BREWMINATIONS: HILL FARMSTEAD BREWERY

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Shaun Hill is incredibly serious, verging on fanatical, when he talks about the beers he makes at Hill Farmstead Brewery. Of course, every brewer takes his beer seriously and talks about them as such, but with Hill there is an obsessive undercurrent, a sense that he is particularly hard to satisfy.

And then he describes the brewery, located on land that has been passed down through his family for eight generations, in Greensboro, a small town in northern Vermont. A town with no municipal utilities or three-phase electricity, with a population of about 600, and you start to see the picture—of a man on an isolated farm in northern Vermont obsessively trying to make the most perfect, balanced, elegant beer he can.

Hill started at  Trout River Brewing and The Shed in Vermont before spending nearly two years brewing in Denmark, where he also opened a brewery. While in Denmark he brewed three beers that won World Beer Cup Medals, and when he returned to Vermont and opened Hill Farmstead in April 2010,  hype surrounding him and the brewery had already set in. In the almost two years since Hill Farmstead has been open, he’s gained a rightful reputation as a young buzz brewer for his creativity, consistency and collaborations with brewers like Cigar City and Mikkeller.

His beers are high on hops, and on citrus. “I’ve had a citrus obsession all my life,” Hill said, attributing it partially to traveling around Belgium and Barcelona with his brother and drinking fresh-squeezed orange juice in every town. He and Mikkel Bjergsø from Mikkeller even created a standard citrus of measurement for beer: an ICU (International Citrus Unit).

The beers he most recently packaged are among the best he’s ever made, Hill says. Damon, named for his black lab from childhood, is a Bourbon-barrel aged Russian Imperial Stout, and Mimosa is an 8 or 9 percent super Saison.

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Since the beginning, Hill’s had the same problem any small brewery that makes excellent beer has: everyone wants it and there’s not enough to go around. His beer is sold primarily in Vermont, on draft at bars across the state, and on draft and in bottles at the brewery. Any leftover beer he may have, he sends to New York City or Philadelphia a few times a year.

Hill is also reluctant to release these beers without the promise that those who end up with them will treat them right.

“I put a lot of effort into negotiating with distributors. We’re in the fortunate position that our beer is in high demand and is coveted, so typically most of the distributors we’ve worked with are willing to meet our demands—whether it’s prices demands or freshness demands,” he said.

Soon though, Hill Farmstead will be available in Boston, through Arborway Imports, owned by Gregg Berman of Clown Shoes Beer. The majority of the first palette he sends will be for an event at Lord Hobo on February 3 and for Extreme Beer Fest, but there will be some available for the rest of the market too, on a draft only basis. It’s still unclear how frequently and much he will be sending to Boston after that, but it will go fast once it arrives.

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Hill’s called himself  a beer fascist before, and I asked if he would still consider himself one.

“I would say that maybe in the middle of being a connoisseur of sorts, eventually you become very opinionated and narrow minded and eventually that just leads to fascism. But that’s not a good thing, and I’m not that now.”

While he may not be a fascist any longer, he’s still a fanatic–about more than just beer.

“I also take coffee very seriously so when I go out and order a latte somewhere, I’m at the point where I’m like agh and then I just dump it out because it’s wrong and it’s angering to drink it. I feel that way sometimes when I buy a bottle of beer at the store or someone brings a bottle of beer to the brewery and then you open it and it’s oxidized and stale and full of off-flavors. You’re not going to drink it. It’s frustrating to me, to taste that.

“It would be the same way with my own beer, if my own beer was packaged and sat on a shelf for years. It’s like this refinement, like someone put all their hard work and effort into this and they didn’t refine their own power, their own skills.

“I think that with just about any beverage you become attuned to staling effects. You become hypersensitive to oxidation and off-flavors, and I’m sure it’s the same way for wine. You eventually back yourself in a corner where you’re like the only thing I can drink is this, this and this. And then you kind of ruin it for yourself through knowledge.

Ignorance is bliss in a way, right?”

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Hill Farmstead is one of a few of Vermont breweries, like The Alchemist and Lawson’s Finest Liquids, that are making world-class beer on a small system and with a strong local focus.

“Is this a Vermont thing?” I asked.

“It’s sort of a quality of life thing, and a statement about life itself,” he said.

I disagree with infinite boundless growth. And right now, in the brewing world everybody is in the middle of 10 million dollar expansions and quote unquote “infinite boundless growth” idealism that has seemed to penetrate every successful brewer’s consciousness. We don’t really adhere to it by any means.

“Vermonters really like being in Vermont. They like being in charge of their own business and having a small manageable business and being a product of the community, instead of becoming massive industrial operations.”

Hill still has plans to grow, but on a much smaller scale. He wants to open a pub and move the current retail shop into a new location. He said they hope to break ground in April or May and move into the new retail location (about 40 feet from the current location) by autumn.  There they would serve beer by the glass, have some light fare and install a small two or three barrel system for on-site draft sales.

The barrel programs keeps growing too. They just received 48 “freshly emptied” bourbon barrels this week, bringing them up to about 100 barrels. And after adding more wine barrels by mid to late-summer, they’ll be at more than 120.

Brewing quality beer will always come before growth and distribution though, he emphasized.

“Any great brewery is never going to be able to make enough beer for all the people that want to taste it. And that’s the nature of artisan goods, and that’s the difference between Kraft Foods and Hill Farmstead Brewery.”

And though he has found success–as an artisan brewer whose goods are in very high demand–Hill is reluctant to relish in it.

“I’ll be happy when I can just go on vacation and not worry about my yeast dying or one of my assistant brewers messing something up. When I can just turn off my phone and chill out, then I’ll know that we’re successful. But we’re not at that point yet,” he said.

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Hill will be at Lord Hobo on Friday, February 3, ahead of Extreme Beer Fest, and is bringing “a nice blend of different beers,” he said (he’s still unsure of the final list). I asked what Boston beer drinkers should keep in mind when enjoying a Hill Farmstead beer.

“I think one of the most important things, without people having visiting here, is they don’t realize how small the brewery is or how remote it is. Or how much work and effort goes into making it,” he said.

It really is an expression of my will, but also an expression of this place and part of a larger ethos.

It’s a product of my environment and we take it very seriously.

Shaun Hill will be at Lord Hobo on Friday, February 3 from 1pm-6pm, and then will be joined by Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø from Evil Twin Brewing and Brian Strumpke from Stillwater Artisanal Ales from 9pm-2am. 

[Hill Farmstead Brewery. 403 Hill Rd., Greensboro Bend, Vt. 802.533.7450. @HillFarmstead. hillfarmstead.com]