(courtesy of www.fiddleheadbrewing.com)
The Brewery: Fiddlehead Brewing Company (Shelburne, VT)
The Brew: Fiddlehead IPA
Availability: Draft only
ABV: 6.2%
Rating: 9/10
Location: Fiddlehead Tasting Room
The Story? With a far faster in-and-out from The Alchemist than expected and after quick stop in to Ben & Jerry's, we were on the road, having wrapped up four days of beer in Vermont. But then, not 15 mins into beyond Burlington, we past Fiddlehead Brewing. After realizing we're an hour ahead of schedule and a quick U-Turn later (shh...) my partner and I enter the building.
The tasting room is quaint, spacious, and mostly wood with a great view of the tank room and a BYOB wood-fired pizza joint next door. On tap was their flagship Fiddlehead IPA and Ruby Claire dry-hopped Red Ale. Both were great and our sampler server (argh, I forget her name) was very knowledgeable about the whole operation.
Fiddlehead was founded by renowned master-brewer, Matthew Cohen (aka Matty O), formerly of Magic Hat and who began his brew-making career homebrewing out of his dorm at Ithaca College. The vision of this new venture is to offer their flagship IPA year-round, coupled by a constantly evolving list of seasonal beers, many of which will be on-offs. No bottling plans for now either.
With a trunk full of beer already, we realized we had room for one more growler in the cooler and just happened to have one empty one left...
The Beer? Out of the growler just a few days later, the appearance is a wonderful, hazy, amber-carmel color with thick layer of lacy head which sticks around. The nose is excellent - fruity, sweet citrus, with distinct ruby-red grapefruit auromas and a hint of something else... lemonade possibly.
This IPA is incredibly smooth going down - silky and mildy carbonated. There's bright citrus flavors up front which merge into dry, piney notes on the finish with a touch of cracked wheat in the middle. Overall a very well-balanced IPA. Excited for the future plans and brews.
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