Another year, another beer.

While 2016 felt like a holding-pattern year for brewing in Vermont — no major upsets or unexpected trends, no big surprises or innovations — local brewers produced a generous  profusion of quality, creative beers that continued to blur lines between styles or throw out the rule book completely.  This year, I drank IPAs flavored with hibiscus, lavender-scented saisons and sours tinged with cranberries and sage, à la Thanksgiving stuffing. And so many of them were excellent.

Past years have given us an abundance of new production breweries and expansions at established ones. But 2016 was more about small batches and big flavors, with new breweries looking to their local communities (rather than to statewide markets) for support.

So, a few trends:

The recent release of the first-ever Oxford Companion to Cheese — edited by University of Vermont nutrition and food science professor Catherine Donnelly — inspired me to spend a chunk of my paycheck on Vermont-made cheddar, goat’s milk tomme, Camembert aged in its bloomy rind, and a gorgeous wedge of blue that my next-door neighbors can probably smell.

Usually, the only accoutrement I like with a cheese plate is a good knife and a box of crackers (Patchwork Farm & Bakery’s “Everyday Matzoh” crackers, here’s to you). But it’s the holiday season and I’m feeling fancy.

To accompany your decked-out holiday cheeseboard, here are four minimal-effort trappings to complement that great Vermont dairy.

Good Measure Brewing moved into its Northfield home base in January 2016. By September, the brewers had begun distributing kegs of their distinct, expertly balanced beer to restaurants and suppliers across the state. A tasting room has been in the works ever since, with extensive renovations and restructuring of the 1920s-era building — formerly home to a series of grocery stores — and bringing everything up to code. At last, Good Measure’s tasting room opened its doors on Friday.

“Our idea is that the tasting room is a meeting place,” says co-owner Scott Kerner (who helped open Montpelier’s Three Penny Taproom in 2009, as well). “It’s a place to fill up your growler, have a pint, have a snack. Food will be simple, but well attended — just like our beer.”

One of the most fun meals I ate in 2016 was at Stowe's Picnic Social, which is located inside of Field Guide, a boutique hotel on the Mountain Road. In between bites of nearly everything on the menu, my guest and I played cornhole and tabletop shuffleboard. We joked around with the staff. Best of all, the food and drinks tasted great.

So, when I found out that the spot would be adding brunch on December 10, I couldn't wait to try it out. Just an hour after brunch service debuted, I showed up with a friend to sample the wares. Only one other party preceded us, but, as we ate, more and more folks trickled in.

When I learned that the Burlington Winter Farmers Market would be moving from the condemned Memorial Auditorium in downtown Burlington to the University of Vermont's Dudley H. Davis Center, I was skeptical that the new location would have the right vibe. My first visit to the market in its new location proved me wrong.

Philanthropic psychologist Jen Shang says that Americans use nine words to describe a moral individual: “kind, caring, hardworking, compassionate, helpful, fair, friendly, generous and honest.” Extra points for “strong, responsible and loyal,” as well.

Come holiday season, bells ring for donation boxes, and charity gift drives mark the entrances of churches and grocery stores. Opportunities abound — both at the year’s end and past it.  When and where do we act first?

“A Dish for Veterans,” a recent initiative by Juniper restaurant at Hotel Vermont, suggests that giving can start with a flatbread.

I moved to Vermont in September 2015 with an English degree, a background in restaurant cooking and a lime-colored Dutch oven seat-belted in the passenger side of my Volvo. I drove past Drop-In Brewing in Middlebury and thought of a friend from Ireland, where I had spent four months at a cooking program on a hundred-acre farm in County Cork.

He was a New Zealand brewer-cum-chef; I was an aspiring American cook trying to emulate my brother’s homebrew talents. We brewed a stout and a dry-hopped elderflower pale ale in the green Dutch oven and stored the brews in a neighbor's broom closet. We bottled on Halloween after our herb and spice exam, and popped the bottles on Thanksgiving after a 13-hour day in the kitchen. The pale ale was terrible.

The Grafton Village Store shuttered in May 2015. Records from the Grafton Historical Society indicate that the town had relied on an operating general store since 1787. In 1841, a man named George Barrett erected his general store at 162 Main Street; 174 years later, it closed.

Enter June Lupiani and Alexandra Hartman, co-owners of the town’s newly revived country store dubbed MKT: Grafton. The longtime friends and business partners purchased the abandoned spot in June 2015, and embarked on a series of renovations on the nearly two-century-old building. Fortunately for hungry travelers and locals, updates included an expansive in-house café helmed by Lupiani, who is a registered dietician and restaurant-trained chef.

Bonus: Nearly everything on the breakfast and lunch menu, save for a $16 pantry board with local cheese and charcuterie, fits the “Dining on a Dime” budget.

“We were so bummed when the store closed in May,” says Lupiani during my recent visit. “Ali [Hartman] and I lived in Grafton, we had children in Grafton, and we knew that the town needed a gathering spot.”

When doors reopened months later, Hartman and Lupiani cut the ribbon to MKT, an updated interpretation of the classic that doesn’t stray from the traditional general-store ethos. Beyond an outer façade indicative of the 1841 original, the minimalist interior opens up with hardwood floors, floor-to-ceiling wooden shelving and restored countertops laden with pastries.

Aided by the in-house baker, Jan Archambault, Lupiani loads the pastry case with a daily roster of house-made baked goods — think tender cider donuts, blueberry muffins and dense chocolate chip cookies sprinkled with flaked salt. Everything prepped in MKT’s back kitchen is made with attention to local suppliers, including Black River Produce, Clear Brook Farm, Blake Hill Preserves and Grafton Village Bakery.

Stocked shelves mirror the country store's traditional wide range of merchandise and prices. Organic dark roast from Vermont Coffee Company sit next to blue canisters of Maxwell House; organic mayonnaise from Woodstock shares space with squeeze bottles of Hellman’s; liters of pricey extra virgin olive oil cluster with bottles of Heinz cider vinegar. Standing coolers house local ground beef, craft beers and cold cases of Bud Light.

At 10:30 a.m., I’m teetering between breakfast and lunch. I’m tempted by MKT’s maple-honey granola over local yogurt, or perhaps the Nutella toast — a sliced croissant slathered with the hazelnut spread and served warm with a glass of cold Vermont milk. But savory wins over sweet this morning, so I query the cashier, “If you could eat anything on the menu for lunch today, what would it be?”

“I like the muffuletta sandwich,” responds Amber Dibona. The daily special is a halved toasted baguette loaded with ham, salami, Swiss cheese, lettuce, olive spread and maple balsamic. It looks like three-napkin perfection. But then I spy Your Perfect Egg Sandwich (enough said) and Nonna Tolve’s tuna salad — a brunch combination to give me the best of both worlds.

The former is a fried organic egg with Grafton Village cheddar on an English muffin or Orchard Hill bread ($4); the latter is a pile of mixed greens topped with olive-oil soaked tuna, capers, dill, red onions and Italian spices ($7.50). The total is $11.50, so with tax would put me over budget by about 50 cents. Close, but no cigar. Instead, I make Nonna Tolve’s tuna salad into a sandwich augmented by thick slivers of two-year Grafton Village cheddar — a worthy $1 extra. And I'm at $8.50 total.

I devour my sandwich at a quiet corner table overlooking the wraparound front porch, and make a mental note:  Good food. Warm crew. Don't be a stranger.

Dining on a Dime is a weekly series featuring well-made, filling bites (something substantial enough to qualify as a small meal or better) for $12 or less. Know of a tasty dish we should feature? Drop us a line: food@sevendaysvt.com.

Last Thursday, the open flag flew outside 180 Battery Street in Burlington as Esperanza Restaurante welcomed guests for its first day of business. The restaurant is now open for lunch and dinner, Tuesday through Saturday.

The menu was as advertised prior to opening — in November, co-owners Gerber Rodriguez and Cynthia Nabalitan told Seven Days the new spot would serve dishes from their native countries of El Salvador and the Philippines, respectively. The menu also incorporates Mexican dishes from Esperanza's predecessor, Madera's Restaurante, where Rodriguez worked for several years.

In the back parking lot of Middlebury’s Marble Works District, Costello's Market is dressed up with string lights and pine wreaths ribboned in Santa Claus red. Christmas music hums from inside — Darlene Love's “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” and a smattering of Frank Sinatra.

The market was shuttered for two weeks around Thanksgiving for the owners’ annual trip to Italy. For me as a Midd local, it was a bleak 14 days of unquelled cravings. Now, with a fire newly flickering in the market’s wood-bellied stove, the place offers double relief: a Costello’s fix at a "dime"-worthy price.

As a bonus, I can do some holiday shopping while I wait for my food. Because, like me, my loved ones appreciate a present they can eat. (Another bonus: The store owners visited the Lombardy region and a town in Liguria known for focaccia and pesto Genovese. They brought back goods such as white chocolate and pistachio torrone.)

Costello Market opened a decade ago this February, and has since become a local hub stocked with the trappings of an Italian specialty foods store. The co-owners are Carolyn Costello and John Hamilton. Each day except Sundays and Mondays, when the store is closed, Costello is behind the counter, greeting customers with a hello and a catchphrase, “Thanks for thinking of us today!”

Hamilton, meanwhile, is tucked in the kitchen, pulling fresh lasagna through the pasta wheel or turning tortellini by hand on a long wooden countertop.

Behind the deli case are inky black olives bathing in their brine; fresh orbs of house-made mozzarella; chunks of imported cured meats next to local mascarpone and burrata; deep fried arancini, marinated cucumbers, stuffed peppers and slabs of lasagna Bolognese ready to be warmed for dinner.

A neighboring display holds iced trays of fresh seafood delivered daily from Boston by Black River Produce. There are bay scallops and wild Gulf shrimp; sleek fillets of striped bass, haddock, tilapia and snapper; salmon steaks and yellowfin tuna.

Nearby, two standing coolers house take-away items such as chicken stock, local gelati and house-made ravioli with seasonal fillings. A shelf of Hamilton’s sauces carries containers of porcini mushroom sauce, Bolognese and sugo di Amatriciana, ready partners for any of the dried and fresh pastas stacked along the market’s walls.

Shall we talk about pasta? There are old reliables like De Cecco among the market's stock, but the imported dried varieties make excellent treats and holiday gifts (hint, hint). One counter near the beverage cooler carries enormous tubes of paccheri, saffron-kissed tagliolini, egg fettucini and — for the cooks, the Italians or the ambitious — Neapolitan tipo “00” flour  for the pasta wheel.
For a late 3 p.m. lunch, I meander around Costello’s with the rarity of having the place to myself. I chat with Costello and Hamilton about their recent trip, and ask them to tell me about those oven-bronzed wedges of Ligurian focaccia.

The soup specials are especially tempting today: pumpkin sausage ($4.95) and Tuscan ribollita ($3.95). Aside from some seafood-based take-away entrées, most menu items fit my “Dining on a Dime” budget. I peruse the menu, ultimately deciding between aged provolone and fresh mozzarella for my sub sandwich. (Full disclosure: I’ve been known to eat the market's fresh mozz with a knife and fork, like a steak.)

I opt to stick with the classics and order my go-to, the "Soprano": Hamilton's homemade sub roll packed with imported prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, lettuce, tomato and seasoned olive oil. It’s $11.95 for a large, $9.95 for a small and, unless I’ve just hiked Camel’s Hump, I go with a small; it’s still more than half a foot long. The market has no indoor seating, but it’s mild enough this afternoon to take my fare outside to the picnic tables overlooking the Otter Creek waterfall.

More Christmas tunes serenade me out the door as Costello calls behind me: “Thanks for thinking of us today!”

Dining on a Dime is a weekly series featuring well-made, filling bites (something substantial enough to qualify as a small meal or better) for $12 or less. Know of a tasty dish we should feature? Drop us a line: food@sevendaysvt.com.