3 of 4 Heady Toppers down and I gotta say. WTH. I'm catching this herbal tea sort of muddle hop flavor just all over the place. First can may have just been nostalgic. As it stands now, this is a 4/5 sort of standard beer offering. Is it possible for a store in VT to be selling old HT? This just sort of reeks of old hop flavor.
I finally made it back home. Brought back some stuff I couldnt finish. HT, some Rock Art Limited Access, and a can of Tribute. If anyone is interested, Let me know. I think I have a blood of the unicorn from Pipeworks that I never tried.
Catching up on some stuff and some final impressions of VT (barely scratched the surface sadly).
Never really gave full impressions on these guys before leaving.
-BOMB is what bomb says it is. No under or over rating that one (Prairie actually made it to my city while I was away)
-Astronaut Status had a great balance between that bourbon wood character and a chocolate sweetness factor. It really won out and the others weren't as memorable
-Barbapapa is a poor mans Ten FIdy. Simply put, a standard, possibly too bitter IRS.
-Flight of Angry Beast is a half stout/half barley wine, each aged in seperate types of barrels. It definitely had a mix of both but couldnt stand out imho.
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Some random thoughts
-Fiddlehead IPA is a nice core offering.
-Limbo IPA by Long Trail is a bit underrated. It has a sweeter malt bite towards the end but the initial sort of onion hop flavor wins me over everytime.
-Not really available anywhere on draft, Green Blaze by Long Trail is a whole other beer on draft (when fresh). Vibrancy all around it. Underrated IMHO.
-Long trail ale=Fat tire
-Von Trapp has a 4 lager variety 12 pack. Bohemian Pils is worth all their medals and awards. Shining star of lagers for the entire state imho.
-HT being sold to restaurants to be resold for almost twice is much is an interesting move. That day in Burlington must have been the restaurants day to get their stock of beer to be resold. $7-8 was the standard can pricing. I paid $15 for a $4 pack.
-Lawson's Sip of Sunshine very good. but I guess its good for my sake that I think a local offering is just as good (project dank by la cumbre). Something is either highly overrated or underrated about these VT IPAs.
-Hill Farmstead Nelson and Edward were very clean easy to drink beers. But the aromas just did not stand out. I love Nelson hops and nothing seemed to explode
With so many breweries popping up around everyones way, except for maybe Treehouse IPAs, it may be best to stick to local breweries. IMHO you may not be missing too too much. I really feel the larger regional breweries IPAs can stand up to even the smaller localized hype places. I'd be interested to see how that last heady topper holds up to the likes of Stone IPA, Lagunitas, Deschutes, Odell, and even BP. I'd be sure to throw in some local favorites. The thrill of the chase was huge as I got HT. So many at Hunger Mountain coop just totally by passed a full fridge full of other great beers when the SOS/HT sign showed sold out.
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Mangudai954, I've been hearing that alot about this years SN Ofest beer. I loved last years. It sucks they gimmicked it into a revolving yearly release with various collab breweries. Don't break what's not broken.
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Forgot to mention. Biggest steal of the whole trip. 4 packs of FIS and FBS for $5. I think that may have been the only stout I drank the entire time.