Monthly Archives: July 2014

Vermont Brewers Festival

Beer, , ,

We headed up to Burlington last weekend to visit family and go to the Vermont Brewers Festival.

From the beginning, the festival showed signs of careful planning.  Online ticketing went smoothly, even though the tickets sold out in a few hours.  There were three 4-hour sessions planned over the course of the weekend.  Each attendee received a number of tickets, so the beers were limited.  And the food/merchandise area opened 30 minutes earlier than the beer booths.  So we arrived early, had a quick lunch, and pored over the taplist while waiting for the main event.

When the beer started flowing, long lines quickly formed at three booths: two breweries you may have heard of, and one we hadn’t heard of (the only booth that we saw run out of beer).  The benefit of the multiple sessions and those long lines was that the other lines were pretty short, ranging from at most ten minutes to no wait at all.  So we were able to leisurely make our way through nearly 30 beers (15 tickets each).  Some of our favorites:

  • Lost Nation Petit Ardennes – a spicy, fruity saison — perfect on a warm day.
  • Alchemist Crusher – a sweet, resiny big brother to Heady Topper.
  • Brasserie Dunham Saison du Pinnacle – a tart saison with nice Brett funkiness.
  • Foley Brothers Fair Maiden – a big woody IPA with pungent grapefruit hopppiness.
  • Mystic Chardonnay Saison – a fine wine-barrel fermented saison, with notes of honey.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a festival without some strange beers you’d never try otherwise:

  • Burlington Beer’s Folklife – a gruit which tasted exactly like a nice loaf of rosemary bread.  Not unpleasant, exactly, but pretty far from what I normally expect from beer (even with a pretty liberal definition).
  • Kingdom Brewery’s Jack Piipa – a pumpkin IIPA, very rummy and hot.  One of the strongest beers I saw at the festival too.

Overall, one of the best festivals I’ve been to — short lines, good portable bathrooms (not portapotties), good food, a great variety of beers and plenty to go around.  The setting in the park right on Lake Champlain was fantastic.  The only shortcomings I can think of is that there wasn’t much shade, and water was only available over at one side of the site.  Unlike Florida, you don’t have to have coolers full of water at every booth to prevent heatstroke.  But it definitely would improve the experience.

Hopshire Farm & Brewery

Beer, ,

We’ve decamped to upstate New York for the rest of the summer, and determined to visit a few of the farm breweries that are popping up all over the area.  So we headed over to Hopshire Farm & Brewery, planning to taste their beers and have a picnic dinner.  We were excited to see hop bines growing in the front of the brewery, but disappointed to see the picnic tables mentioned on their website were just off the parking lot, and in full sun.

Coming in the front door, we entered a cozy square taproom.  On the left was the brewery, and on the right was a small side room with a table and some toys for kids.  Luckily, we were there early and were the only ones there, so we were able to eat in the side room.

At the back was a bar with seven beers on tap, divided into mellow, middling, and mighty:

Mellow

  • Beehave: a light and refreshing ale, made with local honey.  It has a nice sweetness (without the heavier body of maltier beers), and reminds us of a honey cream ale from back home we quite like.
  • Brambles: a straw-colored wheat beer, with just a hint of earthy raspberry.  Has more wheat twang than I care for, but Wind quite liked it.

Middling

  • Daddy ‘O: an English pale ale, but with more fruity yeast character than typical, and a nice Fuggles finish.
  • Shire Ale: not as dark as the typical near-black Scottish ale you often see, but with more malt complexity.  In particular, this beer has more dark malt roastiness than typical.  This was another beer that Wind liked more than I did. 
  • Hamlet of Varna: a 5% session IPA.  This seems like a popular style this summer and we’ve just had a few of these (like Southern Tier’s Farmer’s Tan).  I do appreciate the trend away from big IPAs, though they do suffer in rapid-fire tastings because, at the end of the day, they are weaker beers.  So I liked Hamlet of Varna quite a bit, but NearVarna even more.

Mighty

  • NearVarna: a wonderful American IPA in the malty East-coast style.  Especially immediately after the milder Hamlet of Varna, this is a fantastic hop showcase.
  • Sympathy: a rich, full-bodied Belgian golden ale with characteristic estery profile.   My favorite of the bunch, and the strongest.

After we’d eaten and enjoyed a couple of half-pints, we got a couple of growlers filled.  By this time, the taproom had filled up, but the wait wasn’t long.  Alas, even though they seemed to be sealed properly, both growlers were undercarbonated.  We had the first the same night, and the second the next night.  The beer still tasted fine, but obviously not as good as in the taproom.