Photo Credit: makelunchnotwar.blogspot.com
Every year, RateBeer comes out with their list of the best breweries on earth. For four consecutive years (2009-2012), the crew at 3 Floyds in Munster, IN, held the crown - somewhat apt, given that one of their most prominent logos is a winged skull wearing a crown. When the 2013 list went live on Friday, February 1st, beer nerds around the world were greeted with the site of a new top-dog: Hill Farmstead, of Greensboro, VT.
This development wasn't entirely unexpected, as HF had checked in at #6 on the 2012 list, and the preceding five days from January 27 to January 31st had revealed HF victories in category after category: Best Brewery in VT, four of the top 50 beers on earth, an astonishing 10 out of the top 15 Saisons on earth, 7 out of the top 15 Pale Ales on earth, and 8 of the top 10 new beers for the 2012 calendar year. The HF juggernaut rolled onward.
Now, the overwhelmingly positive reception that HF brews enjoy results in all sorts of hagiographical descriptions and exhortations from fellow beers nerds. After a few months of hearing all of this unbridled praise, I had only been able to track down one glass of their beer: Foster, their Black IPA, which I enjoyed with a lovely anniversary dinner with my girlfriend at Gramercy Tavern in late December.
I wanted to try more! But it hadn't proved to be easy - I missed the opportunity to buy a pass to their Memorial Day Anniversary Celebration (the tickets sold out within 50 seconds of release online), my shot at their Collected Works offering was equally unsuccessful, and early attempts to plan the 7.5 hour drive up to far northern Vermont had stalled. Stymied, I contented myself with the many amazing beers available here in NYC, but I was always on the lookout for a shot at some HF.
That opportunity came this Wednesday. While at work, my BeerMenus feed showed that the Pony Bar in Hell's Kitchen had Hill Farmstead's Everett (7.5% ABV), a best-in-the-world-for-its-style Porter on tap. As soon as work drew to a close, I booked it up-town as fast as I could, practically sprinting from Times Square to 45th and 10th. Ragged of breath, but strong of purpose, I held my money high at the bar, and asked for an Everett. The friendly bartender obligingly pulled out an 8oz glass and drew down the tap handle.
Before I get into the tasting notes, I'll offer a bit of a disclaimer - I've never been a huge fan of Porters as a style - they often lack the rich depth of Stouts, and taste thing or unpleasantly lactic and sour. There have obviously been exceptions, mostly stronger Baltic/Imperial Porters such as Ballast Point's almost indescribably tasty Victory at Sea, but as a whole, I'll almost always favor other styles over a Porter.
That said, this one, Everett, had been ranked as the best of its style on earth in the 2013 RateBeer rankings. It sat dark brown-black in the glass, with a thin white foam on the top. There was coffee, hints of anise, malt, and a bit of oak on the nose. First sips featured a round and light mouth feel with great carbonation, and dark chocolate coasting in on a toasty, slightly nutty body. Bits of lactic hints on the edges, helped ground a slightly sweet and chewy malt close. All in all, very solid, and earning a 3.75/5 despite the prevailing headwinds of my style preferences.
Drinking my way through my first Everett, I had the opportunity to talk with a few other beer nerds who had also made the trek up to Hell's Kitchen explicitly to grab some HF. The more time I've spent tracking down rare and interesting beer, the more often this sort of experience happens - you sidle up to the bar and order the beer in question, and pretty soon you and the two guys next to you have jumped into an extensive, excited, and far-spanning conversation on the relative merits and scarcities of a whole panoply of beers. It's this talking shop that I find to be one of the most rewarding parts of being a beer nerd, past, you know, drinking the beer. Phones came out with pictures of legendary piles and bottle line-ups of the beers that dreams are made of - HF, 3Floyds, Surly, Russian River - with each of us displaying our prizes with the pride of a big-game hunter who had tracked and landed his most elusive quarry.
Past these sort of conversations' enjoyability, they also tend to be quite useful as informal informational exchanges for all things craft beer related. One guy knew a shop in Minnesota that would ship the impossible-to-find beers from Surly, I told another guy the best place in town to track down Anchorage Brewing's best, and a third guy let us all in on a place in Long Island that often got "whole pallets" of Heady Topper. It's always interesting how these sort of tips come out over good beer and in person, but you'd be hard-pressed to track down some of those same bits of information online. Nobody seems to want to dry up the well by over-revealing their best supply lines of the best beer, but most beer nerds will gladly supply it to other beer nerds once they've vetted them as "good people".
After such a fantastic evening of beer out on the town, I couldn't even believe my eyes Thursday at work when I saw that The Blind Tiger (my go-to craft-beer bar in all of Manhattan, which shall receive a much more in-depth post later extolling its virtues) had Hill Farmstead's Edward on tap! Edward is their most famous and well-regarded Pale Ale, which says something, given HF's virtuosic talents in that style. Additionally, my current absolute favorite beer, 3 Floyds Zombie Dust, is also a Pale Ale, and I was eager to taste Edward and compare it to Zombie Dust. I high-tailed it up to Bleecker and 8th in the West Village as fast as I could through the driving rain. Arriving at the bar, I put in an order for two, hardly able to contain my enthusiasm.
"I'm sorry, but the Edward's been tapped out for hours." The bartender smiled in a good-natured way, kindly trying to counter the evident sadness cascading down my face. Apparently, they tapped a whole keg of it earlier that afternoon, and it was all gone in less than 3 hours...3 hours! During a work day! I figured that there were just plenty of NYU beer nerds who could afford to cut out of class for their shot at Edward.
The evening was not without a silver lining, though - they had replaced Edward with Florence (6.2% ABV), HF's wheat Saison. Now, having one HF beer on tap in Manhattan is categorically rare on most nights, but tapping a second is almost unheard of. I gladly plunked my change down for a beautiful tulip stem glass of Florence.
Visually, it was pale straw yellow with a slight murkiness, but generally translucent with a 1-finger white head. The nose featured straw, lemon oil, and yeast. It drank lightly, with good carbonation. Initial sips revealed a yeasty taste with a vinuous grape-skin undercurrent and bit of pleasant lactic tartness around the edges. A very slight Belgian/copper taste followed, almost undetectable, segueing into a dry finish. All in all, an extremely well-balanced beer and fine example of the style, earning a 4/5.
_____________________
At this point, one of my best beer buds and I are planning an expedition in late April up to Hill Farmstead itself. It will be an undeniably wonderful beer pilgrimage, and I await it eagerly. In the mean time, I'll just keep scouring NYC for every chance I can get to sit down with one of their brews in my hand.
This development wasn't entirely unexpected, as HF had checked in at #6 on the 2012 list, and the preceding five days from January 27 to January 31st had revealed HF victories in category after category: Best Brewery in VT, four of the top 50 beers on earth, an astonishing 10 out of the top 15 Saisons on earth, 7 out of the top 15 Pale Ales on earth, and 8 of the top 10 new beers for the 2012 calendar year. The HF juggernaut rolled onward.
Now, the overwhelmingly positive reception that HF brews enjoy results in all sorts of hagiographical descriptions and exhortations from fellow beers nerds. After a few months of hearing all of this unbridled praise, I had only been able to track down one glass of their beer: Foster, their Black IPA, which I enjoyed with a lovely anniversary dinner with my girlfriend at Gramercy Tavern in late December.
I wanted to try more! But it hadn't proved to be easy - I missed the opportunity to buy a pass to their Memorial Day Anniversary Celebration (the tickets sold out within 50 seconds of release online), my shot at their Collected Works offering was equally unsuccessful, and early attempts to plan the 7.5 hour drive up to far northern Vermont had stalled. Stymied, I contented myself with the many amazing beers available here in NYC, but I was always on the lookout for a shot at some HF.
That opportunity came this Wednesday. While at work, my BeerMenus feed showed that the Pony Bar in Hell's Kitchen had Hill Farmstead's Everett (7.5% ABV), a best-in-the-world-for-its-style Porter on tap. As soon as work drew to a close, I booked it up-town as fast as I could, practically sprinting from Times Square to 45th and 10th. Ragged of breath, but strong of purpose, I held my money high at the bar, and asked for an Everett. The friendly bartender obligingly pulled out an 8oz glass and drew down the tap handle.
Before I get into the tasting notes, I'll offer a bit of a disclaimer - I've never been a huge fan of Porters as a style - they often lack the rich depth of Stouts, and taste thing or unpleasantly lactic and sour. There have obviously been exceptions, mostly stronger Baltic/Imperial Porters such as Ballast Point's almost indescribably tasty Victory at Sea, but as a whole, I'll almost always favor other styles over a Porter.
That said, this one, Everett, had been ranked as the best of its style on earth in the 2013 RateBeer rankings. It sat dark brown-black in the glass, with a thin white foam on the top. There was coffee, hints of anise, malt, and a bit of oak on the nose. First sips featured a round and light mouth feel with great carbonation, and dark chocolate coasting in on a toasty, slightly nutty body. Bits of lactic hints on the edges, helped ground a slightly sweet and chewy malt close. All in all, very solid, and earning a 3.75/5 despite the prevailing headwinds of my style preferences.
Drinking my way through my first Everett, I had the opportunity to talk with a few other beer nerds who had also made the trek up to Hell's Kitchen explicitly to grab some HF. The more time I've spent tracking down rare and interesting beer, the more often this sort of experience happens - you sidle up to the bar and order the beer in question, and pretty soon you and the two guys next to you have jumped into an extensive, excited, and far-spanning conversation on the relative merits and scarcities of a whole panoply of beers. It's this talking shop that I find to be one of the most rewarding parts of being a beer nerd, past, you know, drinking the beer. Phones came out with pictures of legendary piles and bottle line-ups of the beers that dreams are made of - HF, 3Floyds, Surly, Russian River - with each of us displaying our prizes with the pride of a big-game hunter who had tracked and landed his most elusive quarry.
Past these sort of conversations' enjoyability, they also tend to be quite useful as informal informational exchanges for all things craft beer related. One guy knew a shop in Minnesota that would ship the impossible-to-find beers from Surly, I told another guy the best place in town to track down Anchorage Brewing's best, and a third guy let us all in on a place in Long Island that often got "whole pallets" of Heady Topper. It's always interesting how these sort of tips come out over good beer and in person, but you'd be hard-pressed to track down some of those same bits of information online. Nobody seems to want to dry up the well by over-revealing their best supply lines of the best beer, but most beer nerds will gladly supply it to other beer nerds once they've vetted them as "good people".
After such a fantastic evening of beer out on the town, I couldn't even believe my eyes Thursday at work when I saw that The Blind Tiger (my go-to craft-beer bar in all of Manhattan, which shall receive a much more in-depth post later extolling its virtues) had Hill Farmstead's Edward on tap! Edward is their most famous and well-regarded Pale Ale, which says something, given HF's virtuosic talents in that style. Additionally, my current absolute favorite beer, 3 Floyds Zombie Dust, is also a Pale Ale, and I was eager to taste Edward and compare it to Zombie Dust. I high-tailed it up to Bleecker and 8th in the West Village as fast as I could through the driving rain. Arriving at the bar, I put in an order for two, hardly able to contain my enthusiasm.
"I'm sorry, but the Edward's been tapped out for hours." The bartender smiled in a good-natured way, kindly trying to counter the evident sadness cascading down my face. Apparently, they tapped a whole keg of it earlier that afternoon, and it was all gone in less than 3 hours...3 hours! During a work day! I figured that there were just plenty of NYU beer nerds who could afford to cut out of class for their shot at Edward.
The evening was not without a silver lining, though - they had replaced Edward with Florence (6.2% ABV), HF's wheat Saison. Now, having one HF beer on tap in Manhattan is categorically rare on most nights, but tapping a second is almost unheard of. I gladly plunked my change down for a beautiful tulip stem glass of Florence.
Visually, it was pale straw yellow with a slight murkiness, but generally translucent with a 1-finger white head. The nose featured straw, lemon oil, and yeast. It drank lightly, with good carbonation. Initial sips revealed a yeasty taste with a vinuous grape-skin undercurrent and bit of pleasant lactic tartness around the edges. A very slight Belgian/copper taste followed, almost undetectable, segueing into a dry finish. All in all, an extremely well-balanced beer and fine example of the style, earning a 4/5.
_____________________
At this point, one of my best beer buds and I are planning an expedition in late April up to Hill Farmstead itself. It will be an undeniably wonderful beer pilgrimage, and I await it eagerly. In the mean time, I'll just keep scouring NYC for every chance I can get to sit down with one of their brews in my hand.
Just read this. Makes me excited to go to Hill Farmstead in June. How was your trip? Also going to be in New York in early May and hoping I'll get lucky and find some HF on tap somewhere. Cheers
ReplyDeleteAlso I know this is an old post sorry, but do you have any tips or recommendations for when I go to Hill Farmstead?
ReplyDelete