September 26th

The rain had stopped but it was still somewhat cloudy and a chance of more rain when we woke up but we decided to go sightseeing anyway. 

After coffee and showers we were off to our first stop Island Pond.  From our campground we went east on State Hwy 58 through Irasburg then Orleans.  Orleans is a very small town but is the home of Ethan Allen Furniture.  They have a large factory and warehouse in Orleans.  We stayed on State Hwy 58 through Evansville then we took State Hwy 5A north to State Hwy 105 east along the Clyde River to the town of Island Pond.

What we have noticed on this trip is that there is no rhyme or reason, it seems as to which body of water is called a lake or a pond.  I always thought a pond was smaller than a lake.  Island pond is a good example.  It is a nice sized lake with an island of trees in the middle and nice houses on some of the shoreline.  See the photos.

The town of Island Pond was very quaint.  It looked like it had seen better days.  We met a few very nice people.  One of them told us some sights we must see in the area.  Diane bought some shoes in the local outfitter store and we were off to Lake Willoughby.

It had started to rain a little on our way south on State Hwy 114 to State Hwy 5A north to enter Lake Willoughby from the south as the nice guy in Island Pond had suggested.  Lake Willoughby was beautiful even on this grey and rainy day.  We took photos but promised ourselves we would come back when the weather was better.

After Lake Willoughby we were off to Greensboro Bend where one of Vermont’s the Hillstead Farm Brewery was located.  At the north end of Lake Willoughby we went southwest on State Hwy 16 to get to Greensboro Bend.  We had no cell coverage in Greensboro Bend and we hadn’t seen Hill St. where the brewery was located so we stopped at the local market and I asked where I could find The Hillstead Farm Brewery.

This nice young man gave me directions to the brewery, I’m sure he had been there.  He told me to go back northeast on State Hwy 16 for about 2-3 miles and just after you pass a pullout on the left side of the road you will see a sign for Taylor Road.  He said turn left on Taylor Road until you get to a Y and take the road to the right.  That road will take you to Hill St.  Turn right on Hill St. and you can’t miss it.

Well Taylor Road was a dirt road that we drove on for about 2 miles before we encountered the Y.  We took the road to the right and probably drove another 2 miles until we got to Hill St.  The whole time we were thinking that the nice young man at the market wasn’t so nice.  But once on Hill St. and around a couple of bends we saw what looked like Woodstock.  I am not joking when I say that there were about 100 cars parked around this farm on a rainy, cold Wednesday afternoon at about 3:00 pm.  We were flabbergasted.  We parked quite far from the brewery and went to see what this was all about.

The first thing we noticed was that the separate building for retail selling had a line out the door.  There were about 20 people standing in the rain waiting to buy beer.  We avoided that line and went into the taproom.  The taproom had 2 separate parts, filling a growler, 64 or 32 ounce corked bottles, and buying a glass of beer to enjoy in the taproom.  If you wanted your growler(s) filled you took a number and waited for them to call that number.  If you wanted to buy a glass of beer like us you stood in a fairly small line.  I think when we got in line there were 10 people ahead of us.  This line moved really slowly.  Some people had questions others wanted tastes and there was only one person serving beer.  We probably waited 20 minutes to get our beers.  We ordered a couple of their Susan’s, an IPA and grabbed a table and enjoyed our Susan’s.  Later we learned that the brewery has a series of beers dedicated to the ancestors of Hillstead Farm.  We don’t know who Susan was but her beer was good.

After we finished our beers we noticed that the line for the retail sale of the beer was no longer out the door.  We wanted to take some of their beer back to our campsite so we walked into the retail sale building.  Once in the building we were shocked that they had a snake type line, like a Disneyland ride, and there were probably forty people ahead of us to buy beer.  So I don’t know how long that those people stood in line when the line was out the door when we arrived but I’ll bet it was over 1 ½ hours.

We decided that we would buy a 6 pack of each of the beers that were in cans.  The others were in .750 ml or .375 ml bottles.  Two of the 6 packs we were going to buy were $18 and the other was $16.  These were beers we hadn’t tasted but you could only get Susan if you had a growler.

While we were in line a young fellow approached us and asked us if we were buying any Damon, a beer that we later found out was released that day and was the reason for the large crowd and they sold out of the beer the same day.  Damon is so popular that you can only buy one per person.  Damon is a stout beer and is only sold in a .375 ml bottle at $30 each.  We told him we weren’t and he offered to buy all of our beers if we would buy him 2 Damon’s.  We agreed and he gave us $130, the cost of our 3 6-packs and his 2 Damon’s.  He told us Damon was his favorite beer and he had driven here from New York 6 hours away.

After purchasing all the beers we met the young fellow in the parking lot and gave him his 2 Damon’s.  We noticed that he had about 8 Damon’s in the trunk of his car already.  It was an expensive 6 hour drive for this fellow but he was happy and so were we.

We drove back to our campground and Diane made a delicious cheesy vegetable soup that we had with our free beers. It was an interesting day.