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BEST of the REST: CONNECTICUT

PRIME 16 TAP HOUSE & BURGERS

172 Temple St. • New Haven, CT 06510 (203) 782-1616 • prime16.com

With exposed bricks, pressed black tin ceiling, sumptuous wood bar, and large wood tables beside burgundy walls, this friendly bar offers free beer tastings every Wednesday night starting at 9 p.m. The 20-tap, 45-bottle beer list is smartly varied, with almost half of the drafts less-common Northeastern beers like New England Brewing Company’s 668 the Neighbor of the Beast, a 9% ABV Belgian pale ale, and the burgers get high marks.

Vermont

Waterbury

THE ALCHEMIST PUB & BREWERY

23 S. Main St. • Waterbury, VT 05676 • (802) 244-4120 alchemistbeer.com • Established: 2003

SCENE & STORY

Founder John Kimmich fell in love with brewing during his senior year of college at Penn State and after nine months of working in a home-brew store took his savings of $4,000, packed up his Subaru, and headed to Vermont. His goal was to work with the late Greg Noonan, a legendary writer of several influential beer books and a professional brewer who had founded Vermont Pub & Brewery. Under Noonan’s guidance, Kimmich eventually became the head brewer there. Now he heads up his own Alchemist Pub & Brewery, set in a historic building in Waterbury, just a short drive from Burlington and the Stowe Mountain Resort.

PHILOSOPHY

Kimmich is a borderline neurotic perfectionist and (not inconsequently) a hell of a brewer, and his creations have become highly sought after, earning medals and a reputation for real mastery. He doesn’t allow growler sales because he fears the beer being consumed in less than optimum conditions. Even deciding to can Heady Topper, his critically acclaimed 8% ABV DIPA, was agonizing. “It will be difficult for me to give up so much control and release it out into the wild, but I just really want to be able to take some Heady Topper on a long hike in the woods,” he explained.

KEY BEER

Heady Topper, just one of several Double IPAs that Kimmich has brewed well, is the flagship (and is now available regionally in cans), but it’s his Celia series that is most remarkable, named after celiac disease, or gluten intolerance. When Kimmich’s wife developed a gluten allergy, he decided to try sorghum as a barley substitute (rural sorghum-based beers are common in parts of Africa). Kimmich started with an IPA and then a wild ale made with red raspberries and fermented with Brettanomyces yeast; both beers were awarded medals at the 2009 Great American Beer Festival (GABF). When he turned his attention to saison, the resulting beer would earn a gold at the 2010 World Beer Cup, and another gold at the 2010 GABF.

HILL FARMSTEAD

403 Hill Rd. • Greensboro Bend, VT 05842 • (802) 533-7450 hillfarmstead.com • Established: 2010

SCENE & STORY

Eighth generation Vermonter Shaun Hill recommends you do some Google mapping or consult an onboard GPS before trying to locate his remote, freestanding barn down a dirt road in the countryside where he’s leading a revolution of the Vermont brewing scene. It’s worth the trouble because it’s exceedingly tricky to find his award-winning beers anywhere else. In a tale oft recounted in craft beer circles, Hill worked entry-level jobs in a pair of breweries in Vermont after college and then gained increasing responsibilities in three firms in Europe. Among them was Danish craft brewery Nørrebro Bryghus, led at the time by Anders Kissmeyer, a brewer who had taken a revolutionary road of his own by pioneering experimental styles in Carlsberg-saturated Denmark. The partnership was an incredibly fruitful one: three beers Hill brewed with Kissmeyer earned two golds and a silver at the 2010 World Beer Cup in Chicago.

Hill returned and using borrowed equipment and loans from fans and friends he got his own brewery up and running on land not far from the spot where his great-great-grandfather had opened a tavern on Hill Road. The beers have ranged from Belgian wit beer (Florence) to Black IPA