Hill Farmstead (2020)

"The Stay Home, Stay Safe order requires any resident or non-resident, traveling into Vermont for anything other than an essential purpose, to immediately self-quarantine for 14 days. Individuals from COVID-19 “hot spots,” including, but not limited to, Louisiana, Florida, New York City, Detroit and Chicago are asked not to visit Vermont at this time. Residents of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are also urged to refrain from non-essential travel for 14 days as per a new CDC travel advisory."

So, that is the order according to the HF site. Based on that I don't see how they could fine anyone from out of state. The state has deemed them an "essential" business and allowed them to stay open so anyone traveling in to get their goods should be set it would seem to me. I mean, I'm not going, and we can argue the whole "essential" thing all we want but if they are open then they are technically meeting the criteria set by the state...

 

All of these issues can be fixed with delivery and distro. Deliver cans/bottles locally in Vermont for nominal fee or min. like what Trillium is doing in MA; send any excess into distro.

 

They're one of the few places I have zero doubt will survive, which makes all the fiending and FOMO from out of staters on the Book so puzzling.

 

It’s quite possible that I’m being dense but I think you’re mixing up two different things.

First is an exec order governing individuals that essentially says “non-VT people, please stay away unless you are coming into the state to perform an essential service [i.e. doctor]. If you absolutely insist on coming to VT for non-essential reasons then we need you to self quarantine for 14 days - we will do our best to enforce this but it will largely be based on trust”

Second (and I don’t remotely know the ins and outs of what VT is doing) is whatever policy they have in place that allows HF to operate in the way they are planning (and for the record I don’t think that is by classifying them as essential, but rather as non-essential and subject to an altered operating model - ie curbside pick up).

But even if HF was deemed an essential business I don’t think that means that people from out of state can use that as a reason to go. Ie presumably grocery stores in VT are an essential business - that doesn’t mean they want/will allow someone from NYC to come up to stock up on some tasty VT produce.

 

If the number of people crossing state lines isn't large then that makes even less sense for them to not make it VT only. However, other people are saying most of their business is out of state. Who knows?

 

They are just aligning their policy with the Governor's Stay Safe - Stay Home order. It seems like you disagree with that decision, which is fair. Many aspect's of these rules seem inconsistent. However, a person traveling from out of state and sheltering in VT for 14 days, is not violating the governor's order, and poses little risk of infecting staff at the brewery. For that reason, HF has made the decision to adopt the requirements as set forth in the Governor's order. If you disagree with it, you should send them an email. I am not being sarcastic either. I think they are trying to approach this as responsibly as possible and feedback from their customer's may be helpful.

 

I do happen to disagree. But that wasn’t what I was getting at - I think the person who’s post I quoted is misunderstanding HF’s intent.

My take is that HF is posting that quoted section from the EO to show exactly what they mean by who can come (on a trust basis) and buy from them - residents, plus non-residents (or residents who had previously been out of state) who have self-quarantined within VT for 14 days.

I think the guy I quoted is interpreting it that HF is an essential business (which I believe is incorrect in itself but moot) and therefore anyone can come from anywhere to shop from them. I don’t believe that’s true - a New Yorker can’t (in theory) drive to VT to shop from a grocery store because the store is an essential business.

Regardless though maybe I will email them! And for the record I am not trying to cause trouble. But a) I live in NYC (and have opted to stay here) so am seeing first hand how f**king disastrous this virus can be, b) I am from a very rural part of Scotland (which is why I love the NEK so much - closest I have felt to home out of anywhere I’ve been in the US) - the two combined makes me strongly opposed to people traveling long distances to rural areas. If I was back in Scotland I would not want some fuckers from London coming to an area I’ll-equipped to handle the sharp edge of the virus.

Obviously I totally understand the challenges for small businesses such as HF to strike the right balance of surviving while being responsible. God the whole situation is such a fucking bind. Good luck to them and to everyone. I’ll shut up now.

 

Well, I was more referring to the notion that they (the state, not HF) could fine people for coming in from out of state. Again, I have no stake here as I will not be making the trip but I don't see how they could do so. And we don't need to guess on how HF is deemed by the state as they provide guidance on their website, which can be found here:

https://accd.vermont.gov/covid-19/business/stay-home-stay-safe-business-faqs

You are right in that they are not using the word "essential" but actually use the word "critical", which I take to be basically the same. The section pertaining to HF says:

(f) Retail serving basic human needs such as grocery stores, pharmacies, other retail that sells food, beverage, animal feed and essential supplies, provided, these retail operations shall be conducted through on-line and telephone orders for delivery and curb-side pickup to the extent possible;

Again, I think we can argue about beer being "critical" but it does seem to fall under their "beverage" determination.

So, yeah, all a question of semantics and I was not intending to comment on the HF policy at all, they can do as they choose as far as I am concerned.

 

If they do decide to distro bottles and cans, I would hope they'd only choose accounts that have online and curbside pickup. People were lining up outside of packies for Heady, I can only imagine it being worse for Arthur or Double Citra.

 

I'm not sure about other states but here in NH you can get curbside at places but all the beer stores I know of are still allowing people inside (stores, not breweries), so that may be hard to do. Of course, we won't be seeing HF here in NH I am sure.

 

The hoppy stuff is wonderful, but I’d be fine to miss it on shelves. I would be annoyed when the hazeboi tickers were poaching all the Arthur and Anna’s only to give it a 2.5 on Untapped claiming it’s “not their favorite style.”

 

I don't know about that. Heady Topper is a lot more popular than anything from Hill Farmstead.
A friend at work was bummed because his old college buddy had snagged some Heady at a packy only a few minutes from my friend's place but when he went the next day they were sold out.
I would bet neither one of them has heard of Hill Farmstead.

 

Gov. Scott authorized the VSP to monitor numbers of out-of-state plates for risk assessment, not necessarily enforcement.

 

Yeah, that’s what I figured.

 

canning line in HF IG story this am - knowing approximately nothing about how those systems look/are structured/etc., I'd say it's their own. Cheers!

 

Local friend works for Iron Horse Canning, and HF is a client. I believe canning is being done "to order" via pre-orders right now on their own system, and IH is presently furloughed due to social distancing order by the Gov.

 

Three Penny Taproom is doing takeout starting tomorrow. It looks like 6 packs of HF Beers are available to go. Great price - $20 for Double Riwaka and $18 for Dharma. I also noticed that Back Acre bottles are being sold for $20.

I hope these temporary offsite sales allow for our favorite bars to find a path forward during this shit. I'll support the hell out of TPT while I can.

 

Bevi is getting cans too. Just put in my order

 

At what point would you all call some of these breweries who continue NOT to distribute an endangerment? On top of all the previously made ecological/environmental arguments against having thousands of individually-occupied cars driving all over the region to pick up beer daily that were made before all this, now we have the possibility that a virus gets spread by spoiled beer hunters. Don't get me wrong, when I'm in Massachusetts (which probably won't be for a while now...), I love going to Tree House, driving through Vermont to get Heady, Hill, and visit a variety of other places along the way, but literally that is how the virus will get spread to areas of the country where ICU care isn't as prevalent as it is in major cities. To make things even more exciting, the majority of you all I'm sure fall into that age-bracket where Covid will probably just result in some mild symptoms that won't keep you from other virus-spreading behavior.

Anyway, I wrote on here a while back about my experience in Spain, and I really don't think that babbling on a beer board really makes much of a difference. That being said, reading about people contemplating a 5 hour drive to buy fucking beer is really blowing my mind. I miss good beer too. Granted, in Spain I can get it delivered. In fact, I just got 16 cans (big order!!) delivered from Garage Beer Company in Barcelona through the Correos national postal system. They are monitored constantly for infection. I realize that I am taking a chance getting a delivery, but I also leave my apartment about 2x a week to buy groceries and my girlfriend and I take turns getting the honor of taking out the trash/recycling for some extra outdoors time. We just got hit with another State of Alarm until May 5 -- much stricter than these "stay at home orders" or whatever you all are dealing with. It spread here much more quickly because it was easier for us to spread it -- living in close quarters, multi-person apartments, social culture, public transport, etc. We also poo-pooed the virus like everyone else at the start and continued going out, seeing people, jokingly taping elbows, living our lives as normal just with a few Coronavirus jokes sprinkled on top for a bit of flavor. I wonder how many extra weeks of confinement each day acting as we did gave us.

You all are mostly lucky if you DON'T live on top of each other, have to take crowded metros/trains, get stopped by police 25m from your front door asking where you're going and where you live. I know for a minority of you on this site, you do live like that, but guess what, I doubt you are the ones mulling a 6 hour round-trip to buy hazy/funky beer. Don't fuck up that luck by going out of your way to give this virus wheels.

Anyway, back to my original question/point -- I think that all "destination" breweries should follow the Alchemist and Lawsons (and others I know) -- distribute. You make great beer, and you need to stay in business, allow some sort of oversight as to how that beer goes from brewery to customer but sending it in fewer vehicles and in a manner that is clean. Don't encourage people to drive around for beer.

Lastly, I get it too that getting in your car, talking to no one, not getting out, and just opening up your trunk so that someone in gloves can drop down 5 gallons of IPA into it is probably pretty safe. It's just the mentality that leads someone to think that it's a good idea to do this that might get them to do other things that will just prolong this situation for everyone. Examples are everywhere.

Oh and wouldn't it be nice to get a beer delivery? Maybe this all will put some pressure on legislators to allow for that??

Sorry for wasting all the bits on this -- cheers from Mad City

 

This is way worse than a no contact beer pickup.

This seems like a stretch to me.