New England Report 11:2008-07-22 (Leaving Montreal)

The day after our short beer trail in Montreal started out with some more attempts to sample more beers from Quebec. This turned out to be very difficult and it seemed easier to just get back to the US and continue our New England beer adventure.

Through out the day we first went to Chambly and the Unibroue brewery. Famous for beers like "Trous Pistoles" and the my favorite "The Raftman". Great brewery but it seemed a bit big and closed for beer sampling visitors so we took a photo and then continued south to the US border. Seems that opened tap rooms is not discovered yet in Quebec, which is a bit sad for such a great brewery.

Next place on the list was a place called; BroueMont Pub & Brewery in bromont. Seemed to be a cool place but it turned out to be my worst visit ever. Ok it seemed they had some beers to sample, but it also seemed that the girl working (I am not sure if she really was working) at the place totally ignored us during 10 minutes. 4 people gets into a pub, gets to the bar and checks out the beers as we normally do as beer geeks.

What happens, well nothing, this girl simply goes around from bar to the table area and back and just talks in the phone with a friend or similar. She does not even blink to us and just continues to talk in the phone until we simply gives up.

For me this place should either decide to get rid of such awful people or consider closing down and do other stuff with their lives. Ok if the place maybe was closed, but could you not just get of the phone and simply inform us about that. If a place is opened and you can actually get to the bar my thought is that it is opened for business, or I am wrong?

This was one more example of the very bad attitudes we experienced arround Montreal. Do not understand the problem but it simply did not give any welcome feeling and you just wanted to leave.

Anyway enough talking about BroueMont, they might have beers but did not want to sell any of them, so I wish them good luck. Ever arround Bromont, just remember to forget this place and continue your journey, it is not worth the trip and you just waste valuable hours being totally ignored, simply crap.

We had a couple of more places in Quebec but decided after the bromont experience that we should give up and get back to the US instead, we had being travelling for hours and did not succeed in getting a single beer. Seems that Montreal and the actual city is the best choice for sampling beers from the area. If you go, you should probably have more time in Montreal and if you go you should not miss the amazing beers from DDC, they are at least worth the trip to Montreal.

Passed the border to Vermont and continued south to the "Trout River Brewing Company". Located in the beutiful area of Lyndonville this brewery has been on my beer map for a while. Unfortunately it was also closed for visitors and it turned out only to be opened for a couple of hours and on other days.

Nice place but sorry to say, we had not luck in getting beers at Trout either. Getting a bit desparate we decided to go for a safe place, so we header south and went down to the Long Trail Brewing company instead. This place was at least safe and we knew that it should be opened for business.

As for the rest of vermont this brewery is also located in a very nice area with surrounding mountains.

Long Trail Brewing Company is located in a place called Bridgewaters Corners and they have a large number of beers to offer. Both the IPA and the standard Long Trail Ale is great craft beers. Maybe not the most exiting brews, but they are well done and traditional to the style. The place is a large building similar to a winery of similar. They have a large bar area and with a complementary self brewery tour. We finally sampled some beers and went through the following beers;

96. Blackberry Wheat
97. Belgian White
98. Hefeweizen
99. Long Trail Ale
100. Double Bag
101. IPA

Where the Long Trail Ale (altbier) is probably my favorite beer. It has a very deep red color and a nice white head. Minor smell of hops and simply a very drinkable beer, not too much, but still a hoppy and bitter beer.

Crosed the border and went to New Hampshire again and the very famous "Seven Barrel Brewery" in West Lebanon. We sampled the following beers;

102. Quechee Cream Ale
103. Ice Rock Canadian
104. New Dublin Brown
105. The Red #7
106. Champion Reserve IPA
107. RIP Stout

Ended up in New London and after a short visit to our motel we walked up to the "Flying Goose Brewpub & Grill". A great place to end the beer day. The place is located so that you have a look a very beatiful view out over the mountains. It started to rain just after we came to the place so that it was really nice to sit inside and check out the rain during our dinner with beers.

Sampled beers included;

108. Crocketts Corner Oatmeal Stout
109. Perley Town IPA
110. Hedgehog Brown Ale
111. Flying Goose Pale Ale
112. Potter Place Porter

Vermont Brewers Festival: The Beers

Complete list sampled at this years beer festival in Burlington included;

67. Long Trail Blackberry Wheat
68. Long Trail Traditional IPA
69. Pennichuck Engine 5 Red Ale
70. Rock Art IPA (II)
71. Rock Art Jasmine Pale Ale (RA)
72. Stone IPA
73. Stone Arrogant Bastard
74. Stone Coast 420 India Pale Ale
75. Switchback Unfiltered Ale
76. Wolavers IPA
77. Vermont Pub & Brewery Forbidden Fruit
78. Woodchuck Draft Cider Dark & Dry
79. Woodchuck Draft Cider Pear
80. Woodstock Inn Pemi Pale
81. Zero Gravity 07 Nights (Belgian Pail Ale)

Thats it.

And the winner? Well the best new brewery for me was probably "Rock Art" and then it comes to the IPA. Plus that I really learned to enjoy the ciders from Woodchuck, that is really a great cider that we should get to Sweden. A second great beer and also a new brewery for me was "Switchback" and the Unfiltered Ale

New England Report VII:2008-07-19

At 17.00 it was finally time for the "Vermont Brewers Festival" that we had all been waiting for. After having some problems getting a cab from the hotel (seems everyone in Burlington was heading for the Waterfront Park at the same time) we finally managed to get there almost on time.

The park was packed with people in very long queues and the sun was extremelly hot. So it was really a struggle for the wait before we actually go into the festival area. But it went quite smoothly and it was organized very well.

Each brewery we located in different white tents and also a lot of food were provided. Talking about beers almost every known Vermont brewery were there, plus a good selection of external breweries like Stone and North Coast.

Getting to the list of sampled beers included; (you got 10 beers included in the price if you had the more normal beers, all connected to the ABV so some of the stronger counted as 3)

"Long Trail Brewing Company"

*. Blackberry Wheat
*. Traditional IPA

"Pennichuck Brewing Co"

*. Engine 5 Red Ale

"Rock Art Brewery" (a new favorite that I have not heard about before)

*. IPA
*. Jasmine Pale Ale

"Stone Brewing Co"

*. Stone IPA
*. Arrogant Bastard Ale

"Stone Coast Brewing Co"

*. 420 India Pale Ale

"Switchback Brewing Co"

*. Switchback Unfiltered Ale

"Vermont Pub & Brewery"

*. Forbidden Fruit

"Woodchuck Draft Cider"

*. Woodchuck Draft Cider Dark & Dry
*. Woodchuck Draft Cider Pear

"Woodstock Inn Brewer"

*. Pemi Pale Ale

"Zero Gravity"

*. 07 Nights (Belgian pail ale)

"Wolavers"

*. IPA


Scene outside the festival area, quite nice huh?