New England Beer Tour Day 2

After shaking off the cobwebs for the previous nights debauchery we decided it would be best to have an early lunch rather than a late breakfast.  So we knocked down a cup of coffee at the Campus Center complex at UMass and drove about 1/2 hour to Greenfield.  Greenfield is home to a nice brewpub called The People's Pint.

Okay this place is a gem.  I could easily spend a night here.  For me the best beer of the trip was here (Oatmeal Stout) and the others we had were spot on as well.  Furthermore, it's a beautiful, cozy little pub.  The service was brilliant as was the food.  Get this.  They have a burger called "The Squealer".  It has ground bacon mixed in with the ground beef.  Revolutionary!!  When sampling their beers though, I could tell the brewer really knows what he's doing.

The entrance:

The bar:  They do usually have a couple of cask going as you can tell from the hand pumps on the bar.

The beers:  Jeff has a wheat beer that was much better than the wheat beers I normally taste from an American Micro brew, Oatmeal Stout in the middle, and Bill had yet another IPA of course.  In fact, it seems Bill drank almost exclusively IPA's during the trip.

From there we made the long 3.5 hour trip to Burlington, Vermont.  It's a beautiful, scenic drive but long.  Burlington is a mini-beer Mecca.  Not quite up there with Portland, Maine but high in quality and with a few establishments right in walking distance of each other.

We stayed at a hotel right in downtown Burlinton so we'd have easy access to all of them.  We started out at The Farmhouse Tap & Grill.  It's sort of Burlington's version of Portland's Novare Res only with more food on the menu.  They've got an extensive tap list and a menu made up of all Vermont produce, dairy, meat, etc.  You can see the tap list on the website.  We sat in the very relaxing lounge they have downstairs.  I enjoyed the Trapp Lodge beers (Maibock, Vienna, Dunkel).

Trapp Lodge Maibock:

The downstairs bar:

We figured it was time to eat.  We probably should have eaten at the Farmhouse but figured it would be best to kill two birds with one stone and visit another brewpub while we're at it.  So we went to American Flatbread.  This is known for it's pizza but also brews part of their own beer list as well.  I enjoyed their Scotch Ale called "Greg" the best. This was brewed in honor of the late/great brewer Greg Noonan.

Speaking of Greg Noonan.  The next stop, for an after dinner pint, would be the Vermont Pub and Brewery.  We were starting to feel a bit tired at this point so we had a couple of quiet pints here.  I don't recall what I had.  I know I liked the place enough to go back again.

One last stop before we crash for the night.  Das Bierhaus!!  A german themed pub with a beer garden on the roof.  As advertised it had a list of German beers on tap.  Mostly of the commercial, bland, Munich variety but still they went down well.  Unfortunately they did not have the Schlenkerla Rauchbier on tap as advertised on the website.  Nevertheless we had a good time and good conversation before calling it a relatively early night.