After some wild weather swings, the late spring of 2022 brought forth an abundant crop of spring blossoms and an ample group of generous and enthusiastic picking volunteers—both blanketing the fields over the course of four days! Bags and bags (and bags and bags) of pollen-laden yellow flowers migrated by hand from field to brewhouse, as is our annual tradition. 

The annual emergence arrives this spring with delightful timeliness: in parallel with the new season and flower picking in the coming week for this year’s brewing of our seasonally tethered Farmstead® ale.

Since the spring of 2010—when Shaun was unexpectedly joined by two customers in helping him to pick a dozen brown paper bags worth of flowers—through to this coming week’s planned foray into the fields when we hope to see many familiar faces again, this tradition continues each year. 

With the help of the entire team here, we brew Vera Mae’s namesake beer each spring with heaps of fresh spring blossoms graciously gathered by fantastic and enthusiastic volunteers, a curation of organically grown grains, and, for the first time, raw Hill Road honey (from the land surrounding our own brewery). After which, it will be conditioned in wine barrels.

That familiar yellow label and matching golden blanket of temporal floral decor help to mark the season and celebrate the promise of another Northeast Kingdom summer season!