BURLINGTON, VERMONT
Beginning its journey in 2014, QUEEN CITY BREWERY enjoys being a “comfy pub” at the historically industrial South End of Burlington. One of its founders, Paul Hale, was a former associate vice president of research at the University of Vermont. Managing partners Phil Kaszuba and Paul Held embrace the traditional beer styles head brewer Ben Gostanian crafts.
A ’40s pickup truck adorns the barroom inside the metal corrugated aluminum-sided warehouse. The cement floored pub features a laminated U-shaped 20-seat mahogany bar with a pipe-exposed high ceiling. Silver left side tanks service the bustling draught board (with over a dozen homemade brews). A meticulous pine-detailed, garage-doored Event Space welcomes large parties.
A rustic makeshift enclosed deck with orange plastic chairs matching the overhead canvas is where I sat with wife and dog to enjoy a host of German-style lagers and beyond during my two-hour November ’22 sojourn.
Ricey corn pilsner malting consumed Bushwick Lager, a ’50s-styled American light body with musky lemon-spiced herbage and wispy floral daubs.
Musky Noble hop herbage grazed the toasted cereal graining of German helles-styled South End Lager, ‘a delicate blonde lager,’ and the spicier toasted malting of Vienna Lager.
Dewy peat mossing, earthen truffle fungi and faded nuttiness saturated the dried fruited musk of Munich Dunkel, a lightly creamed Bavarian lager.
Another German lager, Psycho Keller, an unfiltered cellar beer, placed honey spiced Vienna malts against salted orange-oiled musk, leaving mild leafy foliage and fennel snips.
Spry herbal lemon zesting prodded the vanilla-creamed banana, clove and coriander expectancy of Hefeweizen, a sourdough-bottomed moderation.
Capturing much of the maple-glazed cured meat sweetness and only some of the smoked beechwood pilsner malting its Bamberg-derived style demands, Rauchbier gained a nifty lemon spritz.
Traditional springtime copper lager, Maibock, brought spicy red-orange-yellow fruiting to toasted caramel malting, picking up contrastive raw honeyed fungi must.
Smoothly effervescent Belgian tripel, Monk of Underhill, regaled butterscotch-candied sweetness to caramelized banana, lemon meringue and creamy vanilla affluence.
Moderately bitter Fuggle-hopped English IPA, Argument, left perfumed citrus spicing upon dry fungi herbage.
Soft-toned Yorkshire Porter allowed its black coffee-embittered dark chocolate roast to embrace weedy soy saucing and cola nuttiness.
Peaty mocha malting girded Barge Canal, a musty oatmeal stout with day-old coffee tones, chalky dried fruiting and spiced dark toffee atop charred oats.