Hoptimystic Brewing opens Bow beer garden with 900 Degrees pizza

Bow’s warm-weather beer scene got a new anchor over Memorial Day weekend, when Hoptimystic Brewing opened its outdoor beer garden at 516 South Street with 900 Degrees Neapolitan Pizzeria. The setup gives the town a single stop for craft beer, pizza and an easy place to linger outside, with Hoptimystic’s site saying the Bow location is now open and listing takeout hours for Wednesday and Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m.

The Bow garden is built as more than a quick patio add-on. Hoptimystic has positioned it as a seasonal May-through-October destination, and the brewery’s event listings already show live music at the site. That mix of food, beer and programming turns the space into a social draw for summer evenings, not just a place to pick up a pint and go. It also gives Bow a new gathering spot in a town where the brewery’s owners have said local options for casual socializing have been limited.

For Hoptimystic, the partnership with 900 Degrees also looks like a business model with real upside. Instead of building a full standalone taproom from scratch, the brewery has leaned into a shared outdoor footprint that can pull traffic through food, beer and events at once. The Bow location joins Hoptimystic’s Sunapee and Enfield operations, signaling that this is part of a broader expansion rather than a one-off summer pop-up. The draw is simple: a wood-fired pizza partner, a craft beer lineup and a relaxed outdoor setup that can keep customers on site longer.

The Bow project has been in motion for a while. Town records show Bow reviewed a site-plan concept in August 2023, and a June 2024 proposal described a 2,464-square-foot brewery and restaurant at 516 South Street with parking, drainage, site lighting and landscaping. Dan and Kelly Thomas bought Hoptimystic in July 2023 after the original business, started in 2020 by Mike Boucher and Bill Waddell in Springfield, closed in November 2022. Bill Waddell stayed on as lead brewer, keeping the beer program steady as the company shifted into its next chapter.

That long runway now ends in a beer garden designed for summer traffic, not just brewery regulars. With live music, outdoor games, pizza from 900 Degrees and a location near Interstate 89, Hoptimystic’s Bow outpost is set up to catch commuters, travelers and locals in the same easygoing space, exactly the kind of shared room that can turn a brewery into a town habit.