Steve Koenemann

Vermonters Take WBC by Storm

What’s that you say?! I have talked before about how statistics can be manipulated to produce the desired results, but that is certainly not what I am attempting here. Vermont is truly “beer country” and the World Beer Cup is the perfect place to showcase the talent of the brewers and the quality of the beer which they produce here in this small state. You may not realize it, but Vermont has the highest per capita number of breweries of any of the states. According to the Brewers Association we have 19 breweries and only 621,270 people (2008 census)… that makes for 1 brewery for every 32,698 people! States that most people associate with lots of breweries and beer production were farther down the list… Oregon #3, Washington #8 and California (with the most breweries in a state) at #21. We may be small, but we love our beer… maybe it is the long cold winters we have here.

I have not done extensive calculations to back up my claim, but I would hazard a guess that, on a per capita basis, Vermonters also had the most WBC medals of any state as well. In total there were 4 Vermont breweries or Vermonters that won 6 medals at this austere event. Using the census figures from above, that comes out to one medal for every 103,545 Vermonters… I’ll let someone else calculate that for the other states. The Vermont winners were The Alchemist Pub and Brewery, Harpoon Brewery, Lawson’s Finest Liquids and Shaun E. Hill (now of Hill Farmstead Brewery). Let’s take a look at each of these in some detail.

The Alchemist Pub and Brewery is located in the small town of Waterbury, Vermont. I have written previously about this quality brewer (Alchemist Magic) and this is not the first beer competition in which their owner/brewer, John Kimmich, has taken a medal. He won a Gold at the 2004 Great American Beer Fest (GABF) for his Sterk Wit Belgian-style Witbier and followed that up with a Gold and a Bronze at the 2009 GABF for his Celia Framboise and Celia IPA in the gluten-free category. John’s medal at this year’s WBC competition was for his Celia Saison, also in the Gluten-free category. John’s seeming obsession with gluten-free beer comes from his wife’s inability to drink regular beer. I think that it is a wonderful gesture that he brews award-winning beers for his wife and I am very grateful that he also chooses to share that beer with the rest of us!

Lawson’s Finest Liquids is, undoubtedly, the mouse that roared in this competition. Based in the very small town of Warren, VT and accurately described as a “nanobrewery”, Sean Lawson runs a ONE-barrel brewery to produce his excellent, high quality, limited production brews. Sean’s Maple Tripple won a WBC Bronze medal in the Specialty Beer category. So why is a “tripple” considered a “specialty beer”? The secret comes from the rather uniquie ingredients that he uses. You may not know that tiny Vermont is responsible for about 40% of the maple syrup produced in the US and Sean taps into one of the raw ingedients used to make this tasty and very sweet treat. The maple tree sap which is used to make maple syrup is also used to make Lawson’s Maple Tripple (instead of plain water). It takes about 40 gallons of this boiled down sap to produce one gallon of syrup, so Maple Tripple is not a very sweet beer, but it does pick up maple flavors from this sap and that, along with the addition of some real maple syrup before bottling produces a very unique, very tasty and truly Vermont beer.

Harpoon Brewery, actually headquartered in Boston, purchased the Catamount Brewery in Windsor, VT in 2000. Harpoon’s UFO Hefeweizen won a WBC Silver medal in the American Style Wheat Beer with Yeast category. Harpoon beer has long been a favorite of mine and it is not at all unusual to find a 12-pack of Harpoon IPA in my beer larder for my “everyday” enjoyment. In my opinion, Harpoon is also notable for their socially responsible contributions to the Vermont community. They are heavy supporters of charitable causes in Vermont, the most visible of which is their primary sponsorship of the Harpoon Point-to-Point bike race each August. The profits and donations from this race benefit the Vermont Foodbank and their important mission to feed hungry Vermonters. Harpoon also hosts the New England BBQ Championship each summer at their Windsor facility. It is a marvelous weekend of fun mixed with great beer and great BBQ… and it does not get much better than that folks!

The last of our Vermont winners, and perhaps the most noteworthy of all, is Shaun E. Hill. The fact that Shaun won medals at this year’s WBC was, unfortunately, not heavily reported by the media. The 3 WBC medals that Shaun won were for beers that he created when working for the Danish brewer Nørrebro Bryghus. Shaun has long been a fixture in Vermont brewing and some might remember his work at The Shed in Stowe, VT before his stint in Denmark. Shaun won WBC Gold medals for both his SEVEN Imperial Stout (Niepoort barrel-aged) and his Little Korkny Barleywine (Niepoort barrel-aged). He also won a WBC Silver medal for his Viking Oud Bruin.  I previously wrote (The Denmark Connection) about these beers, which are definitely worthy of all the accolades that they received.

Shaun is back brewing in Vermont and has opened his own brewery, Hill Farmstead Brewery in Greensboro, VT, on farmland that his family has lived on since the late 1700′s. Shaun’s first beer, Edward India Pale Ale (named after his grandfather), hit the streets this week and is already creating a “buzz” in the Vermont beer community. If this work of art IPA is a sign of the type of beer that Shaun will produce from his small brewery, you can expect more medals to be forthcoming. I visited Shaun at his new brewery last weekend. He had all of the markings of a tired new business owner getting ready for his “grand opening”, but all that has definitely not dampened his passion or drive to create great beer. I had the good fortune to sample both an “in production” Imperial IPA and a maple smoked baltic porter that, while not quite ready yet, showed all of the signs of the “world class” beer that I expect that we will see from him in the future. Look for more about Shaun and his new brewery in a future article.

Congratulations to all of these Vermont WBC medal winners… you have all done our small state proud!  Come to beautiful Vermont and be prepared to both sample and enjoy some of the best beer you can find anywhere. That’s not just my opinion… the WBC’s 127 beer judges from 27 countries say so too!

Photo by Shaun E. Hill

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