The Bar Towel

Back from a solid 4 day trip to our mecca. thanks for all the recommendations in this thread!

The only thing I would add is that it's pretty easy to score all the major wants (e.g., heady and sos) by paying attention to the delivery schedules on each of their web sites. Every day after riding we were easily able to grab the beer we wanted at each of the stores we planned to hit. In fact, it was so easy that we were turning down chances to buy more heady and sos wednesday and thursday. the stock moves fast, but not crazy fast as it seems to last until the end of the day it's delivered at least. the only exception would be places that get case drops as we hit some store in barre on monday and grabbed the last two full cases a mere 2 hours after they received around 60 cases.

we didn't really hit up many bottle shops in seach of non-vermont beers, but the craft beer cellar in waterbury was loaded and I was laughing to the guys there that I was turning down opportunities to buy beer there that I would've jumped at in NY since I was already going way over my beer budget. skipped on BA old raspy and BA old stock from north coast, multiples of darkest hour, multiples of vanilla beer geek, the list goes on really. but a nice store with fair prices for sure (especially compared to some of the small liquor stores that are just gouging on craft beer, one had pirate bomb at 17.99 each! pass!).

great place to visit especially since i can combine snowboarding with beer! sadly, it just reinforced how bad the beer scene is here when every ipa and iipa option i drank was significantly better than the best we have here.

Back from another solid weekend in Burlington. It's impossible to find bad times there!

Quick scan didn't see any mention of Mule Bar in Winooski. I think it's owned by the same folks who run Three Penney? Anyway, awesome little cozy spot just down the hill from the Winooski Bev.

Had a great night at Farmhouse that ended with back to back 2014 BCS and KBS. Waitress took away my menu after ordering the second one! Ouch.

Was into Flatbread and enjoyed a few of their Zero Gravity beers, great lunch at Vermont Pub. Also had a great meal and multiple beers at the Reservoir. Stupid Pro Pig was closed (I have such terrible luck with that place).

Bottle shops: as mentioned Craft Beer Cellar was awesome, got some great advice from the guy working there, Victor, he was super nice. Also made stops at the usuals, Pearl St, Winooski, City Market. Scored tons of heady at Route 7 Liquor in Shelburn.

Sip of Sunshine on tap pretty much everywhere. HF Edward as well. Other Hill stuff was a little harder to find, saw some Mosaic at Mule and Farmhouse.

I stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn that Cass references earlier. Was cheap for Easter Weekend (relatively) and yeah, location can't be beat. One block to Flatbread, another half to Vermont Pub and a couple more to Farmhouse. Really nice inside for a big chain. Would stay again for sure.

Getting a day trip into Vermont on Friday.. first time!

Aiming to leave Montreal by 8am (flying in the night before). Renting a car and doing a loop through VT.

Trying to stop at HF, Waterbury, Winooski, Burlington.. anywhere in between a "must visit" ?

rfrf wrote:Getting a day trip into Vermont on Friday.. first time!

Aiming to leave Montreal by 8am (flying in the night before). Renting a car and doing a loop through VT.

Trying to stop at HF, Waterbury, Winooski, Burlington.. anywhere in between a "must visit" ?

If your loop takes you through Montpelier (the capital) then Three Penny & Hunger Mountain are worthy stops. Pick up some Backacre.

Reminder that if you're buying crazy amounts of beer be careful about crossing back into Quebec. They have a smaller provincial import amount than Ontario.

Cass wrote:

rfrf wrote:Getting a day trip into Vermont on Friday.. first time!

Aiming to leave Montreal by 8am (flying in the night before). Renting a car and doing a loop through VT.

Trying to stop at HF, Waterbury, Winooski, Burlington.. anywhere in between a "must visit" ?

If your loop takes you through Montpelier (the capital) then Three Penny & Hunger Mountain are worthy stops. Pick up some Backacre.

Reminder that if you're buying crazy amounts of beer be careful about crossing back into Quebec. They have a smaller provincial import amount than Ontario.

Thanks, yes, already warned about that. 8.5L correct? Two in the car, so that's not too bad. Anyone have insight into how much the over duty charge is? I've heard a story of the border guards taking bottles off someone rather than allowing them to pay the extra duty..

8.5L is the duty free limit after 48 hours. Before 48 hours or above the limit is set provincially. I think it might be 9L in Quebec but it's 45L in ON. The duties also vary by province. I've found in ON its around 30%.

Cass wrote:8.5L is the duty free limit after 48 hours. Before 48 hours or above the limit is set provincially. I think it might be 9L in Quebec but it's 45L in ON. The duties also vary by province. I've found in ON its around 30%.

The 'quantity limit in excess of the duty-free entitlement' in Quebec is 9.0L.

So, if you are there for 48 hours, you get your 8.5L federal exemption + the 9.0L = 17.5L total. With two of you in the car, that would be 35L.

As an aside, after my last trip to VT, crossing back through Cornwall, the border agent (inside after we were told to go in any pay duty on our excess beer) actually checked the time that we had crossed the border two days previous to ensure that we were over for at least 48 hours (as we were each claiming our 8.5L exemption). We were safe by about 15 minutes (by luck, not by design). So keep in mind that this is also a risk.

Here's the guide I wrote about importing kegs which has all the specifics. Kegs/bottles it's all the same thing so still relevant.

http://www.bartowel.com/the-bar-towel-g ... importing/

TheSevenDuffs wrote:As an aside, after my last trip to VT, crossing back through Cornwall, the border agent (inside after we were told to go in any pay duty on our excess beer) actually checked the time that we had crossed the border two days previous to ensure that we were over for at least 48 hours (as we were each claiming our 8.5L exemption). We were safe by about 15 minutes (by luck, not by design). So keep in mind that this is also a risk.

This is, like everything else with the border, hit and miss. I recently made two trips where I was very close to the 48 hour limit. One I was over by about 15 mins coming back through Cornwall and nobody asked any questions just waved me through, the other I was short by about 30-60 mins crossing back in Vancouver and again, nobody asked any questions, just waved me through.

I did a day trip into Vermont and got dinged for duty on everything. It was actually quite weird how they calculated it. I had something like 7.5 L of beer. They didn't charge any provisional markups. Just $2 and change for a federal duty plus HST (I think Ontario HST) on the cost.

I had read on the SAQ website that if you're under 48 hours, you're required to complete some sort of electronic authorization and duty payment otherwise you're not allowed to bring back anything. In the end, I think we did get off rather fairly and probably under-charged. I have a vague sense of how duty should be calculated in Ontario, but not once has it ever been consistent or accurate. Thankfully, it's always come in below the amount I theoretically could have to pay.

By the way, we crossed back from VT on Highway 89 due north of Burlington. They had a small army of border guards there relative to the number of cars crossing, so there was basically no getting out of a small amount of duty. In Ontario, I've had friends get waved through with 35-40 Liters because they were too busy to bother.

I got dinged $49 on $320 CAD of beer - 16 heady cans, a couple of grapefruit sculpin's and a total of 16 bottles from HF (all 750). Great trip.. want to go back and spend more than half an hour in each place. Pro Pig was great (got to try sip of sunshine!). Found Heady @ Stowe Beverage and CBC in Waterbury.

Not all border gaurds are as nice. I got the full charge for a buffalo trip on 170 CAD worth of beer they dinged me for 90 CAD while my friend had a case of beer and a growler for a mere 10 bucks. Both of us walked into the office at the same time, he got a lady and I got a guy.


I went to Burlington Vt back in April and had a blast, thanks to this thread. I would highly recommend searching for some Trappe lagers while you're there, best I've had in North America. Heady was everywhere, especially in the North side. Went to Hill Farmstead on a rainy and cold day and there was 3 people in line around 2pm on a friday. The longest but relatively quick line was Second Fiddle. Didn't find any Lawsons to buy in cans, but it was on tap most craft bars. Really glad I kept my snow tires on because VT stays cold! Also had a nice time at Ben and Jerry's factory. Go early, then head to lost nation for lunch!

DeMarco wrote:Not all border gaurds are as nice. I got the full charge for a buffalo trip on 170 CAD worth of beer they dinged me for 90 CAD

I can tell you, without a doubt, that they screwed up the calculation on yours. You should have politely requested that they double check the calculation. Anything north of 30% duty, and they've likely messed up. On my last trip to VT, they screwed up the calculation on on of my friend's beer. He pointed out that he spent less and had less volume than us, but had similar duty. They double checked and found their error. I've also corrected them 2-3 times over the years when the duty had come in closer to 50%.

TheSevenDuffs wrote:

DeMarco wrote:Not all border gaurds are as nice. I got the full charge for a buffalo trip on 170 CAD worth of beer they dinged me for 90 CAD

I can tell you, without a doubt, that they screwed up the calculation on yours. You should have politely requested that they double check the calculation. Anything north of 30% duty, and they've likely messed up. On my last trip to VT, they screwed up the calculation on on of my friend's beer. He pointed out that he spent less and had less volume than us, but had similar duty. They double checked and found their error. I've also corrected them 2-3 times over the years when the duty had come in closer to 50%.

Agreed, I have in the past politely informed border folks about the rules. There have been many cases where (it seems) I know more than they do about the specific details regarding beer duties. My rule of thumb is 30%, anything more than that there's likely a miscalculation. The current duties & such are skewed so people don't go and buy cases of cheap beer, as the % would be higher. But for expensive stuff it's relatively quite less. There's nothing wrong with asking for an explanation, and by reading the guide posted above you'll know the rules in and out.

I really should have kept the receipt but I looked up all the codes after and wondered why it was so high. It was all 3 (Duty, HST and a Provincial Mark-Up). I believe I was screwed on the duty as I definitely didn't have over a hectolitre of beer. Looking back on it now I can see where they may have thought the 32oz growler was more then it should have been. I think I was charged close to 40 or 50 for duty plus the HST and Provincial markup.

Thanks for that article cass, I'll double check my receipts for next time.