Trout River Brewing Company

Fifteenth Stop: Trout River Brewing Company

Beers: Scottish Ale, Doublebock, Whitewater, Knightslayer, IPA, Northern Brown & Nitro Stout

It had been forever since we’ve made the trek to Trout River but with the Boneyard Barleywine running low in the fridge I knew we were long overdue. Lyndonville isn’t exactly a quick jaunt around the block but armed with the Audible version of Adam Carolla’s In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks, an empty growler and a big appetite for fresh poured beer and hand tossed flatbread pizza, we were on our way. The trip flew by laughing to Carolla’s diatribes about the downfalls of modern man in our watered down society. Driving back and forth to Boston got me listening to books rather than the same three mixes on my iPhone or franticly searching for anything other than country music or static on the radio. We’ve lucked out so far with our selections and would recommend the book mentioned above as well as Bossypants by Tiny Fey (Liza Lemon!) and Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern. All three can be found on Audible.com (see I can plug advertisements into these things seamlessly and without you knowing. Now where’s my quarters Google AdSense?). But I digress (see Adam I did listen to your book and it truly is funny). Trout River was never really a beer I paid much attention to as I came up. I mean, I’m from Vermont; you can get lost just looking at local beers alone. Their packaging never really spoke to me (see pic above). It was kinda… Well, hippish. I know, I know we are the state that brought to you both Ben & Jerry’s (you’re welcome) and Phish (thirty-five minute Jazz guitar solo) but that doesn’t mean every one of us walks around in a tie-dyed t-shirt and Birkenstocks kicking around a hacky sack and waiting for the next drum circle to form up (yes I do feel better now, thank you). So yes, I’m saying I judged a book by its cover and boy was I missing out. Two of their specialty beers, Boneyard Barleywine and Knightslayer, have become some of my favorites, period. And even though it’s a long drive, it’s totally worth it for their delicious flatbread pizza (that’s right American Flatbread, I called it Pizza!). This time Jaclyn and I went solo (can a couple still be considered solo?) and had free range to order whatever we wanted. It was a toss up between the Mexican or German pizza and landed on Mexico.

The Mexican pizza had sausage, jalapeños, corn, and chicken: no sauce. Jaclyn had done it, she had successfully tricked me into a sauce-less pizza (what I normally refer to as fancy garlic bread), and it was amazing and paired nicely with both my Scottish Ale and her Knightslayer. We also ordered their seasonal sampler, which had their Doublebock, Whitewater, Knightslayer, IPA, Northern Brown and Nitro Stout.

I was a fan of all of them but the winner of this session was the Doublebock (also the beer that was destined to become a growler). The Doublebock had a smooth and sweet flavor similar to the Boneyard Barleywine I love so much and was the clear front-runner. On a side note, their Belgian White, Whitewater, was as tasty, which is hard for me to say since I’ve never been a fan of Belgian Whites. It felt great to get back out, stretch the legs again and get back on the ol’ dusty trail. I realized that it had been quite some time since I hit a Vermont Brewery (at least not the ones that I frequent) and collect another stamp on the passport. Hopefully now this will start a pattern again and we’ll be able to travel to the farthest reaches of Vermont (Bennington, Brattleboro… etc.) to collect the missing stamps.

Stop #15 Complete!