click to enlarge - Courtesy Of Little Pond Digital
- Avery Schwenk (left) and Christophe Gagné of Hermit Thrush Brewery
After nearly a decade, Hermit Thrush Brewery in Brattleboro will close its tasting room on Sunday, April 7, and sell through the remaining inventory by the end of the month, co-owner Christophe Gagné confirmed.
Gagné and Avery Schwenk cofounded Hermit Thrush in November 2014. Their wood pellet-fueled brewery at 29 High Street focused exclusively on Belgian-style sour ales made with carefully captured wild yeast strains.
Gagné, the brewmaster, told Seven Days in 2019 that he regards yeast as a brewing "partner" rather than an ingredient. "I don't know if there's another American brewery that has never bought yeast," he said in a recent conversation.
At the brewery's peak, Gagné said, it employed 14 people, and Hermit Thrush beers were available in 10 states along the Eastern seaboard. Its line of sour beers earned acclaim while putting it in a distinct minority.
Gagné estimated that sours make up about 1 percent of the craft beer category. "We're a niche product," he said, detailing the economic factors of which the business was a casualty. Long-aged sours are more expensive to produce and harder to sell, due partly to price and their rarity.
"Those who know really got it," Gagné said. Knowledgeable servers played a critical role in introducing Hermit Thrush to other beer drinkers.
Four years into the "black-swan event called COVID," Gagné continued, the craft beer industry is losing beer bars and experiencing distribution consolidation. "Two-thirds of our distributors have closed or been sold to another distributor," Gagné said.
Since the closure announcement, Gagné said a few potential partners have approached Hermit Thrush. "There's some chance that it may live on," he said.