SOMETHING'S ALWAYS BREWING WITH SHAUN HILL '01

Shaun Hill '01 is well on his way to fulfilling a dream he has had since his days at Haverford—starting his own homestead brewery. Currently the brewmaster at The Shed in Stowe, Vt., he made what he terms his“glorified hobby” into a professional career. He is always working on new projects, including a beer tasting in Boston he hosted last month, where he was visited by two Fords. He fondly looks back on his days with the homebrew club at Haverford, and looks to the future.

What responsibilities do you have as brewmaster?

As a brewmaster, I am responsible for the entire production of the brew facility. This often means designing and creating new beer recipes, maintaining consistency in the regularly brewed production beers, and closely examining the parameters under which the beer is brewed, fermented, conditioned, bottled/kegged, and served. However, much of the job evolves into an experiment with troubleshooting and spontaneous decision-making—as with any process that we try and confine to a scientific methodology, we must keep in mind that, especially with brewing, we are dealing with living organisms (saccharomyces cerivisiae, yeast) and variations in our ingredients (such as inconsistencies in the color of the malting process, variations in the alpha acid content of hops, etc.). Brewers spend a tremendous and seemingly disproportionate amount of time cleaning equipment and facilities. I suppose it requires a certain degree of obsessive compulsion—attention to detail and gourmet perfectionism.

Do you have any new projects coming up at The Shed?

New projects? Always! For me, a new project is a new and adventurous expedition into an unexplored beer style. We've been playing around with two strains of a ‘wild' yeast called Brettanomyces (B. Bruxellensis and B. Lambicus). This is one of the primary yeast strains found in Belgian lambics. It is known as a beer spoiler and is greatly feared by the wine industry because of its flavor contributions. However, I've fallen in love with the characteristics that this yeast imparts—somewhere between pie cherry and, in industry terminology,“sweaty horse blanket.” Today I brewed a Triple IPA that should clock in somewhere around 10 percent alcohol and 200 ibus (international bittering units). Most IPAs are 5-6% abv and 40-65 ibus... I like the extreme end of the spectrum. I'm always doing projects with my neighbors down the road at Jasper Hill Farm. They make some of the best cheese in the country. During the winter I bottled a beer, named Agathe, that Jasper Hill used to wash a cheese called Winnimere. Both the cheese and the beer were sent to Per Se Restaurant in New York City. Actually all of Jasper Hill Farm's Winnimere is washed with my beer. I'm always traveling to new beer festivals promoting my product and I'm always trying to expand my own palate en route to my pursuit of crafting the ideal and perfect beer. Obviously, this is a moving target.

What do you like about your job?

I like getting paid to spend my days doing something that, 95 percent of the time, doesn't really feel like a job. It's a glorified hobby. I have the opportunity to perfect my trade, to experiment, while working and ordering ingredients in the confidence of my owners.

I like that I can purchase beers and do a tasting with my friends and then refer to it as R & D. It's fulfilling to partake in an artisan craft—to network with other food growers and producers, to talk to beer lovers on a daily basis at the brewpub and to receive constructive criticism. This job also allows me the ability, hopefully, to venture forth into capturing a dream that I have had since Haverford—rebuilding my grandfather's barn here on my farm land in Greensboro and eventually starting my own farmstead brewery. My brother is a young and gifted furniture maker who happens to live across the street (dirt road) from me—we would love to rebuild the barn that once stood here and fit it with a brewery and timber-framed studio space.

What motivated you to become a brewer? How did your Haverford experience lead to brewing?

As I mentioned before, starting the homebrew club and becoming more involved in the cultural/agricultural implications of the industry inspired me to pursue it. After graduation, I continued to find myself arranging travel plans around beer culture. I spent five months traveling the globe to New Zealand, Nepal, Thailand, Germany, and Belgium, and consistently found myself critiquing the local drink. After painting houses, traveling, and teaching at a private school for a year, a brewer position opened up 45 minutes from my house at The Shed. I had been homebrewing and winning medals since Haverford—eventually I had to be honest with myself and realized that brewing was something that I needed to try professionally.

What inspired you to start your own brewery? What ideas do you have for it?

I have been inspired to start my own brewery since my last years at Haverford. Most of my friends have continued to joke about moving to Greensboro, Vt. in order to help me begin a unique farmstead brewery and organic farm operation. (At one point, it was going to be a commune.) It was a topic that would come up in conversation every time we drank beer. My family co-founded Greensboro in the late 1700s and they were dairy farmers up until the year before I was born. In 1978 my grandfather's barn burned down because of improperly dried hay. As a young child, my brother and I would play on the remnants of the barn foundation and secured a fondness, a genuine sense of place, for our heritage here in Greensboro. I have never doubted whether or not I would spend my life here. When my grandfather passed away four years ago, he left the house and the farmland to my brother and me. At one time, dairy farming was a way of life here. Now we see a trend of these native families selling their barns and their land because they cannot earn a living with current milk prices nor can they compete against the industrialized realm of agribusiness. I would really like to rebuild this barn and reinstitute a local economy—we have cheesemakers, breadmakers, and woodworkers within a short radius. I see this as my opportunity to do something that does not currently exist in this country: a genuine farmstead brewery with an agricultural and global consciousness. The employment opportunities along with the utilization of the land to grow vegetables and berries (my cousin Lewis Hill is an accomplished gardener and author) is essential for the environment. Do I have any ideas? Oh yes. A full production brewery specializing in Belgian-style beers: saisons, biere de miel, brettanomyces beers, along with an emphasis on bold and flavorful interpretations of the American style: Double IPA, oak aged Imperial Stout and Porter, a red ale made with rye, and so on. Every beer would be made with a base of organic malt. I am in the process of writing my business plan and have located a small facility in a nearby town. I hope to begin brewing there full time by the middle of next summer and, eventually, after I have raised enough capital, I can build the barn and move the brewery here to Greensboro. So...I am currently looking for investors to help me begin Grassroots Brewing Company and, a few years out, Hill Farmstead Brewery.

What are your interests and hobbies?

I really like cooking, especially pairing beer with cheeses and food. I am interested in music, philosophy (Nietzsche, Plato, Foucault, Osho), Tom Robbins, and traveling. In November, my brother, Darren, a furniture maker, and I are going to Europe for two weeks. He is betrothed to Gaudi's organic architectural absurdity. I am hoping to partake in a few brew days at Brasserie Dupont in Tourpes, Belgium. Unfortunately, I no longer have time for homebrewing! My most obsessive interest is probably sampling and analyzing beers from around the world.

What fun memories do you have from your time at Haverford?
Too many memories from Haverford—most of them fun, all of them educational. I was a philosophy major generally preoccupied, as I still am, with Nietzsche and Buddhism. My friend Toby Balch ('03) and I started a homebrew club during my senior year. I had been homebrewing since high school chemistry class and, since Toby and I were spending a fair amount of money on being beer geeks, we thought it would be a good idea to use some of the homebrew equipment that I had stored away. Generally, there were only four of us in the kitchen brewing while the other brew club“members” sat in the living room and drank the beer that Tobes and I had bought for the occasion. We managed to retrieve some money from student council and shared our beer with other students out on Founder's green during an Earth Day celebration. My best memories are locked away in a vault somewhere within 710 College Ave. I will never forget intramural soccer championships, Philosophy Senior Seminar, and conversations with Danielle Macbeth, Lou Outlaw, Ashok Gangadean, and Zolani Ngwane.

—Allison King '09