A lot of Vermont breweries opened in 2016, and next year should be no different. One of the newest additions to the state’s proliferating beer scene is Butcher Beer, a one-barrel picobrewery in Warren that owner Steve Butcher aims to open this spring.
Butcher moved from Michigan to Warren in 1999 because, in his words, “It was quiet; I found a great piece of land with a tiny shack on it and fell in love with it.” Since then, he has cofounded a business that builds websites and develops database applications, but brewing beer remains his creative passion. Come spring 2017, Butcher will turn his homebrew hobby into a business, setting up shop in the bottom floor of the barn on his property.
“I make my recipes up, start them from scratch and refine them from there,” says Butcher. “I’m a lager and lighter-ale kind of guy, and I love IPAs; I have about 12 recipes established now.”
Paperwork pending, Butcher’s namesake brewery will start turning out kegs and bottles as the snow begins to melt. He’ll distribute on a hyper-local scale to restaurants and retail stores via the Mad River Food Hub. A friend of fellow Warren resident Sean Lawson of Lawson’s Finest Liquids fame — whose brewery’s website he helped design — Butcher notes the possibility that his small brewery could ride a similar upward trajectory.
“[Lawson] started with a one-barrel system, too,” he says. “Now, 10 years later…”
We’ll see what comes next.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Ring in the New Beer”
This article appears in The Winter Reading Issue 2016.
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