What Amy brought me from Vermont...

Let it be said here: Vermont, the Green Mountain State
has some outstanding craft beers being brewed there...

The offer came out of the blue. A simple post on my Facebook wall. "In Vermont, give me your beer list." The reason the request surprised me is that it came from my upstairs neighbour and long-time friend Amy. She and her hubby, Simon, live 12 feet above and then 12 paces to the north of me in the sprawling luxury complex that houses Donny's Bar and Grill.

And as far as I knew, that's where she was, rather than 742 kilometres (461 miles) directly east of me. I gotta start putting GPS tags on my friends - swear to gawd, it's like herding cats... cats with Bailey's in their milk saucers. It seems she had simply switched Burlington's for the weekend, leaving this one and landing in Burlington, Vermont.

But if a lady makes a request, a gentleman should reply, especially that request! So I thought about it. In fairness, Amy is a wine drinker mostly with the odd foray into Molson Canadian if she's in a beer mood so I knew I'd have to be specific with my selected craft beer list. Time to reach high.

The campus of the University of Vermont in Burlington.
Amy was very close to this when her party landed there.

I started with state's Holy Grail, Heady Topper Imperial IPA from The Alchemist brewery in Waterbury - the most sought-after craft beer in all of North America. I followed that with AleSmith IPA (which is actually from San Diego) and Stone Ruination IIPA (Escondido, California), knowing she might have access to these beers in the United States. But finished the list with Lawson's Finest Triple Sunshine Imperial IPA from the renowned Lawson's Finest Liquids in Warren, Vermont, that I have read actually rivals Heady Topper for IPA Goodness.

Okay, full disclosure. I knew there was little or no chance of Amy actually scoring either a Heady Topper or Sunshine IIPA. These beers are legend and tend to be sold out within 30 minutes of landing in stores. Customers are often limited to 24 beers or even 12 in their purchases because let's face it - if I saw Heady Topper in a liquor store, I would slap a credit card on the counter and say, "I'll take it all, please." And then to paraphrase a classic cartoon, I would "do what we do every night, Pinky - try to take over the world!"

"If we could find Heady Topper, Pinky, we
could take over the world!" Or drink them

However, what I had done, in essence, was give Amy a list that she could recite to a liquor store clerk who would then know exactly which direction to steer her. And that's precisely what happened. Knowing she wouldn't find those specific beers, I added, "Basically, anything that says IPA on the label." So Amy went for the IPAs with the coolest labels (much in the same way some ladies pick a sports team based solely on the uniforms or a city's desirability as a vacation locale) and great thunderin' horny-toads, did she hit the jackpot.

When she returned home to this Burlington a few days later, I was regaled with tales of Vermont's beauty with it lush greenness, food that was natural, delicious and not deep-fried, people that were uber-friendly, warm and down-to-earth... and of course, the beer bonanza.

Okay, hands down, the Blue Ribbon Winner among the collection she smuggled across the border was the collaborative Double Dose IPA from Lawson's Finest Liquids and Otter Creek Brewing from Waterbury.

The rising smoke off their van makes Sean
Lawson and Mike Gerhart look like a Cheech
and Chong cartoon on the Double Dose label.
Repeat after me: "Dave's not here, man..."

Turns out one day, Lawson head brewer Sean Lawson accidentally spilled his chocolate into Otter Creek head brewer Mike Gerhart's peanut butter. And thus they created peanut butter cups. But based on the success of that, being phenomenal individual brewers in their own rights, they collaborated on the Double Dose IPA, an imperial IPA so outstanding that it had me rolling my eyes, drooling and pulling a Homer Simpsonesque, "Mmmmmmm, delicious double IPA..." Amy brought me single 650ml (22 ounce) bottles of everything except this... which came in a four-pack. So who benefits? That would be Beer Musketeers Cat and Glenn, who are due to land at Donny's Bar and Grill for the First Annual Mid-Autumn's Night Decadent Dangerous Craft Beer Festival next weekend as I have squirrelled aside two bottles for them. This is what they'll taste. Tropical and dark fruits on the nose while a large dose of spice, floral hops and pine dance like woodland nymphs on their tongues. (Glenn will like that because he's a skeevy perv.) One of the best IIPAs I've ever had and Lord knows I've had more than my fair share. (But at the same time, it's never enough. Sometimes I feel selfish but then I remember I don't really experience feelings like that and I move on...)

Next on the deck is the Stone Brewing Collective Distortion Imperial IPA. This 9.3% tastebud-blaster is actually called Stone-Kyle Hollingsworth-Keri Kelli Collective Distortion IIPA as the two musicians (with, respectively, the String Cheese Incident and Alice Cooper) joined the renowned brewer with some play-that-funky-music-but-infuse-it-with-beer ideas.

The only thing missing from the Stone Collective Distortion
IPA brewed with elderberries and coriander? That would be
the elderberries and coriander. Uh, yeah, I'm good with that

(That begs the question: when Wild Cherry ordered that white boy to play the funky music 'til he died back in 1976, were they ever charged with his murder?) Okay, billed as being brewed with elderberries and coriander, the two things I didn't get from this was, well, elderberries and coriander.  Though I always thought that it's a little sad when the younger, hipper berries push the elderberries aside, lemme tell you about this bad boy. Dark fruit, pine and floral on the nose, this is tangerine and grapefruit on the tongue. At this point, I feel I pretty much have to concede Stone Brewing can do no wrong. Gods brew among us, people.

Okay, four more so let's get jiggy with it. Next up is Rock Art Brewing's Belvidere Big IPA out of Morrisville. While not quite in the same league as the previous two, this is no slouch.

Mild on the nose, nice kick on the tongue. But
some question marks on the spelling of Belvidere
... or Belvedere as the rest of the world spells it...

For an 8% Imperial IPA, the aroma was a bit thin - little bits of fruit and citrus as opposed to the usual IIPA punch to the nose - but man, it sure came alive on the tongue. Pine, orange and citrus - yeah, it put on its big boy pants and let you know it was an Imperial IPA. From the same brewery came the Humble Harvester IPA, a newer beer. Low IBU (international bitterness units) at 50, this 6% offering may be more of a nice pale ale than IPA. Still, with tropical fruit on the nose and a mild spiciness on the tongue, this was a nice little brew... not in the same weight class as the Belvidere, but also not meant to be.

Okay, somehow a Groundbreaker Brewing (Portland, Oregon) Harvester Pale Ale landed in this bunch. While Portland may rival San Diego as the USA Craft Beer Capitol (too close to call from my perch), this is one of the few gluten-free craft breweries going. And while taking the grains (or as we call them - flavour) out of beer is dodgy at best, this is not too shabby. I mean, I'm not going to the edge of an African cliff and holding it above my head like Rafiki did with baby Simba at the Pride Lands in The Lion King (the airfare alone... forget about it) but this is solid. A little bread on the nose, there was light grass and citrus on the tongue. I'm not gluten-intolerant (though it hates me because I said that thing about its Mama - hey, I'm sorry... she's not tiny!), this is actually really good for that genre.

I've got your 10 Barrels right here, you little wussy-boys...

Okay, last one to the pool at Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale. That would be 10 Barrel Brewing's Apocalypse IPA. Okay, straight IPA, no Imperial, no Double... just a Regular Joe IPA. This kicked yo mamma's ass. The Bend, Oregon brewery has created a great 6.5%, 65 IBU that is on par with Flying Monkeys' (Barrie, Ontario) Smashbomb Atomic IPA. Not small praise. With Horizon, Centennial, Amarillo and Cascade hops, it brings the party to your nose. Grapefruit, orange, pineapple, grass on the nose, it's pine, fruit and delicious on the tongue. One of the best single IPAs I've had. I have to tip my hat at Amy! What an outstanding selection, honey!

Okay, next up... finally catching up with my old Journalism college room-mate Gary and the shenanigans that was our life, including dodging the RCMP at Ottawa's Parliament Hill while we cruised every floor...and how staggeringly successful two drunk dudes were at precisely that. Also, time to play catch up with countless beers. SO many beers. But guys and dolls, that's it, that's all and I am outta here. Until next time, I remain...