The Alchemist Pub & Brewery

slander

New York

4.53/5  rDev +1.3%
vibe: 4.5 | quality: 5 | service: 4 | selection: 4.5 | $$

So, it was like another half hour, maybe 45 minutes across Rte 4, through Woodstock (where I got to tell my great Woodstock story), past Quechee and out to the highway. From there it was, I don't know, about an hour and a half to the Waterbury exit. Moments later, (Evil) Davo, BA ambassador of good will that he is, was stealing a parking place from some people with Maine plates (who in turn, stole our seats at the bar). We were right on (any lack of) schedule so our arrival was well timed...

Entering through a half a hexagon entranceway, you're, um, you know, inside. Large front windows bearing the Alchemist logo, walls painted brown uppers with framed photos, drawings, and paintings done by local artists & brown slat wood lowers, dark wood slat ceiling, lamps and ceiling fans. There's a mobile of sorts hanging over the pool table to the rear, a large mounted clock, the sun, moon, and stars painted on the bathrooms, and a lava lamp sitting above them. A small bar counter sits along the bathrooms and a couch at the pool table.

A seating area with upwards of a dozen tables to the left, and a cool "C" shaped mosaic tile chunk topped bar seating 15 to the right with a single large bar table forward of the bar in the front window. The bar counter/dining area divider holds funky glass lamps.

There's a 40" X 60" mirror mounted along side of a framed GABF metal behind the bar over a small bar back unit holding booze and glassware and there's a wee wine fridge back there too. A bobble head, stuffed animal, and candles sit in the window behind the bar. It's a very comfortable place, and there's no damn TV.

7 house taps, Guinness, and a local cider, on a central tower with a wooden monk figurine standing atop it with his outstretched chalice, and a single cask too. I asked for the sampler and was told that they give you samples 3 beers at a time (A sampler of 3 for $3), and pints go for $3.50, I opted for the sampler. Actually, I opted for 2 samplers. The Donovan's Red was medium bodied and nicely hopped, The Holy Cow IPA was dry hopped with 6 hops, nicely done, Pappy's Porter was pleasantly bitter, with a roasty flavor and a great licorice aroma, the Heady Topper was an excellent double IPA, the Wild Child, an American style wild ale with Brett, tart, slightly sour, and just outstanding, the HeffyWeizen was sweet, first all clove, and then banaaana. There was a Light beer also, although I never got around to it. The cask was the Heady Topper, ummmm... just really well made beers, all of them.

Enough so that I kept trudging clear across the grounds to the other end of the VT brewer's fest the next day, for another, and another, and how about, yeah, can I get the Wild Child again please? Damn!!

08-02-2005 03:03:21 | More by slander

Billolick

New York

4.2/5  rDev -6%
vibe: 4.5 | quality: 4 | service: 4 | selection: 4.5 | $$

What else can be said about this magical place?
Corner spot in a town with 4 bars on BA, all within 100 yards of each other...comfortable, friendly, high quality house brews, pool table in the back, crowd of happy locals and mix of beer travelers settles in. We enjoyed our first Heady Topper and a variety of their other quality IPAs and assorted brews. Loved the place, lots of tasty food being passed around didnt have the smarts to eat here

One of the obvious must visit places when in Northern Vermont

10-30-2010 23:27:40 | More by Billolick

northyorksammy

Ontario (Canada)

4.09/5  rDev -8.5%
vibe: 4.5 | quality: 4.5 | service: 4 | selection: 3.5 | $$

I was given a special tour and time with the owner and brewmaster John. The location is about 25 minutes due south from Burlington, accessible also by ferry from New York State North section. Georgious area, as is the state. Came here before the snow crowd and after the summer crowd. John is formerly a bremaster at Vermont Pub among other things. Being the neighborhood bar, he has developed a community clientale. He does his own thing and that's good, with refreshing clearn beers. The wild ale was worth the 8.5 hour trip from Toronto. The porter, stout, Belgians were excellent. All out of his special (double?) IPA. You want a sweet beverage, he has got local craft soda. Pleasing appearance, god size, local artwork with a studio planned for upstairs.

11-09-2005 13:27:23 | More by northyorksammy

TurdFurgison

Ohio

4.28/5  rDev -4.3%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4.5 | service: 4 | selection: 4.5 | food: 4 | $$

I stopped here with some other BAs the day before Hill Farmstead's first anniversary party. My only prior experience with the Alchemist being Heady Topper (which was excellent), I was very happy to take a deeper dive into their offerings.

Nicely appointed, enough tables for maybe 100 people, also roughly 15 seats along the bar. The food is on the upscale side for a brewpub, with plenty of options for meat-eaters and vegetarians alike. I'm more of an omnivarian, but I still went with the tofu & red beans as it looked so good (and was!).

You can get reasonably priced samplers of anything, I tried a few before identifying my pint selection. A wide variety of styles, all seemingly well crafted, excellent.

06-19-2011 01:55:05 | More by TurdFurgison

sholland119

Pennsylvania

4.4/5  rDev -1.6%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4.5 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4.5 | food: 4 | $$

We were very excited to make this our first stop in Vermont. we have long looked forward to our visit here.

We arrived promptly at the 4om opening and got three seats at the end of the ling spacious bar. There was a good sized dining room to the left of the bar. Good thing we got here early as by 6pm the place was jam packed. The vibe was very nice except for the one very drunk couple who took up residence next to and behind us toward the end. The staff was very friendly and made us comfortable from the get go.

There were about 9 beers on tap on our visit. Regrettably, Heady Topper was not one of them. But the Crusher was a nice consolation prize, as were Pappy's Porter and Secret Stash. We tried samplers of everything else, without a dud in the bunch.

Food was very nice. We enjoyed a nice local cheese plate and an andouille panini that was quite good. Looking forward to our next visit.

HV

02-21-2011 15:12:41 | More by sholland119

Bierman9

New Hampshire

4.13/5  rDev -7.6%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4 | food: 4 | $$

Alewife and I stopped in here for dinner last Friday, 18APR08, during a weekend tour of northern VT.

Easily found on Main St in Waterbury (with parking in the rear), it is on the ground floor of an old brick building. There are large picture windows in the front of the place, letting in lots of light. Enter through a small foyer and you'll find the bar on the right side, taking up about three-fifths of the side of the room. There are a few small tables near the front, at the windows. Opposite the bar is a short dividing wall. You can head down to the rear and around, where there are many more small tables on the other side of the divider. The place had a lot of brown colors, both in painted walls and wood. Ample lighting and fans hung from the ceiling, and the place was decorated with a few plants and many objects of art from some of the locals. A pretty comfortable place overall, loud and happy. Our bartender was super, being very friendly and helpful. They had 7 of their beers on tap, with the IPA hitting the spot for me. Alewife had an amber/red, which was decent. I had a sip of the Beelzebub, which was very nice, and I noticed that the Bacchus was very popular with other clients. Foodwise, I had a pulled-pork pannini, and Alewife had a bean and rice plate. Both were quite filling and tasted fine. Prices were reasonable, too. This place deserves a return visit as far as I'm concerned.

Zum Wohl!!

4.13
vibe: 4 | quality: 4 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4 | food: 4 - $$

163

04-27-2008 19:30:24 | More by Bierman9

UncleJimbo

Massachusetts

3.95/5  rDev -11.6%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4 | service: 4 | selection: 4 | food: 3.5 | $$

I visited The Alchemist brewpub over Memorial Day weekend in May 2011. A very nice, comfortable pub in a small Vermont town. There is a long bar on the right as you enter from the street, and a dining area to the left, separated by a half height divider, and also some dining in the rear. The beer selection was good with beers averaging in quality from average to very good. The food selection was typical pub fare with some good and a lot average. The prices were very good, especially compared to Boston. Overall a very nice place.

11-19-2011 10:44:18 | More by UncleJimbo

rousee

Massachusetts

4.83/5  rDev +8.1%
vibe: 5 | quality: 5 | service: 5 | selection: 4.5 | food: 4.5 | $

This place is right up there amongst the best brewpubs I have ever tried. Possibly, it is the best. Located on the main drag in Waterbury--I like this town a lot more than its ritzy neighboring town to the north-Stowe. Waterbury just has that vintage old New England feel to it. Very homey and down to earth--a real slice of Americana.

You enter and the first thing you notice on a hot July day is that they have the air-conditioning cranking. This is somewhat of a rarity in some parts of Vermont so I do appreciate the comfort as it was about 94 degrees and humid the day I visited. They do have very large windows out front and the place gets a lot of natural sunlight so the a/c really helped. Decor-wise there is a lot of wood and nice high celings I believe they had a pool table in the back too. They also have random art from (I assume) local artists adorning the walls and hanging from the ceiling etc. Very nice and used in a sparing manner so it doesnt feel cluttered at all.

The beers are just tremendous here. All of them were great and the ones I remember them having were--Grote bruin, Pappys porter, Holy Cow IPA, Sterk Wit, and also the Light Weight. What I liked about this place in particular is the offering of samples before you decide on anything. You dont ask for samples, they just offer em up. What a tremendous way to let people discover what they might like best. In addition, the prices on them are quite reasonable at $3.50 or $3.75 per pint. I asked if they have happy hour when you might be able to get these gem like beers for even less and I was told that every hour is happy hour around here. No problem, the prices are very fair.

The food was also excellent as we had a nice Vermont cheese plate, some beer pretzels, and a beer-cheese dip. All of these were very good and reasonably priced.

The staff also kicked ass. They were attentive, friendly, entertaining, down to earth and seemed genuinely happy to be working there. This is always a plus. One of the women who works there--I assume she is married to the brewer and/or is one of the brewers herself- asked me about what kind of beers I like and then offered me up a sample of this Wild Child which hadnt even been oficially tapped yet. It has brett in it but didnt have some of the wilder funkier flavors one might associate with brett and she explained that it was due to letting it age. She said as it aged, it just got smoother and smoother and right she was. Of course, we went back again the next day. Only negative to the place is that I wish it was open for lunch but I wont hold that against them. They open at 3pm on weekends and 4pm on weekdays I believe.I cant recommend this place enough. As I sit here typing this, it makes me want to be back there right now. This place is the definition of what a great brewpub is !!!

08-17-2006 19:51:03 | More by rousee

Deuane

Pennsylvania

4.16/5  rDev -6.9%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4.5 | service: 4.5 | selection: 3.5 | $$

Nice place located on the main drag in this cute little VT town. Cool interior with all kinds of pictures and art on the walls. The ceilings are very high giving a nice, airy feel.

The 12+ seat dark wood bar is off set by the dining area to the left as you walk in with a pool table in the back of the large main room.

They only had seven taps on (one above my average) and NO cask today...:-( More disappointing than no cask is that do not allow growlers to go! WTF!

Our service was quite good despite the busy bar on this Sunday eve. The quality of the beers we tried were all very nicely done with nothing being a dud.

Having eaten already we opted for just beers this trip.

We will certainly be back...no Heady Topper this time! Oh well, something to look forward to!

07-20-2008 06:51:24 | More by Deuane

Goldorak

Quebec (Canada)

4.3/5  rDev -3.8%
vibe: 4 | quality: 5 | service: 4 | selection: 4 | food: 4 | $$

After sampling a few of their offerings at the Brewers fest in Burlington for the past two years, and after hearing the positive testimony from everyone I know who’s been there before, I promised myself to include a stop here on my NE Beer trip.

My party and I was very impressed with the layout, a very pure, esthetically pleasing décor consisting of a few paintings and dark wood, we had our first pint in the booth section near the kitchen. The place is spotless, and many who had visited the brewing facilities told me it was the cleanest setup they ever saw. I didn’t get a chance to see, the brewer was probably still in Burlington.

5-6 Beers were on tap, something for just about everyone. Our girlfriends got cider, we went for the Wild child at first, then the Heady topper that we really enjoyed. When the girls left for the hotel, we stuck around at the bar and chatted with some of the patrons, most of whom were locals in their early to mid twenties. The bar was relatively quiet, which surprised me a bit, considering that the Alchemist booth was by far the most popular at the fest, I figured we wouldn’t have been the only ones who had the idea to come here afterwards. Anyway, atmosphere here at the pub got a perfect 5 from me until someone at the bar asked aloud who was the coolest superhero ever. I’m no real expert on the subject, my last comic book purchase dates to about 15-20 years ago, and I really should have noticed the regulars at the bar who either acted deaf or stuck their heads into their shirts like frightened turtles, but the minute I opened my mouth to answer I was sucked into the vortex of DRUNKEN COMICBOOK GUY (DCG). I realized I was doomed by the look of relief on the faces of the couple sitting next to him when he got up to sit next to me. Any attempts to change the subject or make him go away were useless. The bartender brought him a pint paid for by an anonymous young lady in the bar, I asked if he was curious at all about who could have bought him a round, be he was more interested in explaining to me how easily Magneto could destroy Iron Man. You could imagine how thrilled my friend was about DCG monopolizing the conversation…he knows even less about comics then I do, and can barely speak English. And even though the Beers were fantastic, last call came as a balm to our throbbing ears as we bolted out of there and ran the mile to our Hotel before he had a chance to pick up our scent.

So the moral of this story is: go to the Alchemist, it’s worth the drive, but do as your mother told you and don’t talk to strangers.

***Edit, May 2006***

Finally got to eat here, the crab cake sandwich was good, but those sweet potato fries stole the show. My nutritionist wouldn't have approved, but to hell with her, I’m on vacation! Got to chat with the brewer, great guy, even went out back and brought us samples of Petit Mutant, which was fantastic. I can’t recommend this place enough.

07-18-2005 17:12:10 | More by Goldorak