OnTap Magazine

34 | Autumn 2019 | ontapmag.co.za WORLD OF BEER I ’m sitting in a bar drinking what at one time seemed to be the most famous beer in the United States, or at least the most renowned among a certain segment of beer a cionados. While it is only moderately cloudy, it is also the beer credited as inspiration for the slew of turbid, aroma-driven New England IPAs that populate beer markets today from San Francisco to Stellenbosch. It is, of course, Heady Topper. But although I am in the state of Vermont, I have not ventured all the way to the ski resort town of Stowe, where the brewery relocated after outgrowing its Waterbury location in 2016. Rather, I am in a quite ordinary pizza joint in central Burlington, which boasts 20 draught taps as well as cans of Heady and the Alchemist’s other, newer agship ale, Focal Banger. at I’m able to do this tells you two important facts about visiting Vermont’s largest city: 1) You don’t actually need a car to enjoy much of what the state’s many impressive breweries have to o er; and 2) Bars in Burlington are unlike the bars in many other mid-sized American cities. BEER PILGRIMAGE I did not know this when I made my rst beer pilgrimage to upstate Vermont several years back, and so my wife and I rented a car and dutifully drove out to the beer-buying line-up at the Alchemist. Later we followed my phone’s GPS ever-more-sceptically into the wilds to the aptly-named Hill Farmstead Brewery, rated as the world’s top brewery on a number of occasions by users of Ratebeer.com. Granted, the beers of those two operations were then not quite as ubiquitous in Burlington as they are today, but even so, at the end of the day I bemoaned the time spent. THE BIRTHPLACE F HAZE It is perhaps best known among beer lovers for its hazy IPAs, but there’s more to the New England state of Vermont than its namesake NEIPA. Stephen Beaumont hits the pavements of the state’s largest city in search of the perfect watering hole. Hill Farmstead photos courtesy of Hill Farmstead Brewery/Bob M. Montgomery Images.