Anyone know of any events going on in the Mad River-Waterbury-Burlington area over Labor Day weekend? Not necessarily beer related, but those are fine to. Thanks in advance
September 3, 2015 Bark & Brew 2015 Humane Society of Chittenden County, South Burlington, VT View more information September 4, 2015 Hermit Thrush Brewery pint night Hermit Thrush Brewery, Brattleboro, VT View more information September 4, 2015 Truck Stop at Arts Riot with Fiddlehead Brewing Arts Riot, Burlington , VT View more information September 5, 2015 Inaugural Champlain Valley Homebrew Competition - Champlain Valley Fair View more information September 5, 2015 - September 6, 2015 21st Annual Mount Snow Brewers Festival Mount Snow, West Dover, VT View more information September 5, 2015 Vermont Heritage Brew Festival Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, VT View more information September 7, 2015 Homebrew Night at Switchback Brewing Switchback Brewing Company, Burlington, VT View more information via http://www.vtbeer.org/events/ As more events are posted, I update the calendar. Of these events, I think the VT Heritage Brew Fest is cool, but very $$$. The Truck Stop at ArtsRiot is pretty fun, that's on the Friday preceding Labor Day weekend. Bark & Brew (on Thurs) is one of my favorite events - it's held at the Humane Society and everyone brings their dogs to play as you drink beer in the doggie play area and talk with other dog and beer folks. The Champlain Valley Fair is also going on that weekend, if you're looking for something other than beer (they'll sell beer, but it's more like a County Fair event).
The event at Mount Snow is a very good, off the radar beer festival. I wonder of that Hermit Thrush event means they will start selling pints at the brewery.
Right now, they are getting special event permits from VT for pints. I think you can have a few dozen (maybe 40ish?) permits per year, which is why so many newer brewers have weekly pint nights. To serve pints year around, they need a restaurant permit, which means they need to serve food (even hot dogs count, like at Queen City & Switchback) and change some of their water storage (having separate water for consumers in case a customer orders a water with their food and so many gallons of water per customer seat, etc.). Then of course, they need to make sure they are locally zoned for a restaurant rather than just 'industrial'. Burlington Beer Company ran into a zoning issue where they are zoned for industrial use but not allow to be a restaurant, so they can't serve pints until the city changes/appends their zone.
