WILLIAMSVILLE — My professional standing took a blow last year. I fell woefully short in my first attempt to fill The Wall, my Mug Club card at Whetstone Station Restaurant and Brewery in downtown Brattleboro.
When I signed up on July 11, 2012, it seemed like it would be no effort at all to drink 99 beers there in a year's time, in 10 different categories, and then be privy to fabulous offers and discounts.
Wrong. Though I was off to a bang-up start just after Whetstone opened its doors, notching six beers in three July visits (a rate that would have taken me to 108 beers in a year's time), I didn't record another brew until October.
Perhaps because Whetstone was still in its infancy or because I was traveling a bunch, I barely made it there in the fall and winter. By the time I woke up to the extent of my deficit, it was basically too late. I mounted a spring surge, but when it finally became clear I would basically need to live at the Whetstone and drink all day long, I reluctantly gave up the chase at 41 beers.
Co-owner Amy Brady told me my card would be stamped with a large red mark of “Failure,” laminated, and used as a placemat, a lasting mark of chagrin. I shouldered the blow and immediately got back up on the horse, starting a new card with three beers to mark the occasion.
This year I made it, with a month to spare.
I was handed my mug (the 137th so bestowed) and a Mug Club t-shirt, knighted to applause from the night's assemblage, and hugged by Amy.
I walked on, honor restored.
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In the meantime, Whetstone has zoomed past its second anniversary and is clearly providing a vital downtown stop. The place always seems jammed, the menu seems to be meeting general approval, and the beer offerings are adventurous and ever-changing.
Where else, for example, can you sample two different Gose beers in an evening as I did on a recent night? The very style is obscure - a slightly sour wheat beer with additions of coriander and salt - but is showing signs of revival.
I had one from the relatively new Vermont brewery, Lost Nation, and another from Ritterguts Gose, its traditional home in Leipzig, Germany. Hard-to-find Vermont beers like Heady Topper or offerings from the Hill Farmstead Brewery occasionally show up.
And Whetstone's own nano-brewery (3.5-barrel batches) has been producing a regular stream of varying recipes; I had the latest - Batch #73 Nitro Porter a Porter - a few nights ago, while establishing its first regular offering, a tasty Whetstone Pale Ale.
Amy and Tim Brady have just commenced a six-month walkabout - actually a drive-about in a custom-made Airstream. The curious can follow their adventures around North America at hereforthebeer.com. Partner David Hiler is staying put.
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If Whetstone is no longer the new kid on the block in Brattleboro, the Hermit Thrush Brewery will be.
Hermit Thrush should begin brewing at the end of this week [Nov. 7], and be offering its first beers right before Thanksgiving. It'll be over on High Street, not far from the new Duo restaurant (which also gets a nod for a decent beer list, including the also hard-to-find Vermont beer, Fiddlehead IPA).
“I think it's safe to say we'll open the door for tastings on Saturday, Nov. 22,” says Christophe Gagne, who will be brewing with partner Avery Schwenk.
The friends, both under 30, met at Swarthmore College. Schwenk is from Minnesota and Gagne from upstate New York. According to Gagne, they were drawn to Vermont in general by its politics and scenery, and to Brattleboro in particular because the southern part of the state seemed underrepresented by breweries.
“Brattleboro is large enough to support a brewery, is day-trippable from New York and Boston, and it just has a lot of vibrancy for a small town. On previous visits, I was always impressed by how the town is a kind of hub for the area's arts,” he said.
The partners are looking to make the brewery as energy sustainable as possible.
“To that end, we are, to my knowledge, the first brewery to use wood-pellet boilers,” Gagne said. “We'll be reducing most packaging by selling only in growlers or kegs to bars and restaurants.”
They're also concentrating on Belgian-inspired beers - abbey-style ales, sours, saisons.
Gagne is ready to weave fermentation magic with his library of 46 yeast strains, and about 80 percent of the production is expected to spend some aging time in oak barrels.
So one of the debut beers will be a sour ale brewed with cider - Brattlebeer Cider Ale. A 3.8 percent ABV brown ale, a session beer by any measure, will be called Brooks Brown Ale. And IPA fans can look forward to the 6.7 percent High Street Wild IPA, a Belgian-style hopfest.
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This must all make Ray McNeill the old kid on the block. After a difficult year spent recovering from a near-fatal illness and closing down his production brewery on Putney Road, Ray is back wafting aromas of malt into downtown from the old pub brewery on Elliot Street.
Some classic favorites like Dead Horse IPA and Firehouse Amber are showing up in cans, contract-brewed in Massachusetts, but the taps at McNeill's Brewery are flowing with goods cooked up in the basement brewery.
It had been a while since I'd been in the pub, busy as I was over at the Whetstone. So I was happy to receive a call from Ray recently, asking if I could drop by. He wanted to put his Lazarus Double IPA up against Heady Topper and see how it fared in a blind tasting.
Bold move, as Heady, brewed by The Alchemist in Waterbury, has occasionally been rated (by those who do such things) as the best beer in the world.
Now, it's a ludicrous notion that any beer could be the best in the world, and there's little question that part of Heady's notoriety stems from the difficulty in obtaining any; aside from the odd sighting at Whetstone, the beer simply isn't available in these parts.
Still, it is a mighty good one, luscious with hops, usually found in a distinctive silver 16-ounce can and delivering its payload at 8 percent ABV (alcohol by volume).
Ray was shooting at the same 8 percent target and was a little miffed that he had fallen short at 7.5 percent, but he was otherwise touting the Lazarus as a killer beer, “One of the hoppiest I've ever made.” Which is saying something, as Ray is a notorious hophead.
Joining us at the tasting were Dean Matweecha, who used to help Ray brew, and Orion Staudter, who currently helps Ray brew (and whose father, Kurt Staudter, is the executive director of the Vermont Brewers Association and recently co-authored a history of Vermont brewing).
So here's the payoff: We were served both beers in different shaped glasses, and none of us knew which was which. They were both mighty good.
So the first thing we did was ask for another round of samples. Then we picked a favorite and guessed.
Ray picked Beer A and guessed it was his. The rest of us picked Beer B and guessed it was Heady Topper.
We were all wrong.
In other words, the good news for Ray was that three of us preferred the Lazarus to the Heady Topper. The bad news, if it really was bad news, is that he preferred the Heady!
Ray said he was still tinkering with the beer, but it's in pretty fair shape right now. It's available only at the pub for those who care to try their own comparisons. But you'll have to bring your own Heady Topper along.