuesday.
