Vermont Brew Fest and Champlain's Anniversary
Craft Brewers Gather in Burlington Vermont for Champlain 400
Jul 15, 2009
Four-hundred years ago Samuel de Champlain sailed up the St. Lawrence river to arrive by canoe at the lake that would eventually bear his name. Although Champlain lasted only about a month on the lake, albeit amidst heated native conflict, what he actually did was to open up waterways for commerce and found the area now know as Quebec City, where he would eventually die on Christmas Day in 1635, according to the biography, Champlain: The Birth of French America.
Champlain, incidentally, reportedly covered vast tracks of land and water in the Northeast, from parts of Canada, the Great Lakes, and Hudson River all the way down to Cape Cod. Interestingly, he only named one discovery for himself: Lake Champlain.
Vermont Brew Fest
So what better way to celebrate the quadricentenary than to dedicate a huge beer fest on Burlington's historic, bucolic waterfront? According to Seven Days, one of the excellent newspapers of Vermont's Queen City, the Vermont Brewers Festival is the longest running outdoor brew fest in the East. Now in its 17th year of handing out tiny beer-filled glasses to people who cannot get enough of the stuff, the VBF boast 188 beers and over 30 breweries, some from as far away as Delaware and even California.
Among the brewers attending are Allagash Brewing Co. (ME), Boston Beer Co. (MA), Dogfish Head Draft Brewery (DE), Harpoon Brewery (VT), Hopfenstark Brewery (L'Assomption, QC), Long Trail Brewing Co. (VT), Magic Hat Brewing Co. (VT), Otter Creek Brewing (VT), Ommegang (NY), North Coast Brewing Co. (CA), Saranac Brewing (NY), Switchback Brewing Co. (VT), Trout River Brewing Co. (VT), and Wolaver's Certified Organic Ales (VT).
Beer and the New World
Although there is little documented evidence to support how often Champlain himself partook of the libation, during the Elizabethan Age, a period of general European growth and prosperity, beer was actually rationed to soldiers daily. Champlain would have been in his thirties as this era wound down and was himself a soldier in addition to being a seaman, geographer, explorer, and colonial administrator for the French Crown. And the precedent for beer in the Americas was already well-established, as Christopher Columbus had discovered a pale beer in Central America almost a century earlier.
Documented or not, Pure Canada, a promotional magazine from the Canadian Tourism Commission, has this to say about Champlain and beer, "It's a little known fact that beer was one of the many orders of business for the first Quebec settlers. Mistrusting the water supply, Samuel de Champlain beckoned the Récollet priests from France to instill the taste of the old country in the new, untamed land."
Champlain 400
Beer or not, Burlington’s Champlain International Waterfront Festival runs from July 2-14 to commemorate the 400th Anniversary of the lake's discovery and boasts world-class performances, food, history forums, Native American displays, and recreational activities. The parent organization for all of this is the Vermont Lake Champlain Quadricentennial Commission, and its producer is Jay Craven, of Vermont independent film directing fame.
So as festivities are unfurled, statues restored, and events executed, awareness about the history, the area, and the people is brought to light, which is the real point anyway. VPR President Robin Turnau perhaps puts it best in an article on the event by her own organization: “For centuries, Lake Champlain has defined our region, and it continues to influence our lives today... Champlain 400 honors that influence by exploring the lake from all angles – history, culture, music, the environment, and more.”
Plus, there's beer.
(It is important to note that Champlain 400 and the Vermont Brewers Festival are two separate events and are not linked in any way except in their recognition of Samuel de Champlain and the lake that bears his name.)
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