Waterbury

Waterbury sits at a crossroads in the Green Mountains, a modest town of church steeples and a handsome restored railway station that, against all odds, has become one of Vermont’s most concentrated stretches of food and drink culture. Lia and I came for what we assumed would be a quick ice cream stop and stayed the better part of two days, discovering that this small town somehow houses a world-famous creamery, a cluster of acclaimed breweries, and some of the best mountain biking access in the state.

The Ben & Jerry’s factory tour

Just north of town, the original Ben & Jerry’s factory still runs tours through the production floor, tracing the company’s story from a renovated gas station in Burlington to a global brand, and ending — obviously — with a small scoop of whatever flavor is currently cooling on the line. Lia dragged me out to the “Flavor Graveyard” on the hillside behind the factory, a mock cemetery of tombstones for discontinued flavors, epitaphs and all, which turned out to be funnier and more oddly touching than either of us expected from a company that started making ice cream in a converted gas station.

The Beer Corridor

Route 100 south of town has earned the nickname “the Beer Corridor” for the string of breweries packed along it, and we spent an afternoon working our way down the strip — a flight at a barrel-aged specialist housed in an old warehouse, then a stop at a farmhouse brewery with picnic tables looking straight out at the Worcester Range. What struck us was how unpretentious it all felt for a region with this much acclaim; most tasting rooms were converted barns or garages, staffed by the people who’d actually brewed what we were drinking.

Getting There

Burlington International Airport is about thirty minutes northwest via I-89, making Waterbury an easy first or last stop on a Vermont road trip. Amtrak’s Vermonter line also stops directly in town, a rare rural rail connection that drops you a short walk from Main Street. From Boston, it’s roughly three hours north by car. A car is still useful for reaching the breweries strung along Route 100 and the ski access roads up toward Stowe.