Description: We were on a mission to hit as many breweries and/or wineries as possible during our tour of the great state of Vermont. By all accounts we came up successful, with stops at Magic Hat, the Boyden Valley Winery, Grandview Winery (which was absolutely foul), and finally, the Vermont Pub & Brewery in downtown Burlington. I’ll be honest, we really didn’t spend too much time here, so I don’t have much to say about it beyond the draughts we sampled… but that’s what you’re coming here for anyway, right? So let’s go ahead and get down to business.
First off, fantastic prices on the brews: $3.50 per pint, $1.75 for a half pint, 3-ounce samples for just $.75, and a tray of six samples (pictured below) for just $4.50. We’d already had a few at Sweetwaters before stopping by, so we just shared the six-sampler and each grabbed a half pint of the brewery’s favorite seasonal batch, the Maple Ale, which is made with 30 gallons of real Vermont Grade B dark amber syrup. As you might expect, this one had a strong taste of… you got it… maple. Delicious!
Here’s the six draughts we opted for in the sampler… I just pulled the descriptions directly from the brewery’s beer listings.
Forbidden Fruit: Light, refreshing, strong biere! 500 pounds of raspberries, sour mashed, and oak aged.
Vermont Smoked Porter: Smoked with (the brewery’s) own malts over apple, maple, and hickory woodchips to recreate this 17th-century style robust ale.
Bombay Grab I.P.A.: Hops, hops, and more hops! Over 30 pounds of Cascade hops = 75 IBU’s!!! (whatever that means)
Billybuck Bock: A springtime right of passage. This is a malty lager with a pleasant Hallertauer hop flavor. Lagered for 12 weeks!
The Wee Heavy: VPB’s famous 120 shilling, very strong Scotch ale.
Dogbite Bitter: Big, chewy ESB with a fierce hop bite! British Fuggles and Goldings.
Fantastic beer descriptions there, guys. From this list, our favorites were definitely the Forbidden Fruit, the IPA, and the Billybuck. Really, they were all good, though the Wee Heavy was by far our least favorite—reminded us too much of whiskey for some reason.
There’s not much else to say… if you’re into microbreweries, and if you enjoy strong, hoppy beers, the Vermont Pub & Brewery will suit you just fine, cowboy.
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