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Comment by ErikAugust | Hacker News Reader

Vermont today has much better beer than Magic Hat (even at its height). They tried a lot of different stuff, and most of it just wasn't very enjoyable. What Magic Hat did have was beautiful marketing and wider distribution.

It has to be partially by choice, but The Alchemist and Lawson's make some of the best beer I have ever had, but they are both impossible to find outside of New England and a few parts of New York.

I recently moved back to Vermont, and one of the first things I did was purchase Heady Topper. Even less than five miles from the brewery, it was hard to find!

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From what I can tell, New England IPAs–especially the coveted ones such as Heady Topper–really only work when you can control for freshness.

As soon as the beer gets canned its got 2-4 weeks where you can drink it and say "wow, that's amazing". After that you'll have it and think "ok, a bit overhyped".

Distributing beer throws freshness out the window. A liquor store may put it in the back for a month before they throw it on the shelf and then your prospective customers won't get the best impression your beer can offer, as it's tarnished while waiting in that can. So now there's this surge of brewery controlled distribution where you make these pilgrimages to buy a bunch of beer that they'd canned only a few days prior, attracting people to enjoy it when it tastes its best and spread the word.

This is the truth. They also aren’t the same batch to batch.

Part of what makes the most sought after beers so good is that you can sometimes drink them the very day they were canned.

Lawson's started brewing at Two Roads in CT and got a distributor in CT and it's been a lot easier to find at least here in NJ within the past year. I also recently got Heady and Focal down here but I am not sure where the distributor got it from or if it was a one off thing. You probably already know about them but Hill Farmstead is my favorite in VT. I used to go there a few times a year when I lived closer by.

Sip of Sunshine has always been brewed at TwoRoads. Super Session is also brewed there. The rest of the line up is local at the Waitsfield or Warren facility. Double Sip came before Sip as well.

Alchemist AFAIK only has local distribution within 25 miles of the brewery in Stowe by their own trucks/vans.

(adding) If you find yourself in the central VT area, the Lawson's tap room is really nice facility, definitely check it out.

Nah, Alchemist has been distributing much further for about a year now. Easy to get in NY and MA now. Like, on the shelf at Wegmans easy.

This was marketed as an exclusive quarantine initiative, with distribution help from Night Shift. If it's not temporary, I'm happy to be wrong.

For the past year or so I've regularly seen heady topper in mass and nh.

I still find Hill Farmstead nearly impossible to find, even being in Vermont. They make great beer, but also show that exclusivity adds a lot to the mystique.

AFAIK its only available on tap, frequently at ski area restaurants.

There are a couple places that may sell it outside of bars... Beverage Warehouse in Winooski comes to mind.

For HF, take an afternoon off sometime and go to the brewery to pick up some growlers. This was more fun pre-COVID, but at least the line is shorter now.

The Lawson’s from CT doesn’t taste like an elite beer to me in the way that Lawson’s from VT farmers markets did.

Vermont has phenomenal beers if you like hoppy IPAs. Besides being a very fun city, most bars in Burlington, VT carry beers from the local breweries around there: Lawson's (Sip of Sunshine), the Alchemist (Heady Topper), Fourteenth Star (Tribute), Zero Gravity, Hill Farmstead, and more.

If you ever end up in MA, Tree House is worth checking out and has 4 of the top 20 beers on Untappd right now. Vitamin Sea in Weymouth, MA is also very good if you're closer to the coast.

> hoppy IPAs

I feel like that is pretty much all craft beer in the US is.

I just wish we could get some good European style lagers that are ubiquitous in Europe but don't exist in the US for some reason.

They do in a town with a decent craft scene. It's just the new places don't always have their cleanliness protocols on lock after scaling up from their garage and a super hoppy IPA can hide a lot of off notes. Run far away fom a new place that opens with only six IPAs and no other styles; they're hiding some grossness.

In Denver off the top of my head, Hogshead specializes in cask, Prost brews most of their beers according to Reinheitsgebot, Crooked Stave specializes in wild yeast sours. There's a bunch of others too.

"New England" IPAs aren't overly hopped, have more of a citrus character, and are not as astringent as classic IPAs. I don't like super-hopped beers, but I like NEIPAs. But they're definitely "trendy" at the moment.

New England is much more heavily influenced by Ireland and the UK, and I think that's why we don't get many good examples of continental styles around here. I also suspect that a lot of people who move from a brewing hobby to a brewing business have a lot more experience with ales, and less experience with lagers.

I've never had an excellent hefeweizen made outside of Germany.

> "New England" IPAs aren't overly hopped

NEIPAs are by definition excessively hopped, it's just mostly (if not all) dry hops that impart the aromas you described instead of bitterness that's associated with classic IPAs.

Maybe on the west coast? Here where I live on the east coast there's plenty of high quality lagers, pilsners, and brown ales.

Any recommendations? I usually end up with Mexican beer, Presidente or Imperial.

Nowadays my go-to beers are either my local places with no/limited distribution or grabbing a pint or two at some random place while out of town, so it's kinda hard to give specific, actionable, recommendations.

I'm going to follow up on this because I feel kinda bad for not giving actionable advise

I went to a national chain today and I ended up with this - https://halffullbrewery.com/beer/bee-enlightened/

Is it great? Absolutely not! Is it serviceable? yes.

Heady topper is regularly shipped out to southern California now.

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