On a quiet dirt road in Vermont’s remote Northeast Kingdom, far from any major city, sits one of the most influential breweries of the 21st century. Hill Farmstead has been named Best Brewery in the World multiple times by RateBeer. Yet it remains, by design, almost impossible to visit for most of the people who chase its beers.
Seven Generations on the Same Land
Hill Farmstead Brewery was founded in 2010 by Shaun Hill, but the story behind it stretches back more than two centuries. The Hill family’s connection to Greensboro, Vermont traces to 1788, when father and son Peleg Hill Sr. and Peleg Hill Jr. arrived and helped found the town. Generations of Hills farmed the same land, dairy and crop farming that continues in active use today, and Shaun became the seventh continuous generation to work it, this time as a brewer rather than a farmer.
Shaun’s path to brewing began early: a homebrewing science fair project in high school, followed by a home-brew club in college while studying philosophy at Haverford. His first professional brewing job was at The Shed in Stowe, Vermont, before he took a formative position at Nørrebro Bryghus in Copenhagen, Denmark, working under acclaimed brewer Anders Kissmeyer and winning multiple World Beer Cup medals along the way. He returned to Vermont in 2009 and opened Hill Farmstead the following year, initially as a one-person operation, with Shaun as the brewery’s sole employee.
Built on Intention, Process, and Family Memory
Hill Farmstead’s branding and beer names are deeply tied to family history. Many beers are named after specific Hill family members who lived and worked the land before him. The brewery’s logo itself takes inspiration from the sign of a tavern run by an ancestor, Aaron Hill, in the early 1800s. This isn’t decoration. It’s a genuine throughline connecting the brewery to over two hundred years of the same family’s presence on the same hillside.
From the beginning, Shaun Hill built the operation around a specific philosophy: methodical process, scientific rigor, and an uncompromising standard, regardless of how small the operation needed to stay to maintain it. Despite the brewery’s remote, rural setting, far from any major population center, demand quickly outstripped what the tiny garage-style original brewery could produce.
The Philosophy Behind the Process
Hill has spoken at length about what separates an average brewer from a great one, and his answer consistently comes back to process and routine rather than raw creativity alone. He has described spending years identifying the most critical control checkpoints in his brewing process, the small variables that, if managed precisely, separate a good beer from an exceptional one. This scientific, almost obsessive attention to detail extends across the entire operation, from ingredient sourcing to fermentation temperature to the timing of every single step.
A Style-Defining Influence
Hill Farmstead’s impact on American craft beer is difficult to overstate. The brewery has been credited with helping shape the trajectory of the modern IPA, and its saisons, trademarked as “Farmstead Ales,” have received some of the industry’s highest honors, including a Beer of the Year nod from Craft Beer & Brewing. Across nearly every style it touches, Hill Farmstead has set benchmarks that other breweries openly cite as reference points, an unusually broad influence for a brewery this small and this remote.
Why It’s So Hard to Get
Hill Farmstead sells almost entirely through its own retail shop on-site in Greensboro Bend. There is no broad national distribution network. Despite this, the brewery has developed a devoted following that travels from across the country, and internationally, just to stand in line. Visitors regularly describe arriving an hour before opening to find dozens of cars already parked along the dirt road, license plates spanning states well beyond Vermont, sometimes including Florida, Illinois, and even Quebec.
This combination of tiny remote-location production, in-person-only retail sales, and a reputation built on consistent excellence across nearly the entire catalog places Hill Farmstead in the same rarefied company as Side Project and Tree House. These are American breweries genuinely difficult to access without either traveling to the source or relying on established import relationships built over years.
Buying Hill Farmstead in Switzerland
Because Hill Farmstead doesn’t distribute internationally through conventional channels, sourcing authentic, well-stored bottles in Europe requires the same kind of long-term relationships and careful sourcing we apply across our entire rare beer collection. At Wines & Spirits SA, every Hill Farmstead bottle from our dedicated Hill Farmstead selection is authenticated and stored in optimal climate-controlled conditions before it reaches you, never sourced from anonymous resale.
Given the brewery’s extremely limited production, our Hill Farmstead allocation changes regularly. We recommend checking current availability or reaching out directly if you’re hunting a specific release.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you visit Hill Farmstead Brewery?
Yes, the brewery has an on-site retail shop in Greensboro Bend, Vermont, though demand is high enough that visitors often arrive well before opening to ensure access.
What is Hill Farmstead best known for?
The brewery is celebrated across multiple styles, but is particularly renowned for its IPAs and its trademarked “Farmstead Ales” saisons, alongside acclaimed barrel-aged and porter releases.
Does Hill Farmstead distribute outside the United States?
Hill Farmstead does not operate broad international distribution, which is why bottles found outside the US typically come through specialist importers rather than standard retail channels.
Why are Hill Farmstead’s beers named after family members?
Shaun Hill built the brewery on land his family has worked for seven generations, and naming beers after relatives is part of how he ties the brewery’s identity to that long family history rather than treating it as a purely commercial venture.