The popular Gooding Avenue brewery Six Pack closed recently — the owners decided to pursue some new opportunities — but fortunately their devoted regulars won’t be out in the cold for long. Tragmar will be filling the void.

Tragmar is Jason Buck, Mike Godet, and Chris Kerr — three friends who have long wanted to open a brew pub.

Buck, a veteran who works at Raytheon, and Godet, a former brewer with Vigilant Brewing, are neighbors. “We met here in Bristol,” said Buck. “He (Godet) pulled me into the Six Pack brew club, showed me how to make some beer because he was really passionate about it. So I got involved with that, I was really excited about it. I love the community.”

Kerr, a native of County Antrim in Northern Ireland and a resident of Warren, was a colleague of Buck’s at Raytheon. he has since left the defense contractor to focus on Tragmar full time.

It’s been a process, from settling on a name, concept, logo, and hunting for a space. They looked at a lot of different options for locations before the 87 Gooding Ave. site — complete with brewing equipment — became available.

Godot will be the brewmaster, and he will we looking across the Atlantic for inspiration.

“With it being an Irish themed brewery, we're going to have the classic Irish styles, an imperial red ale, we’ll be taking those classic Irish styles and Americanizing them a little bit,” he said.

“I’ve always been interested in starting an Irish Pub, and the brewery became the more obvious choice with these guys,” said Kerr, who is also interested in creating a community spot evocative of the role of the Irish pub in that society. “I want to make sure this is the community spot, like what an Irish Pub is back home. It's for the community to get together, where people go to have their birthday parties, their Christenings or wedding afterparties.”

“We’re trying to bring that smaller Irish pub community feel but also maintain the brewery vibe.”

With rich green walls and some new built-in seating and shelves, the interior will be getting a fresh new look, all reflective of the Celtic theme.

The name Tragmar actually comes from the Celtic god of axe throwing.
“There's an ancient family of gods and ancient Irish Celtic mythology, called the Tuatha Dé Danann,” said Kerr. “There's a whole slew of gods within that family. So we collectively thought we wanted to base our theme around that mythology, and there's hundreds of gods and goddesses and they all have different abilities and powers and things that they represent.”

“There was one who stood out kind of stood out, Goibniu (pronounced goiv-new), a God associated with brewing. But it's one of those Irish names that’s hard to pronounce and hard to spell. So, we started looking a little bit further and his father was actually Tragmar. His power was that he was able to toss an axe into the ocean and wherever landed, the seas would stop.”

The Celtic god theme will carry through to the names and can art of Tragmar’s signature brews. There are no plans to offer axe-throwing in the tap room, but as with Six Pack, it will be a dog-friendly space.
Buck, Godet, and Kerr are awaiting the necessary state and federal permits to open their doors, hopefully in time for St. Patrick’s Day.