Sally Pollak

Free Press Staff Writer

GREENSBORO – Parked at a trailhead in Franconia Notch, N.H., last weekend was a Honda Odyssey with 240,000 miles on the odometer, and $960 of Hill Farmstead beer in back.

The Odyssey belongs to Steve Bimson, a family physician from suburban Philadelphia who wears a Rock Art baseball cap.

Bimson and his son, along with a friend, left Pennsylvania at 3:30 on a recent Friday morning for Hill Farmstead Brewery in Greensboro. They waited in line about two hours to buy beer, loaded their van with cases and growlers, and drove east to the White Mountains for a four-day hike.

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"You drink enough beer, you know what good beer is," Bimson said. "This tastes good."

Before driving away on the dirt road where Shaun Hill opened his brewery four years ago, Bimson said he would not drink any beer until after his 26-mile hike.

"Beer and exercise don't mix," the doctor said.

Beer and Vermont do.

The number of breweries in Vermont has increased by 80 percent, from 31 to 56, over the past two years, according to the Department of Liquor Control. Most of the growth (75 percent) has occurred in the past year.

Vermont's annual sales of craft beer is $100 million, according to the Department of Tourism and Marketing. The state ranks third in the nation, behind Oregon and Colorado, in the economic impact of craft beer at $418 per adult 21 and over, for a total of almost $200 million, according to a 2012 study by the Brewers Association, a trade group based in Boulder, Colo.

This number, derived primarily from production and sales data, doesn't take full measure of the ripple effect of the industry: lodging, eating, recreating, shopping and other activities of people who come to Vermont to visit breweries and buy beer. The economic impact of smaller, rural breweries like Hill Farmstead is probably under-valued, said Bart Watson, economist with the Brewers Association.

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People are driving long distances to wait hours in line to spend hundreds of dollars on beer. Some travel from brewery to brewery, and visit other places in search of Vermont beer: Waitsfield Farmers Market for Lawson's Finest Liquids, a truck sale in Waterbury for an Alchemist release.

In the state's $1.7 billion tourism industry, beer belongs to a segment called agritourism. This sector of the market is in the "top five," said Megan Smith, state commissioner of Marketing and Tourism. Agritourism, which includes food and beer, is "probably third," behind recreation (skiing, hiking, biking), and arts/historic preservation/cultural heritage, she said.

The state is taking "baby steps" in relation to beer tourism, Smith said.

"We want to make sure an industry is ready before we start marketing it," Smith said. "Once we start marketing it, people are going to show up at their doors. They need to be ready. They need to want visitors."

The 'mecca'

For visitors at Hill Farmstead, which sells beer noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, there's a taco stand, two portable toilets, and a tasting area. You can listen to music, hang out with people who have a shared interest, and enjoy a beautiful setting in the Northeast Kingdom.

"That's the mecca," said Sean Lawson, owner/brewer of Lawson's Finest Liquids in Warren. "If you're a beer traveler coming to Vermont, you point your compass to Greensboro." Lawson estimates 75 percent of his farmers market customers are from out of state.

Along with the growing popularity of craft breweries nationwide, there's an increase in beer tourism, Watson, of the Brewers Association said.

"A big part of craft beer is tied to locales," Watson said. "People want to taste local beer, and they want to visit places where it's made. Part of its appeal is you want to get up close and personal."

At Hill Farmstead, you can drink samples of beer — or flights — poured by Shaun Hill's mother, Denise Hill, from a dispenser with an internal cooling mechanism recently arrived from the Czech Republic. You can see his father — a logger/landscaper whose family farmed the land for generations — climb off his tractor to direct backroads beer traffic, cars from South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Maine, Ohio and New Jersey. Hill's brother is around, too, if you know where to look: the woodworking craftsmanship of Darren Hill can be found in parts of the bigger brewery under construction.

You might catch a glimpse of Shaun Hill, too, but he's got a lot going on: overseeing the brewery expansion, greeting friends who came last weekend for a 200-person beer festival, and brewing beer.

"I've brewed all the 582 batches myself," Shaun Hill said last week.

His brewery was rated No. 1 in the world last year by RateBeer.com (of roughly 13,000 breweries). This year, Hill is No. 2 in the world (of more than 16,000). In early 2015, after the installation of a BrauKon brewhouse that will be shipped from Germany, Hill expects to double his production to about 5,500 barrels a year.

"Very early on, I allowed my heart and my integrity to drive all the decisions," Hill said. His aesthetic is rooted in a "profound attachment to Greensboro, especially to 403 Hill Road."

You can drink Hill Farmstead at bars and restaurants in Vermont (check www.hillfarmstead.com), or you can go to Greensboro and buy it by the bottle or case.

"Being here contributes to the overall sensory experience," Hill said. "I think there's more meaning in people's perception, keeping the degrees of separation closer to the origin."

The origin is 403 Hill Road, where Hill grew up and where he returned after studying philosophy at Haverford College, and living for a time in Europe. Three years after opening his brewery, Hill achieved his stated goal: to make the best beer in the world.

"To see all this right here, it's unbelievable," said Brian Hill, Shaun Hill's father. "I couldn't be prouder of him."

Beer on a bucket list

As Brian Hill spoke, dozens of people waited in line to buy beer named for his ancestors. Others carried cases of beer to their cars. Some people tried (with limited success) to Google where they could find Heady Topper, with plans to leave Hill Farmstead for an afternoon Heady run at Hunger Mountain Coop in Montpelier.

"It's just a really beautiful state to come to," said William Yediares, 32, a general contractor from Providence, R.I. "Being here makes it that much better, I enjoy it all more." The state and the beer enhance each other, he said.

A Vermonter waiting in line with his two toddlers was buying a couple of growlers for his father-in-law's birthday. Derek Williams, 28, is a teacher who raises cattle in Newbury.

"I think it's great that it brings a lot of people in," Williams said. "As a tourist state, anything we can do to bring more people to Vermont is awesome."

Beer brings New Yorker Mark Romano to Greensboro.

"I come to Vermont because of this brewery," said Romano, 52, of Long Island. "I try to come often, once a month minimum. It's not that far a drive when you want to drink the best."

Romano, a bar manager, spent about $700 in two shopping days at Hill Farmstead.

"He's an artist," Romano said of Shaun Hill. "Simple as that."

Although Romano camped out last weekend in the Northeast Kingdom, usually he drives seven hours, buys beer and returns home. He calls this routine "turn and burn."

For a young Chicago couple, a trip to Hill Farmstead was on their "bucket list." They crossed it off last summer, and will soon claim another Vermont milestone: Erik Orwar and Yvonne Madrid will spend their September honeymoon here.

"Now we're in love with Vermont," Orwar said.

He recently made a quickie honeymoon scouting trip: Leaving Chicago on a Thursday at 12:30 p.m., arriving in Montpelier the next Friday morning for breakfast at the Skinny Pancake. By Friday afternoon, Orwar was back where his Vermont love affair started: Hill Farmstead.

Kristin and Patrick Farrell of Buffalo, N.Y., drive about nine hours (one way) every two months to buy Hill Farmstead beer. Last weekend, they spent well over $1,000 on Vermont beer, the couple said.

"I really love Anna," said Kristin Farrell, a registered nurse, naming one of Hill's beers. "But I could drink Edward every day." (Edward Pale Ale is named for Hill's grandfather.)

The Farrells stayed in Stowe, and praised central Vermont's restaurants and hotels. "Vermont is laid back," Patrick Farrell said. "The people are super-friendly. It's really pretty, and we like the organic food options."

'Siren's call'

Local businesses are seeing a growing number of tourists like the Farrells, they say.

At the Best Western Plus in Waterbury, about 10 percent of business is connected to beer tourism, manager Melissa Moore said. These customers are easy to spot, she said.

"One of the most tell-tale signs is the fact that they come into the hotel with coolers full of beer," Moore said. "They use our ice machine like crazy, and I see luggage racks with cases and cases of beer. They have every brand you can imagine, it's all there."

In Burlington, Hotel Vermont has a beer concierge who advises guests on brewery visits and what's on tap at local restaurants.

Chris Howell, owner of Vermont Farm Tours, has added beer tours to his list of offerings. This summer Howell has led about 20 brewery tours, he said.

"I do wine tours, and occasionally someone will buy a case," Howell said. "The beer people buy as much as they can fit on their way home. They're there to stock up. ...

"We're making some of the best beer in the world. In the last 10 years, the variety of beer that's produced in the state and the quality has just skyrocketed. You can drive not too far and find beer that even 10 years ago you'd have to travel the world for."

Vermont recently passed a law that allows restaurants and bars to serve flights of beer – people can sample different types – a tasting option previously available only at breweries. Gov. Peter Shumlin attended an event last month at the Farmhouse Tap and Grill in Burlington to highlight the law.

The restaurant on Bank Street has 24 draft beer lines and two casks, about one-third of which are from Vermont, bar manager Jeff Baker said. (Baker writes a beer column for the Burlington Free Press.)

"We see a great deal of tourism," Baker said. More people are asking about beers such as Lost Nation and Fiddlehead, as recognition of brands beyond Hill Farmstead, Lawson's Finest Liquids and the Alchemist grows, he said.

"A lot of people come in and don't even look at the menu," Baker said. "They ask, 'What do you got from Vermont?' They're not even tied to a style, they just want something from Vermont."

The new law serves beer tourism well because people on a beer tours want to try different things, he said. "They don't want to be tied to 16 ounces," Baker said.

Next spring, Hill Farmstead visitors will be able to try a beer Hill is making with blueberries from his neighbor's bushes. The beer, Flora aged on blueberries, will steep in 400 pounds of blueberries grown by Judy Breitmeyer, whose backyard pick-your-own berry business is on a dirt road near the brewery.

Apart from Hill Farmstead, "there's not a whole lot of other reasons to drive by," Breitmeyer said.

Last weekend, Ryan Burk, a cidermaker at Virtue Cider in Fennville, Mich., traveled to Greensboro to attend the Festival of Farmhouse Ales. The quality and creativity of Hill's beer, the saisons that are unique to the farmstead, make the brewery "magical," he said.

"There's a farm-to-table side to all this," Burk said. "People want to get back to American roots. There's an authenticity and a romanticism, and it's intriguing. There's a siren's call to this place. Every time I leave I want to come back."

Contact Sally Pollak at spollak@burlingtonfreepress.com or 660-1859; www.twitter.com/vtpollak