Hill Farmstead Brewery hires Otter Creek's brewmaster

Mike Gerhart

The Vermont brewery named by the influential website RateBeer the world's best brewery three years in a row has enlisted an iconic brewmaster from another Vermont company.

Mike Gerhart, the brewmaster at Otter Creek Brewing in Middlebury, has joined the Hill Farmstead Brewery in Greensboro Bend, according to the Burlington Free Press.

Gerhart is seen in cartoon form on most Otter Creek Brewing labels and cans with long hair, a tie-dye headband, a VW bus and his dog. Gerhart also was brewmaster at the Shed Brewery in Middlebury.

Hill Farmstead's next release, scheduled for Wednesday, is Birth of Tragedy: Kochere, an imperial porter brewed with honey and aged in apple brandy barrels on Kochere coffee from Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia.

"We have chosen two barrels of Birth of Tragedy as the base for this single origin coffee experiment," the company said in  an announcement. "After aging for 20 months in apple brandy barrels, we conditioned the beer atop Ethiopian Kochere coffee beans sourced and roasted by The Coffee Collective in Copenhagen, Denmark.  These friends long ago changed our worldview as to what coffee could be.  After months of bottle conditioning, the beer is ready for release."

It will sell for $20 for the 375ml size, limit 1 per person. The brewery's bottle release policy is available online.

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