The Alchemist’s Heady Topper coming to NYC this spring

Vermont Brewery (and former brewpub) The Alchemist has had a wild year. Just a week before they were about to cut their ribbon on a brewery up the road from their location in Waterbury, Vermont, flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Irene gutted their brewpub. It was a total loss, but given the lauding they had already received from beer geeks, the craft beer community came out in full force to support them (and the town of Waterbury) after the disaster. And as the cleanup began, so did canning of their well-respected double IPA, Heady Topper, and the buzz around The Alchemist never stopped. Even Vermonters go out of their way to find this beer at stores across the state. And now, it’s coming to New York City.

We’re already admitting it’s going to be incredibly tough to find Heady Topper once it’s here, and this isn’t going to be a regular thing. But in May, as the brewery’s Jen Kimmich explains, our city will be graced with a few cases of cans:

Now that mud season is among us, I am happy to say that we finally have some extra product to send out of Vermont. Over the course of the next 8 weeks, we plan to make shipments to Philadelphia, Boston and NYC. We wanted to attend Philadelphia Beer Week in June, but realized that we will not have enough product to send out of state once summer is upon us. […] Finally, sometime in May, we hope to send a pallet to NYC. This will go through Union Beer. Again, we will post a link on our website with retailers. We have never sent Heady to NYC, so it will be fun to see how it goes. And, it will be really great to have our good friends at The Blind Tiger serving it. Once summer arrives, we anticipate selling all canned Heady Topper in Vermont. However, in the meantime, we will do our best to get some Heady to our neighboring states.

So, don’t get too excited - this isn’t a regular thing. And as Kimmich reminds us, if you want a nice supply of Heady Topper, it’s always great to head up to Vermont and support the local economy while they rebuild the villages that were devastated by the storm last summer.

But for a few short weeks (or days, perhaps) this spring, we’ll be lucky enough to see some of that sweet, sweet Vermont nectar here in New York. And we’ll be sure to tell you where it is when they make the announcement.