Zero Gravity — The Burlington brewery’s beer hall has ample indoor and outdoor seating for sipping suds such as Conehead IPA and Green State Lager. Even teetotalers can get in on the action with nonalcoholic versions of its staple pours.
Other Finalists (Inside Chittenden County)
- Black Flannel Brewing & Distilling
- Burlington Beer Co.
- Foam Brewers
- Switchback Brewing Co.
Hill Farmstead Brewery — A journey up to Hill Farmstead is a real introduction to Vermont dirt roads, especially in mud season. But the payoff — “beer-flavored beer” that’s a pleasure to drink, as founder-brewer Shaun Hill describes it — has made the Greensboro Bend brewery a mecca for beer seekers.
Founded in 2010, Hill Farmstead won RateBeer’s best new brewery title that year; its first of eight world-best ratings came in 2012. The brewery is remote, but as its website boasts, it’s in “the middle of everything.” Sipping an Edward, Abner, Anna or Florence on the brewery porch, one can appreciate the almost otherworldly setting of Hill’s ancestral farm — and the brews named for those ancestors, of course. These days, the pastoral scene is a balance of society and solitude, depending on how many people have made the trek for the latest Society & Solitude double IPA release. Hill Farmstead’s ever-changing taproom drafts and retail bottles include American pale ales, IPAs, lagers, porters, imperial stouts and vintage Farmstead ales — some barrel aged, some blended for a bit of Civil Disobedience. Prized ingredients come from afar, such as New Zealand hops, and right outside, like dandelions harvested from the fields surrounding the brewery. It’s always worth the trip.Other Finalists (Outside Chittenden County)
- 14th Star Brewing Co.
- The Alchemist
- Bent Hill Brewery
- Lawson’s Finest Liquids
- von Trapp Brewing
