Hill Farmstead (2021)

If his midlife crisis results in even more amazing beer that has to be enjoyed with a reservation.... well, I will give that Insufferable philosopher my money for valuable beer experiences- I haven't questioned my life for a while, but maybe I will once I check the HF bill!

 

Do you seriously believe that?!

Not to the excessive point you seem to be imagining.

I can't for one second fathom that Hill has ever even come within a country mile of sniffing the red. Not even this past year.

 

I just can't wait to have Anna and Arthur again. If I can get a few bottles of those and maybe just a single 750 ml growler of Edward I'll be in heaven.

Don't care for the big releases anymore. Ann has been my "whale" for years but I've accepted I'll never have it and I'm absolutely fine with that. Damon is great but never worth the absurdity. It's like Woodstock for neckbeards.

 

Edward is the best hop-forward beer in the world, in my opinion, and there's not many beer-related "holy shit" moments that match having that on draft at Worthy Burger that first time.

But, man, I'd be happy just seeing the "shelf" farmstead ales around. Everett wouldn't hurt to see either.

 

Would think it depends on what part of Ohio we're talking about. I don't think of Northern Vermont as a cheap place to do things whether you're a tourist or business owner but maybe the expenses are more geographically limited to the Mad River Valley/Burlington/Stowe than I'm assuming.

 

Exactly this. To equate Northern rural Vermont to all of Ohio is just hilariously absurd. Both states have comparable communities, economies, weather and landscapes, except for the mountains.

That said, I've lived in rural Ohio for several years and am very familiar with the outsized Federal and State assistance and subsidies rural communities receive compared to urban, particularly in regards to where the majority of those taxes come from.

This doesn't even take into account having the leg up provided by starting from family land and/or resources and property. An outsider might come into a rural community and blow a huge wad of cash or immediately dive deep into debt on starting up, but someone from the area has a major advantage, and it's way cheaper than living and/or operating in an urban environment.

 

Maybe he can start selling philanthropic books and discount the beer.

Certainly not seltzer’s.

 

Can also see him taking a step back from brewing to focus on a more guided (centric) role within the industry:

+ his involvement with the Hāpi project, and the effort in “growing communication channels between brewers who use the hops and the farms which grow them”

 

I remember the first time I had Edward at Blackback in (I think) 2012 and I just looked at my wife and said "I cannot believe this is a 5% pale ale".

 

Sentence 1, agreed. Sentence 2, way off the mark. I lived in Marietta for 4 years when I was young (so a long, long time ago). Winters are much longer and colder in VT. Heat is expensive unless you cut and split your own firewood (as many of us do, but not really viable for most businesses). And summer still sometimes requires AC. Property taxes, while not as high as NJ or NH, are pretty high. VT has a serious labor shortage so wages are higher too. And I think VT rural real estate is more expensive: https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Greensboro_VT

To clarify, I was not thinking about Greensboro vs a lakeside mansion in the Cleveland suburbs or a brewpub in a trendy part of Columbus, more rural southern OH, which is more analogous to northern VT (less developed and a little more conservative than the rest of the state).

 

You may have lived in Southern Ohio, but if that's the extent of your experience, I just need to point out that Marietta, and especially Cincinnati, are considered WV and Kentucky moreso to us up North than they are Ohio. Especially considering that places like that have an outsized influence in our politics while otherwise contributing very little to our overall economy or society. There's more to rural Ohio than down South. It's a large state with cities that have more people in them than the entire state of Vermont, and large rural spaces in between and all around each of them, especially considering the cities aren't expanding, but contracting.

You're really grasping at straws for some misdirected reason that doesn't even apply to Shaun Hill in the first place, considering how much family land, property and employment is involved there. Winter is longer in Vermont, sure, but not by much if we're talking NE Ohio, where I live now. A bad winter and you might be talking about an entire month of separation. A good winter could only be a week or two longer. And again, the mountains have their own weather, and I'm not arguing otherwise. All the other stuff is circumstantial, and honestly I'm pretty sure there are far more public assistance programs and tax breaks/grants/benefits/incentives for living in rural VT than Ohio.

But again, we're talking about someone who is starting from a longstanding and privileged standpoint, not taking away from anything he's built, and by his own admission has been going like gangbusters since inception. This conversation began around his overhead, as if we were talking about some cutting edge lithium ion battery plant in a major metropolitan area. It's a brewery in rural Vermont that just so happens to be one of if not the most revered brewery in the world. Overhead in this conversation is a joke, particularly in a time where curbside has propped up many breweries, especially those that were already set up with robust packaging operations like HF, not to mention three COVID relief bills having been passed over that same time.

If you wish to dive even deeper into the cost comparisons of living and doing business in rural OH vs VT, I don't think either of us are qualified for that. Either way, it's weird flex that's irrelevant to the point.

 

[eating popcorn-flavored popcorn]

 

Why eat popcorn flavored popcorn when you can have a cheese-caramel mix?

 

#pureboi

 

I've never read more words that didn't actually say anything.

 

popcorn with chocolate drizzle is the best kind, imo. but if this article is any indication, i should stop holding out hope for an HF beer that tastes like it....

 

I don't have a dog in this fight but was curious so I spent 30 seconds Googling. For whatever US News is worth, Ohio is the most affordable state in the nation while Vermont is 39.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/opportunity/affordability

 

I don't think there is a need to prolong this topic any further.

 

I’m sorry what the fuck do you mean “higher overhead than in rural south west Scotland [which is where I grew up incidentally]?” If you go to my google sheet analysis here you can see that even without the cost of the currency hedges (I’m assuming a base USD investment in either scenario), that Greensboro VT is 21.8% cheaper to operate a HF-sized brewery in.

 

But what about all of the government subsidieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzz?