USA, VT: Hermit Thrush Brewery to close in April

A Vermont brewery well regarded for its specialty in making sour beers has announced it will close in April, the Burlington Free Press reported on March 29.

Hermit Thrush Brewery, named for the Vermont state bird, revealed March 27 on social media that its last day of operation will be April 7. Customers will be able to order packaged beer online and pick it up at the brewery’s location in Brattleboro through April 28.

“After nearly a decade of crafting unique and cherished sour beers, we are announcing the closure of our beloved Vermont brewery,” the social media post by Hermit Thrush reads. “From the outset, our journey has surpassed our wildest dreams, with our sours reaching corners and communities we only imagined when we began.”

Founded in late 2014 by Christophe Gagne and Avery Schwenk, Hermit Thrust built a reputation on sour, Belgian-inspired ales. The brewery’s Instagram account, as well as shirts employees sport at the High Street taproom, bear a slogan that seemingly aims to answer a new customer’s likely first question: “Yes, they’re all sour.”

The decade of the 2010s saw a great boon in the Vermont beer world, with breweries such as The Alchemist, Hill Farmstead and Lawson’s Finest Liquids garnering international acclaim while dozens and dozens of new breweries came onto the scene. Since the COVID-19 pandemic four years ago, that beer bubble has started flattening in Vermont, marked by the departure of Collaborative Brewing in Waitsfield and another brewery, Lost Nation Brewing in Morrisville, halting production.

Sean Lawson, co-founder of Waitsfield-based Lawson’s Finest Liquids, told the Burlington Free Press this winter that the pandemic and increased popularity in canned spirits and flavored malt beverages are cutting into the “share of stomach” that breweries had a stronghold on in recent years.

Hermit Thrush alluded to those economic forces in its social media post.

“Meeting consumer price demands while consistently producing high-quality sours proved to be difficult,” the post reads. “Evolving market dynamics also significantly influenced our difficult decision.”

Still, the brewery focused primarily on the positive. “To all who have been part of this journey,” the post reads, “your role in our story has been invaluable, and profoundly appreciated.”

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