Hill Farmstead: Vera Mae

Sometimes life works in amazing ways. After figuring out when I'd be able to get to Vermont for a vacation I set up a side trip to Hill Farmstead. Then it turns out that I'd be arriving on the exact day that they'd be releasing a beer that I've been lusting over ever since I read about it's release last season. Vera Mae Saison.
Vera Mae is made with organic vermont spelt, dandelions picked right off the land, American hops, wildflower honey, and pure bliss.  This might be my new favorite beer, with a somewhat musty smell up front, with that wheaty base smell uncovered by a big whiff. The taste is amazing, with earthy wheat being carried over the excellent sweetness from the honey and floral tartness in the finish, a combination of bitter hops and what I can only assume is the dandelions coming through. Every sip is a treasure of taste and is an experience much like the trip to Hill Farmstead itself. Just perfect.

Destination Vermont, Last Stop: Hill Farmstead

Hill Farmstead Brewery is thee most beautiful brewery I've ever been to. Located off dirt roads in Greensboro, VT on land that's been in Brewer Shaun Hill's family for over 200 years, it takes hours to get to from just about everywhere. On the plus side, on my way back to Boston you drive through beautiful Franconia Notch State Park, adding even more beauty to an already amazing trip.
Hill Farmstead is an absolute must visit for any Vermont beer trip. Getting out of the truck and walking over you can smell the sweetness of nature and a brewery, a mix of grass and cooked grain, and the sights are just endless fields and a quaint farmhouse. That farmhouse just happens to have a brewery attached to it. Now, maybe it's the experience of making the extra journey, and being in what might be the most beautiful place I've ever been able to buy and drink a beer but Hill Farmstead makes the best beers I've ever tasted. Drinking them is as much about the adventure as it is about the excellent quality of these small batch beers that get churned out daily.
Edward, Hill Farmstead's American Pale Ale, named after their Grandfather, is the most purchased growler fill of the day, with a few folks bring cases of their custom labeled 2 Liter growler to get it filled. The man directly in front of me had 2 and says he comes every Wednesday to get them filled with Edward. Edward, as a beer, is just amazing. It's not some knock your socks off double IPA, clocking in at 5.2% alcohol, but it still boasts 85 IBU's, the International Bittering Units. The beer itself is nice and sweet, with hints of caramel malt but mostly it's carried by it's delicious hop profile, filling your mouth with stinging hops that are reminiscent of some tropical fruit, grapefruit and some excellent piney bite. It's just a perfectly balanced pale ale and the only fall back is that it's 3 hours just to get this growler refilled.

Vermont Vacation: Lost Nation Brewing

Photo by Lily Carey

Going to Vermont always brings new surprises and new beers to try, and of the newest beers I was lucky enough to drink on my vacation were from a new brewery housed in the place where an old brewery once was. Two brewers, Allen Van Anda and Jaime Griffith started planning their own brewing ideas when the Trapp Lager Brewery started an expansion and they started planning a new brewery of their own. Then the old Rock Art Brewery's space opened up, and after months of prep and who knows what else, Lost Nation Brewing opened it's doors.
When I saw Lost Nation Gose on the menu at The Farmhouse Tap and Grill in Burlington, VT I thought two things, first, I fucking love Goses and had to order it, and second, what the fuck is Lost Nation Brewing. I was already planning the trip across the state to hit up The Alchemist and Hill Farmstead, so what was one more stop on the way. I was assuming I'd pull up to a space and be able to taste a few beers, grab a growler of something and be on my way. What I wasn't ready for was an amazing smell of smoked meats and a bar full of people with delicious looking food in front of them. I immediately regretted eating anything that morning because I wanted to fill myself with everything going on in this place.

Photo by Lily Carey

I ordered a Vermont Farmstead Alehouse Creamy Cheddar plate with a Petit Ardennes, a belgian ale that was full of delicious clove spice and tasted a bit like every brewery smells, with that sweet grain smell in the glass. The lady ordered the Gose after stealing half of mine the night before, this time getting to take in the entire beer. The gose was equally delicious, with some nice coriander spice and that briny finish that pairs excellently with the creamy cheese, making it a beer you want to quench your thirst with and almost causes a bit of thirst at the same time. The cheese was amazing, and served with an excellent cherry jam that added a perfect fruity balance to the dry finish of the Petit Ardennes.
Vermont is full of amazing breweries, and Lost Nation Brewing added another stop on what's becoming an annual pilgrimage to Vermont. Session beers are becoming more and more necessary to me. Drinking imperial bombs are great, but being able to sit back and drink a 6 pack without feeling like I'm gonna wake up in a bathtub is equally important. Being able to drink all night while playing an epic 4 hour game of Arkham Horror and walk away unscathed isn't always easy, and finding low ABV beers that actually taste excellent isn't easy either. But Lost Nation Brewing is doing just that, and I hope one day I can pick up bottles of their beer anywhere, but for now it's worth the trip to Morrisville for a growler, some cheese and a sandwich.

Ballast Point: Sculpin IPA

The sculpin fish is found in both salt and fresh water, and is the only known fish to produce adrenaline. It also has small stingers that produce a small amount of venom and causes some serious pain when they sting you. It’s a very fitting name for this wonderfully crafted beer from Ballast Point Brewing.

Sculpin IPA is a wonderful beer, pouring beautiful amber with a nice thick head. The hops pop out of the glass with smells of grapefruit and even a hint of tropical mango. The taste itself is just what I want from an IPA, with that citrusy hop carried by sweetness from the malts with a dry finish leaving tons of bitterness on the tongue, just begging for another sip. This beer begs to be drank and it disappears fast. But I've got a 6 pack, so I'm going to drink plenty more! Luckily Sculpin clocks in at the perfect every day IPA alcohol level, 7%, so I'll still be standing by the end of the night. 

Night Shift: Snow White Stout

The concept of a white stout, to me, is the same as a Black IPA. Stouts are dark, and while stout really just started as a descriptor for a stronger porter (stout porter), it's since taken on a name unto itself. And where someone once said an India Pale Ale doesn't have to be pale, Night Shift Brewing has decided that a stout doesn't necessarily have to be dark, and it's led us to Snow, their White Stout made with Ethiopia Harrar coffee beans and oatmeal in the mash.
Snow White once ate a poisoned apple that knocked her out till a prince came and kissed her awake, like that makes any sense. What that lady needed was a massive blast of caffeine to get her going. The prince could've just poured a mouthful of Snow for her and she would've woken right up.
Snow pours a very nice golden color and the scent of coffee rises strait up out of the glass. The taste is immediately cowboy coffee, with the granules flowing through my teeth, but the oatmeal provides a nice sweetness in the backbone of this beer. The balance between bitter coffee and sweet oatmeal is amazingly well done, and this beer warms up and gets even smoother. Really surprising, and while I'd consider it more of a cream ale than an actual stout, it's more than just a novelty beer, it's just delicious.

Stone: Wootstout

I'm a pretty big nerd, so when I heard that uber-nerd Wil Wheaton would be brewing a beer with Stone Brewing for part of their collaboration series, and I knew I'd need to drink it. Wil Wheaton wrote and acted on Star Trek and writes his blog Wil Wheaton Dot Net, and makes on of my favorite podcasts, Tabletop. Tabletop is a podcast hosted by Wil where he presents a game to a group of friends and/or celebrities, explains the rules, and then they play the game. As a serious board game nerd, this is a podcast I could listen to all day just to get jazzed up to play Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne all night, and being able to enjoy a beer that Wil Wheaton got his dirty paws into while playing board games is gonna make that beer even sweeter. And then to make that beer even sweeter, they used a little pecans in the beer.
This beer was dark, too dark for the Lady to drink, so I was "forced" into drinking the entire beer. Thankfully only one fourth of this beer was aged in bourbon barrels, because the bourbon heat was subtle and nice, letting the lighter aspect of the wheat in the stout carry the subtle sweetness of the pecans and the coffee and chocolate in the malts all wash over. At 13% this beer was amazingly drinkable, and at the end of the entire bottle I was a little more inebriated that I wanted to be, so I fixed myself a nice cup of ice cream and settled into an episode of The Daily Show. Great beer, and the only problem I have is I wish it was in a 12oz bottle because I think if I have to drink another by myself it could be problematic.