Harpoon Brewery
Breweriana, Collectibles, Ephemera and Memories
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| Also see the BIG VISIT MAP | 336 Ruth Carney Dr., Windsor, VT |
I have visited Harpoon Brewery,
at their location in Windsor, Vermont, USA
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Reason for Visit: We drove up to Vermont and New Hampshire for a long weekend while the autumn leaves were changing colors. We were able to squeeze in visits to several brewpubs and microbreweries along the way. It also coincided with the Harpoon Brewery Octoberfest which we enjoyed thoroughly. As an aside the name of the company is actually the Massachusetts Bay Brewing Company but they do business as Harpoon Brewery. I'm not sure why that is, perhaps because they've grown beyond Massachusetts, but there you go. Their Windsor, VT brewery is in a quiet, rural area even though it's still incredibly convenient to Interstate 91.
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Entrance Sign: The Harpoon logo hangs on a sign above the brewery entrance, which indeed is a rather menacing-looking one flue whaling harpoon that would have been used up until about the middle of the Nineteenth Century. This leads to a large room that has every sort of Harpoon Brewery merchandise imaginable for sale. This is also where people gather to start a brewery tour. Afterwards there's a tasting room with bar, and bottles are also for sale for off-premises consumption. If you have a taste for some of their some of their harder to find beers, chances are they're available here if they're available anywhere. |
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Exterior: The Harpoon Brewery is certainly one of the larger microbreweries. Notice the size of the grain silos and realize that this is just one of their breweries (the other is in Boston, MA). We learned on the tour that they didn't build the brewery from scratch, rather they purchased the old Catamount Brewery in 2000. Catamount had over-extended itself by building this state-of-the-art brewery two years earlier, just as the craft brewing market began to soften. Harpoon purchased it for a bargain-basement price when Catamount went out of business. |
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Octoberfest: The Harpoon Brewery hosts an annual Oktoberfest (which they anglicize by spelling it Octoberfest) during an early Fall weekend. Our visit coincided with the celebration, which was more than a happy coincidence as we'd consulted their website beforehand and planned to be there beforehand. We had a great time, as did all the rest of these people if the photo is to believed. Harpoon cordoned-off a large open area in front of the brewery. They provided a large beer tent with multiple taps running and a music tent. There were also plenty of places to spread out and enjoy some of their fine beverages. |
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Equipment: With the thousands of attendees at Octoberfest, one wouldn't begrudge Harpoon if they decided to not have any tours of the brewery plant. However, tours did run and in quick succession. We didn't have to wait more than about fifteen or twenty minutes to reach the front of the line and start the tour. I imagine the tour may have been quicker than normal just to get all the people through, but it was still fairly comprehensive and included a brief tasting at the end. Again, the impressive scale becomes apparent. These are 80 barrel (2,500 gallon) tanks, and there are rows of them! |
Sample list of beers produced by Harpoon Brewery
- Harpoon IPA
- Harpoon Munich Dark
- Harpoon Belgian Pale Ale
- Harpoon Cider
- Leviathan Imperial IPA
- UFO Hefeweizen
- UFO White
- ... plus seasonals and limited editions
Items featured on these breweriana pages are personal souvenirs of my visits to these locations, and an expression of the events and travels leading to their collection. They are not for sale or for trade.
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