BENNINGTON, VERMONT

Just thirty miles outside Albany in the center of Bennington, MADISON BREWING boasted rustic Old World charm, November ’06. Small right side L-shaped bar with cool beer can collection and comfy waiting couches opposed wooden table-chair dining section. Rear brew tanks were across from antique piano/ stage area.

Along with good pub grub, sucked down dehydrated fig-date-spiced, red fruited, nut-bottomed, Fuggle-hopped Crowtown Pale Ale, bittersweet tea-like pumpernickel-breaded quince-pinched Willoughby’s Scottish Ale, and dankly metallic prune-dried fig-spiced fungi-wafted Old 76 Strong Ale.

Spicily hop-tingled raw-honeyed oats-dried cereal-sugared Buck’s Honey Wheat and berry-quipped wheat-cracked Stark Hose #1 Raspberry were unassuming. Styptic coffee-burnt walnut-sharp chocolate-blanched cigar-ashy Hazelnut Porter, with its maple-thick firewood-singed cedar tinge, was preferable.

I met owner-brewer Michael Madison, whose fine décor and murals adorned walls, January ’09. Got chance to imbibe creamily corn-sugared, tangy orange-bruised, lemon-soured, wheat-honeyed, Saaz-hopped, Kolsch-styled Sucker Pond Blonde while feasting on delicious deep-fried Cornish hen.

Chocolate-malted, maple-sapped, black cherry-soured Oatmeal Stout sufficed. Better were creamy candi-sugared banana-ripened tangerine-sweetened Wassicks Begian White and musty bourbon-muscatel-fronted fig-sugared raisin-dried Belgian Sour Trappist Ale.

www.madisonbrewingco.com