After you make the first few steps up to the concrete dining patio and into the dining room, your first time at the Vermont Pub and Brewery will be etched in your mind.

Classy but casual, ample but personal, the brewery was the first of its kind to be built in the state of Vermont. It is also first on the list for brewpub connoisseurs who choose to enjoy the rich, relaxing atmosphere, food, and fresh brews time and again.

Just a block from Church Street, patrons can enjoy a break from the downtown shopping scene and seat themselves in the mahogany laden dining room, sipping brewery originals. The brews range from the hoppiest India Pale Ale, to the bright-red raspberry ale that will leave a sweet sensation on the taste buds.

The brewery is a piece of history for the state of Vermont and the East Coast as a whole. Owner and head brewer, Greg Noonan, is the driving force behind the success of the fifth oldest brewery on the East Coast.

Photo by Joe Samuelson III Greg Noonan after lunch at the pub

 

Renowned as a trailblazer in modern beer brewing, Noonan has been in the business since the beginning. After Noonan started home brewing in the late seventies, he felt it was time to go bigger, but, Vermont legislation wouldn't allow for it at the time.

So, he did what any devout beer brewer would do: he changed the laws. "In 1985, I started to work with the legislature in Vermont to allow pub brewing — that took until May of 1988," Noonan explains. "I signed a lease in June and went to work November 11, 1988."

The Vermont Pub and Brewery instantly became the first brewpub in Vermont and the fifth on the entire east coast. "Fourteen years in the business and we're the oldest in the state, it's pretty funny," he adds.

Such a history says something about the quality of beer that has been produced there. With a variety of ales filling up most of the nine taps and two casks at the bar, there's more brew than one person can (soberly) try in one sitting.

But not to worry — if you're a beer lover who wants a little bit of everything, The Vermont Pub and Brewery offers a sampler, which includes miniature-size samples of any six beers on tap. With varieties ranging from a Maple ale, bearing thirty gallons of maple syrup, to Forbidden Fruit, a summer favorite which carries the juices of five hundred pounds of red raspberries, sampling a few is necessary after a hearty meal.

Photo by Joe Samuelson III The VPB sampler.

And let us not forget about the meal itself! With an array of choices at hand, there is no way one could leave the brewery hungry.

The beer-steamed bangers and mash, an old pub favorite, combined with a pint of Rock Dunder Brown Ale can make for a happy man. If you're seeking some dairy fare, the pub cheese plate can satisfy anyone's craving, with smoked gruyere cheese, and the pub's own apple-mustard chutney. But, if the vegetarian in you is looking for a meatless myriad of flavor, you might be in the mood for some mushroom mulligatawny, a vegetarian version of the traditional Indian dish showered with curry. But don't forget, the mulligatawny wouldn't be complete without a smooth, red, Burly Irish Ale.

After having pioneered his brewpub through Vermont legislature to the corner of Pine St. and College St, Noonan is pleased with the state of micro-brewing today. "In 1985 I said that there would never be a thousand breweries in the US, and now there's two thousand," he notes. "It's great that there are all of these craft breweries now."

For Noonan, brewing is life. He feels that making beer is a special thing. "If you have a love of what you're doing, then it's not like the malt and the hops are going to react to it and take on some spiritual nature — you'll just get a spiritual feeling about it and you're going to be in harmony and in tune with the process."

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