BRATTLEBORO — Yes, I would like to have a look at Ethan Allen's bar tab, thank you. And I'll be able to do just that at the Bennington Museum exhibit, running through June 21, “Alcohol in Vermont: Creation to Consumption, Tolerance to Temperance.”
Even better, I'll be able to do it with beer in hand on the evening of Friday, May 15, when the museum hosts a “Brews and Blues” event. Conveniently, that's the night before the Brattleboro Brewers Festival opens the taps on Saturday afternoon.
Meanwhile, over in Jacksonville, the J'Ville Craft Brewery is open for business.
Well, it's spring, and the beers are blooming. Still, wandering around a museum with a beer in hand would have horrified those in the state's busy temperance movement of the 19th and early-20th centuries.
A press release for the exhibit suggests that the prohibitionary zeal of those days was a reaction against early Vermonters' fondness for drink: “In the late 1700s, taverns were the center of community life, and alcohol was consumed in quantities unimaginable today.”
Well, maybe. Figures from 2012 indicate that Vermont was ranked fifth in the nation in terms of annual beer consumption, at 35.9 gallons per drinker. Personally, this seems a little low, and I know I'm not the only one skewing the averages. But not to worry: another 2012 study put Vermont among the top five states in both eating healthily and exercising regularly.
Some of Ethan Allen's revolutionary tactics were said to have fermented in the long-gone Catamount Tavern in Bennington, hence his bar tab as part of the exhibit, along with drinking tankards, glassware, hip flasks, bottles retrieved from Lake Champlain, sideboards, flapper dresses, postcards, photos, and two galleries filled with prohibition banners and posters.
The Bennington Museum, at 75 Main St., is open every day except Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
* * *
The Blues and Brews event, from 7 to 10 p.m. on Friday, includes music by the Jeff McRae Band, food from the Wild Oats Market of Williamstown, Mass., and an ample supply of beers, ciders, and meads.
The two Bennington breweries - the Madison Brewing Co. and Northshire Brewery - will, appropriately, be represented. But among others also signed on are the Trapp Lager Brewery of Stowe and Foley Brothers Brewing of Brandon.
Call 802-447-1571 for reservations. Tickets are $45, but on-site babysitting is free.
* * *
There will be some 90 beers, ciders, meads, and fermented teas to choose from at the Brattleboro Brewers Festival on Saturday, 12:30 to 4:30 p.m., at the Vermont Agricultural Business Education Center, on Old Guilford Road.
But mostly beers. You can try to plan a tasting route by checking out the offerings at the Festival website, where you can also buy $30 tickets. (Wait until the day of the event, and the price rises to $35 - cash only.) Sales are limited to 1,000 attendees.
According to Stephanie Larson, who helps coordinate the event for radio station WTSA with a charitable end in view, the festival drew a mixed audience of between 600 to 700 last year, its first at the VABEC grounds.
“Some people just come to explore the area, others to learn about different beers, some beer geeks who travel from festival to festival,” she said. “Some come just for the music.”
I found that last bit a little hard to believe, though I've heard good things about the Chris Fitz Band out of Boston and the local Groove Prophet.
If I don't festival-hop, I can't escape the beer geek category, meaning I look to festivals to try brews largely unattainable elsewhere.
“We do ask the brewers to bring something special for the Festival,” said Larson.
Some even listen, so I already have my eye on rare finds from the Woodstock Inn Station & Brewery and Smuttynose Brewing Company of New Hampshire, Two Roads Brewing Co. of Connecticut, and Samuel Adams and Paper City Brewing Company of Massachusetts. There are 32 purveyors in all.
All three Brattleboro brewers - McNeill's, Whetstone Station, and Hermit Thrush (making its first appearance here since its November opening) - will set up under the tents.
Other first-timers from Vermont include the 1st Republic Brewing Co. from Fairfax, Lost Nation Brewing from Morristown, and Queen City Brewery from Burlington.
Hermit Thrush will debut a bride-ale that Christopher Gagné brewed for his bride-to-be (by the end of the month). Gagné says the Belgian-style pale ale was brewed with love, hibiscus, and dry-hopped with roses.
* * *
The J'Ville Craft Brewery from Jacksonville will not participate in the festival, but then again, it has barely opened its figurative doors. The literal doors already opened in May 2009 at the Honora Winery and Vineyard, where the new brewery operations are setting up.
The Honora vineyard is a few miles away in Halifax, where the grapes now share the grounds with 180 Newport and Cascade hop lines, first harvested last August.
Janice Stuart, the winemaker at Honora, is taking the old saw about viticulture to a new level - that it takes a lot of good beer to make good wine. At 27, she's now also one of the younger brewsters in the state.
Stuart is more of a beer than wine drinker to begin with, so when Honora owner Patricia Farrington floated the idea of making beer, Stuart jumped at the opportunity. The licensing process soon started rolling.
I headed over in mid-April for a soft opening that featured some test batches: a pale lager, an IPA, and a vanilla porter. Only the latter seemed really ready for prime time. The others seemed thin, lacking malt body.
I was relieved to hear from Stuart that she had subsequently pulled them for that very reason: “They weren't up to my standards.”
The vanilla porter, a brown ale, and an Imperial stout are currently on tap, with two wheat beers in the works, one with orange zest, the other with hibiscus (apparently the infusion of the moment).
Look for a grand opening of the brewery on Memorial Day weekend, May 23 and 24, when the Vermont Chocolate Festival takes place on the vineyard grounds. Stout and chocolate go quite well together, so Stuart has gone the extra step and brewed a chocolate stout just for the occasion.