Hill Farmstead Abner

Tasting Notes

Abner opens with a saturated hop aroma — tropical fruit, citrus pith, fresh pine resin, and a faint dank undercurrent that signals its Northeast heritage without fully committing to haze-forward softness. On the palate, the bitterness is assertive but not aggressive, built around grapefruit, mango, and a clean herbal note that keeps the profile honest. The body is medium-full, with a malt backbone that stays out of the way rather than pushing sweetness forward. The finish is long and resinous, drying out in a way that invites another sip without masking the hop complexity.

About the Brewery

Hill Farmstead operates out of Greensboro Bend, Vermont, a genuinely remote corner of the Northeast Kingdom, and has been widely regarded as one of the finest craft breweries in the world since its founding in 2010 by Shaun Hill. The brewery built its reputation on hop-forward ales and a series of farmhouse-influenced saisons, many named after ancestors of the Hill family who farmed that same land. Their beers are distributed almost exclusively on-site, which makes them objects of pilgrimage and gives the operation an intentional scarcity that has never felt like a marketing posture.

Food Pairings

The resinous bitterness and tropical hop character here do real work against rich, fatty foods — braised pork shoulder works well because the fat softens the bitterness while the hops cut through the richness. Sharp, aged cheddar or a funky washed-rind cheese provides enough intensity to match the hop complexity without being steamrolled. Spicy Thai or Vietnamese dishes find a counterpart in the beer's fruit notes, which mirror lemongrass and lime without adding heat. Grilled swordfish or salmon, both oily enough to stand up to the ABV, let the citrus and pine notes read as seasoning rather than contrast.

Style Guide

American Double or Imperial IPA is essentially the American IPA format pushed further in every direction — more hops, more malt to balance them, and an ABV that typically runs between 7.5% and 10%. The style emerged from American craft brewing in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with Russian River's Pliny the Elder often cited as the benchmark that defined what the style could be at its most calibrated. What separates it from a standard American IPA is less a difference in character than a difference in degree: the bitterness is higher, the hop aroma more concentrated, and the malt presence more pronounced — though in the best examples, that malt never tips into sweetness.