So are they that good?

One of the best brewers in the US.

Solid product.

Yes. Frankly, I don’t even know whether Shaun has chosen to focus on 3 niche families of styles, but be it because he thought that’s where his talent is best expressed or because his personal tastes lean toward those flavour proviles, there’s something I find very respectable to not brewing every beer style known to man for the sake of ticking it, but rather perfecting your knowledge and mastery of very specific products.

Therein lies HF’s main force in my mind: Shaun is a perfectionnist. When he orders hop, he is said to personally inspect the bags to make sure there is no hole whatsoever and smells them abundantly in search for any oxidation trace. he is said to have returned many a bags which did not meet his presumably high standards. He has experimented dry-hopping techniques at depth to optimize the aromas he gets out of his Pale Ales and if there’s anywhere in Eastern America where you get as bright a hop aroma as on the West Coast in my mind, it’s in Greensboro, Vermont.

There is a running gag in our tasting group anytime someone opens a bottle of Everett that it’s just so unfair for anything with Porter in its name that this beer even exists.

Yet it may be for his Farmhouse Ales range thatShaun impresses the most. He manages to get an elegance, an assurance, a grace from these styles that are rarely seen in North America. His ales are always perfectly attenuated and always deploy both subtlety and an effortless authenticity that is particularly noticeable in terms of the beers’ texture. The carbonation of his ales is always very lively and full of large, inviting bubbles and he has his own tricks to keep the CO2 volumes up to his standards on draught. And they never seem overdone despite the numerous he’s done.

We are very fortunate here in Montreal to be two hours away by car from what has now become a top 5 American brewery for almost all of the area’s ratebeerians. Incidentally, we’re heading there 8 days from now!

Nice post Rastacouere. HF beers are truly amazing, and every bit of good reputation/hype is well deserved.

Best brewery in the country, hands down. Nothing else even comes close at this point. Nearly every beer he makes is best in class, besides the collaborations which are often pretty weak. But then, I wouldn’t expect much out of a Van Gogh / Picasso collaboration either. Let the master do his work. If you taste Edward, and you taste his saisons, you will quickly agree. No one can touch Hill Farmstead.

Huge +1 to Rastacouere and puzzl, just to echo my support from earlier

Originally posted by puzzl
Best brewery in the country, hands down. Nothing else even comes close at this point. Nearly every beer he makes is best in class, besides the collaborations which are often pretty weak. But then, I wouldn’t expect much out of a Van Gogh / Picasso collaboration either. Let the master do his work. If you taste Edward, and you taste his saisons, you will quickly agree. No one can touch Hill Farmstead.