Vermont Brewers fashioning cutting edge beers

Worth stopping for - The Vermont Pub and Brewery since 1988.  Photos
by Charlie Papazian

If you happened to catch yourself in Burlington, Vermont you wouldn’t help but notice the proliferation of in-town breweries making exceptional beers.  If it’s your first stop, you’ll also quickly notice that the surrounding area offers additional treats all within a day’s driving distance.

Well, okay maybe 3 breweries in a downtown is not exactly a proliferation, but in this town of 40,000 it sure seems that way, especially considering the quality and imagination embedded in their beers.  Burlington is and always has been a frontier city for craft brewing.

Since 1988, when Greg Noonan established The Vermont Pub and Brewery, the first brewpub in the state, this “Green Mountain” state has caught on beer fire.

There’s plenty of house brewed beer within 2 blocks of the city’s central park.  At Vermont Pub and Brewery you’ll try regulars and specialties such as Dogbite bitter, Handsome Mike’s (nitro served) Smoked Stout, clean and refreshing sourmash Beetlejuice, fermented peppercorn, clary sage and sandalwood infused Ambergris and Vermont’s own spruce tipped Epinette with a Belgian twist.

One hundred feet down the block is American Flatbread and Zero-Gravity Brewery (no website found) turning on a long row of tap handles that will dazzle you and leave no beer drinker denied.  The choices are so many that you might feel like your cheating yourself if you settle into to savor the first few beers you try.  I did with a German pilsener called Cristina Pils, a brew boasting of a north German style of pilsener.  I tasted no pilsener in Hamburg, Germany that was as good as Cristina Pils in Burlington, Vermont! Lager lovin’ in Vermont!  Their hoppy TLA IPA and session London brown were great accompaniments to any evening of flatbread pizza.  Gruit ales and Maibocks were also represented among the 10 or so house beers available.  If you are still not happy, they have a phenomenal beer list.

Down the street in the other direction a late night Old Ale can be enjoyed among other great Vermont beers at 3 Needs Pub and Brewery (no web site found).

If you happened to be in Burlington last weekend you couldn’t help but notice the state’s annual beer event, The Vermont Brewers Festival. 

Next:  Vermont Brewers Festival 2009