philej
New Member
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2013
- Messages
- 4
- Reaction score
- 2
While visiting my families place in S. Woodstock VT my wife and I decided to take the 2 hour drive up to Hill Farmstead. So, my wife, sister, mother and I piled into my VW Vanagon for a beer adventure. A 2 hour drive on summer Saturday in VT can turn into a 3 hour drive pretty quickly. Too many garage sales to count, several farmers markets and then there's the roadside produce stands. We arrived in Greensboro (which I didn't realize was very nearly at the Canadian border) at 2pm.
Greensboro, VT is about as "middle of nowhere" as you can get on the east coast. The brewery is on a dirt road and it seemed nearly impossible that there would be a lot of people there. Turning the corner, we realized this was just hope on our part.. 30-40 cars with many out of state plates were piled into the makeshift parking lots.
The brewery has a system with two lines, one for tastings and one to fill growlers. The line for growlers couldn't have been more than 60 people. Tastings, much shorter. After deciphering the confusing two cup per person (even though you pay for all cups up front) tasting policy, my family was able to have a few sips of beer before tackling the growler line. My sister doesn't even like beer but the 4 of us stood in the growler line for 3 HOURS. Apparently, filling growlers is a slow process. It was a great sunny day in the Green Mountains. We stood side by side with locals and beer nerds traveling all the way from Boston for the day just to sample this amazing beer. We moved 3 feet every 15 minutes or so. So, anyone thinking of visiting Hill Farmstead, get there early and consider going on a weekday. Even though the time in line was part of the overall experience, I doubt I would have ever stood there had I known it was going to be 3 hours!
I'm not going to review their beer here, it's great, try some.
I had heard of a place serving Heady Topper so our beer adventure wasn't over yet. Had to try some of this while in VT. Luckily the Barnard Inn was on our way home. The 4 of us, now 8 hours into our beer adventure happily saddle up to the bar and ordered 3 cans (lil' sister only does wine..) of Heady Topper. Further evidence my wife never ever takes suggestions, she poured out the chunky goodness. We marveled. The place is a bit stuffy and well, my family is load... We collected all the dirty looks with smiles and made fast friends with the bartender.
The bartender hearing us talk about beer and the farmstead, pulled out a 22oz bottle of R&R Coconut IPA! Another delicious beer, not from VT but just too interesting to pass up.
My mother starting calling the road trip her "hippy grammy dream". I think it was more like a hoppy brewer dream! 7 new Pales and IPAs tasted in one day and all of them excellent.
Greensboro, VT is about as "middle of nowhere" as you can get on the east coast. The brewery is on a dirt road and it seemed nearly impossible that there would be a lot of people there. Turning the corner, we realized this was just hope on our part.. 30-40 cars with many out of state plates were piled into the makeshift parking lots.
The brewery has a system with two lines, one for tastings and one to fill growlers. The line for growlers couldn't have been more than 60 people. Tastings, much shorter. After deciphering the confusing two cup per person (even though you pay for all cups up front) tasting policy, my family was able to have a few sips of beer before tackling the growler line. My sister doesn't even like beer but the 4 of us stood in the growler line for 3 HOURS. Apparently, filling growlers is a slow process. It was a great sunny day in the Green Mountains. We stood side by side with locals and beer nerds traveling all the way from Boston for the day just to sample this amazing beer. We moved 3 feet every 15 minutes or so. So, anyone thinking of visiting Hill Farmstead, get there early and consider going on a weekday. Even though the time in line was part of the overall experience, I doubt I would have ever stood there had I known it was going to be 3 hours!
I'm not going to review their beer here, it's great, try some.
I had heard of a place serving Heady Topper so our beer adventure wasn't over yet. Had to try some of this while in VT. Luckily the Barnard Inn was on our way home. The 4 of us, now 8 hours into our beer adventure happily saddle up to the bar and ordered 3 cans (lil' sister only does wine..) of Heady Topper. Further evidence my wife never ever takes suggestions, she poured out the chunky goodness. We marveled. The place is a bit stuffy and well, my family is load... We collected all the dirty looks with smiles and made fast friends with the bartender.
The bartender hearing us talk about beer and the farmstead, pulled out a 22oz bottle of R&R Coconut IPA! Another delicious beer, not from VT but just too interesting to pass up.
My mother starting calling the road trip her "hippy grammy dream". I think it was more like a hoppy brewer dream! 7 new Pales and IPAs tasted in one day and all of them excellent.
