The best sour beer that Scott Russell made happened by accident.

Chad Rich has been working 16 hour days since opening the Prohibition Pig last month, and much as he wanted to, he just didn’t have a lot of time to chat.

Smoked malt, similar to hops, is one of those ingredients that so many brewers misuse.

A couple of community supported breweries are pushing ahead despite some challenges.

Chris O’Brien’s man cave will make you believe in miracles.

Ye Olde England Inne is a pretty good example of how underrated Stowe’s beer scene is.

A group of seven or eight people stood in a miserable rain, without concern, and listened to Scott Russell’s story. He’d been out hunting. Feral rhizomes was the topic of concern.

“They were growing basically inside a stone wall,” said Russell, the manager of the homebrew shop at the South Royalton Market, and author of www.vthomebrewguru.com. “So we pulled up a chunk of a rhizome about this big.”

At this point, Russell extended his hands away from his chest, with thumbs and forefinger shaping a “goalpost” nearly a foot wide. Someone used the word “girth.” The rhizome was probably 100 years old or more, he said, and he was going to plant it at his place to see what happened.

None of this was why my wife, toddler son, or I had traveled an hour to the Justin Morrill Homestead on a soggy Sunday afternoon. We were here to work and learn, and Russell was just sharing a story that served as an appetizer for the hop planting we were about to commence.