A little local brewery trip!

A quick brewery jaunt through Jericho, Essex, Colchester, South Burlington, and Williston.

On the podcast “How I Built This” with Guy Raz, Alan Newman, one of the founders of Magic Hat, tells the following story.

In 1994, Alan and Bob Johnson, the other Founder of The Hat, were just gearing up to launch a craft brewery. One night, late in the planning stages, Bob turned to Alan with concern in his eyes (I may be embellishing this a bit).

“Alan”, Bob said, “We’ve put a lot of work into this thing. I think it’s a good company, a good product. But really, I think we have to ask ourselves- VT already has three other big craft breweries. Is there really room for number four?”

While I salute Bob’s caution (I had a very similar conversation with myself before starting Lucy and Howe) I think we can all agree that the answer is, in fact, yes.

In a nod to this, I have outlined above a quick little local brewery tour.

There are plenty of breweries to choose from in this mighty little state, and a majority of them are quality- the ones I’ve outlined here I’ve done so mostly because they’re pretty close, they’re all fairly small operations, and there are some Jericho connections in there.

The best days are either Friday or Saturday- you can hit all of us and we’ll all be open (I’m the difficult one here in this regard).

Start with lunch at Black Flannel around 12:30. With the new chef Christian Kruse from Vergennes Laundry, and a wide selection of beers spanning most of the styles you can think of, you should be able to find something you’ll like.

Move on to Green Empire (open at 2) in Colchester to pick up some cans. As of this writing they’re still curbside pickup- the ordering system is painless and easy, and totally worth it.

1st Republic is next. Shawn just widened the outdoor seating space, so grab a beer at the bar and find a place to sit. Take a minute to play corn hole, if it’s out, which it usually is.

Lastly, swing by Lucy and Howe! Currently offering can sales as well as samples, we’ve got a good range of beers at the moment- from barrel aged pub ales to light Belgian style table beers to American Pale Ales to a sour to more hoppy offerings.

Get out there and enjoy the day, kids.