#171 - oh! green mountains.

hello loyal eat!drink!snack! reader! fear not. we'll get back to celebrating pumpktoberfest tomorrow with a SLASHER FANTASTICO from the 80's, but for today we're going to take a lil detour & visit my fourth favorite new england state, vermont! as i've mentioned before, i grew up in neighboring new hampshire, a state which is basically shaped like an upside down vermont. we've got the white mountains & vermont's got the green mountains. basically, the two states are like bosum buddies. although i'm sure i visited vermont as a kid with my family, i have no memories of it happening. my first & most vivid memory of vermont is traveling to burlington in between freshman & sophomore year of college to meet a friend & head to montreal (details withheld due to the debaucherous events that occurred).

as far as america goes, vermont is totally OG. they were originally part of both new hampshire & new york, but in 1777 they were granted independence from the two states, becoming a separate nation before eventually being admitted to the union as the 14th state in 1791. at the present time, with a little over 600K citizens, other than wyoming it's the second smallest state in the country. racially, it's not a very diverse state, as vermont has the 2nd largest proportion of whites of any u.s. state. while the capital is montpelier (located in central vermont), much of the state's activity revolves around burlington, an artsy, crunchy city in the north that's the largest in the state & home to the university of vermont.

these days, for many vermont is that lil new england state that supports gay marriage & medical marijuana. totally radical politics! they're currently the only state with a congressman who's neither a democrat or a republican--independent senator bernie sanders. their other senator, patrick leahy, is the only democratic senator in vermont's history, as the state's always been largely republican, voting for the GOP in all but one presidential election up until the 90's. for me, when i think of vermont i think of phish, the jam band that's made up of vermonters & got its start at UVM, and ben & jerry's, the famous ice cream makers based in burlington. because of the prominence of phish and ben & jerry's, i tend to stereotype all vermonters as crunchy hippies.

if you're looking to visit vermont, now's the perfect time. although the season typically ends around the end of the month, for the next few weeks it's time for leaf-peeping, a ridiculously-name practice where folks travel to the state to check out the trees while the leaves are changing color. if leaf-peeping isn't your style, the state's full of other nature you can explore, hiking trails & waterfalls & the like. if you hate nature for some reason, you can opt for eating cheese & getting drunk at the state's numerous farms, wineries & breweries. regardless of why you go, there's a good chance you'll be visiting a laid-back community, as the state's full of quaint, rural towns & villages.

snack: jasper hill farm bayley hazen blue cheese / whitney's middlebury maple castleton crackers
drink: oskar blues gordon ale

to celebrate the green mountain state, i picked up a pairing of snacks made in vermont, jasper hill farm bayley hazen blue cheese & whitney's middlebury maple castleton crackers. jasper hill farms is a "rocky, hillside farm" started with the goal of "creating a model to be replicated by other farmers in vermont who wished to diversify their quickly disappearing farms into more workable options." it's located in greensboro, a town of less than a thousand people that's less than an hour south on 91 from the canadian border. as for whitney's crackers, they're based in castleton, a town midway up the state near the new york border. whitney's crackers came into being when she decided to make a "lighter and thinner version of hardtack, a long lasting seafarers' staple." back in 2008, after perfecting the recipe, she named them after villages & counties in vermont & brought them to market.

the bayley hazen blue is a creamy & crumbly blue cheese made with raw cow's milk that's been aged four to six months. it's a buttery cheese with notes of chocolate, licorice & pepper and after forgoing any blue cheese that wasn't in dressing form for most of my life, i was pleasantly surprised with how much i enjoyed it. if you enjoy cheese & blue cheese in particular, it's definitely worth checking out. the only drawback is the $23.99/pound price tag.

the cheese went quite well with the "middlebury maple" crackers, as the light maple coating on the crackers gives them a sweet taste that complements the flavors of the cheese. they're harder than most crackers & they're totally artisan, a cracker that's all natural, handmade & hand-cracked. since first trying them, i've gone back for more & i'm apparently not the only one who enjoys them, as when i handed them to the cashier at the store i bought them at, she turned to a co-worker & said "people sure are buying a lot of these, huh?"

i paired my cheese & crackers with a can of oskar blues gordon ale, a "double-red" ale made by colorado's oskar blues brewery. with the green can & the name "gordon" (the last name of phish's bassist), it just seems like a vermont-themed beer. it's actually named after gordon knight, a man that the oskar blues website describes as a "colorado craft beer pioneer and vietnam vet who died fighting a 2002 wild fire outside of our lyons hometown." the site (& the can, for that matter) go on to add that "if you knew gordon knight, this beer needs no explanation. if you didn't, we're sorry."

it's not a beer for the faint-hearted. it's an ale with a dark red color, a hoppy scent, a sweet yet hoppy flavor & an 8.7% ABV. with the combination of those characteristics, you'd expect that it'd have a strong taste but it's actually pretty drinkable. i brought one to a phish show this summer & the guy who ended up drinking it felt it was way too strong but in my opinion, it's fine. sure it's no dish water/bud light style beer, but relative to other double-red ales it's a smooth, drinkable ale, a fine example of why canned beers are enjoying a recent comeback.