What is it about Vermont?

Wasn't aware Vermont was part of Maine. When did that happen?

 

He very clearly stated that he was also going to Portland, ME...

READ

 

Or Foundation....

 

As Providence has stated, education and the level of openmindedness towards new and different ideas and things go hand in hand. Education is the doorway to understanding there is whole lot more out there than what you can see, touch and imagine. And when you understand you aren't the only person on the planet, you tend to want to find out what else is out there. And if you look not only at Vermont but at other beer-centric locations [e.g. San Diego, No. Cali., Oregon, Washington, Colorado] and check the education level of residents, it's seems to be a pattern. And if you doubt this and think population is the chief criteria for beercentricity, why aren't Atlanta, Phoenix, Miami, Dallas and Houston considered as craft beer hotbeds?

 

I read it twice. Apparently you and I have different reading comprehension.

Here is the post:
Portland ME is a great city. There are a number of threads about places to go etc..but the short version is...Allagash, Bissell Brothers, Novare Res, Bunker Brewery, Rising Tide, Infinity, head up to Freeport to do Maine Beer Co.

Where in this post does it say he was going to Portland ME? To me, it reads that these are good places to go in Maine [in a post about Vermont]. And all I wanted to convey is: What the hell is a post about places to go in Maine have to do with a post about Vermont?

YOU READ.

 

I get what you're saying, but are you saying it's a causal relationship or just correlation? Either way, Vermont's got it going on. But as an anthropologist, I'm curious.

 

It's my opinion.

 

Artsy Fartsy

 

Fair enough.

 

Um, READ the OP's post, about his plans to also visit Maine.

 

OK. I stand corrected. I didn't read the OP's entire post before commenting on the Maine only post.

 

There was a highly regarded Brewer named Greg Noonan that taught many others to brew.

 

Simple you have 4-5 of the best Brewers in the country running smaller operations where they can control things and remain consistent. They have no interist at all in quadrupling distribution or brewing enough for everybody , which is the downfall of many.

 

Same could be said for Vermont and cheese

 

Because of three people that just happened to get their mojo about the same time. John Kimmish, Sean Lawson and Shawn Hill. No offense to the rest of the Industry in VT -- and there are some great 2nd tier Brewers that have followed in the big 3's footsteps -- but if just one or two of those dudes didn't do what they did when they did -- the current reputation of VT as epicenter of craft wouldn't exist.

 

I think Matty O from Fiddlehead belongs in that conversation as well.

 

A lot has been said already, but to reiterate, Vermonters are borderline obnoxious with their VT pride. Like, if you grew up there, you're not considered a native unless your great great great great great great grandparents were born in Vermont. I actually have friends/acquaintances who state how many generations Vermonter they are (longest I know is 11 generations). So you take their fierce local pride and their old timey DIY Yankee ingenuity, add in a strong arts and culture ethic, plus a rural population that sees far less of the commercialization the plagues urban and suburban America, you're naturally going to get lots of people bucking the trend and drinking/brewing craft.

 

Vermont prides itself on artisan craftsmanship, and has produced some great brewers. Too many have focused on Vermont beer rather than seeking out excellence in their own state: at the end of the day it's a matter of personal taste which beer is the best and which brewer is the best.

 

Amen

 

As someone who keeps tabs on the local industry, I'd say that it's 70-75% hype. Being so close to Boston and NYC, Vermont offers escapism and romanticizing of beer, mountains, small towns, leaf peepers, etc. If people wake up at 3 am and drive 8 hours to stand in line for 3 hours, then they are emotionally invested in saying it's the best beer, otherwise, they'd have to admit they wasted an entire day for a handful of beer.

It's why you only hear a handful of names/breweries in Vermont mentioned and used as examples/reasons to support arguments saying VT beer is better than X. Nobody mentions that 8 breweries have went out of business in the last 3 years here (that's about 20% of the breweries). And I'd wager that at least 2+ will be out of business by end of next year.

There's 45 active breweries (not counting client brewers, brands, labels, etc. like Grassroots, Shed, Wolaver's, etc.). However, I doubt most people who say it's the best beer state in nation could name even 10 VT breweries (that would just be naming 22% of breweries). The "per capita" statistics are jokes and everyone in VT laughs at them, because VT is #1 in nearly any state-based stat if you say "per capita." If you want to show real stat, then compute the quantity/quality per amount of beer produced by each brewery rather than counting pro-breweries that use keggles as their brewing equipment.

Besides Shaun Hill, how many people can name a single brewer who's actually from Vermont? Out of the 45 breweries, there's only a few that's actually from Vermont (Hill is the only one of the "big 3" or 4 or 5 brewers). Most moved to Vermont, which means they either moved here to study/apprentice brewing beer at larger brewery/brewpub, had another well-paying job which allowed them to homebrew and then run a side pro-brewing business, or they moved to VT specifically to open a brewery. Most of the VT-born brewers are the ones going out of business, mostly due to them believing the hype rather than thinking logically or business minded. Heck, I'm wasn't born in VT either, but it shows that making beer isn't taught in pre-school and it's not "something in the water." Heck, at least one of the VT brewers doesn't even live in Vermont, they just have a PO box here for their business so they can be considered a Vermont brewer and continue living in Mass. Another "brewer" has a marketing office in Burlington with 2 people in the office, so they can put out press releases and put Vermont on all of their beer labels even though it's made in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Granted, there's a lot of good beer here, but let's be honest, there's quite a bit of middle and lower tier beer here, too, and there's a lot of good beer everywhere. It's the same in pretty much any region that you visit. If you generalize to say the entire state is great, then you're including all of the lower and middle tiers too because that is what's making the breweries per capita ratio crazy high. In reality, most people are only talking about less than a handful of brewers who produce small quantities of beer that elicit a FOMO following with a large quantity of beer press/media coverage, which doesn't adequately reflect the actual Vermont beer scene.