Vermont Pub & Brewery, Burlington, VT

Jason and I visited Burlington primarily for the beer. On our way downtown we stopped at Otter Creek and learned during the tour that Vermont has the most breweries per capita. 18 breweries for the 600,000+ lot of Vermonters.

When we arrived in downtown, we stopped at the Vermont Pub & Brewery for dinner and some more good beer. It's the second oldest brewpub on the east coast and was completely packed on a Friday night. I saw those buzzing beepers being handed out for those who wanted to wait for a table. We didn't bother putting our names down and decided to take our chances at the bar instead. We were starving, but it looked a bit grim for us since both sides of the bar were packed and there was barely any standing room.

Half a beer later, I spied a party of 4 settling their tab at the bar and planted myself right behind them. We lucked out. Once we got seated, we ordered from a pretty large selection of bar grub.

We started with a Caesar Salad. It's nice to see anchovies on a caesar salad as all of them should have them, but that was the only nice thing about the salad. Dressing was bland.


I decided to order something I normally wouldn't order at a bar.. fish. I had the Pecan Encrusted Trout Fillet. It's oven-broiled, topped with a lemon-cream sauce with a side of steamed broccoli. It sounded really good, but I should've known that I wasn't going to get Le Bernardin quality fish or even anything that comes remotely close to it. It was a tad fishy, but edible when accompanied with the lemon-cream sauce and a healthy squeeze of the lemon. The broccoli was as bland as can be, but was edible after I dipped in into Jason's gravy.


Jason ordered Toad-in-the-Hole. It's a traditional English dish that is basically sausage baked in yorkshire pudding. Vermont Pub & Brewery's version of it was made with maple sausages in a cheddar and onion pastry. Jason said it was like a supersized pigs in the blanket. It was tasty. We both agree that it would be a good dish to have for breakfast, not necessarily as a dinner item.


I would definitely go again for the beer. And if I was hungry, I wouldn't be opposed to eating there again, but would probably stick with more bar type food like wings or nachos.

Vermont Pub & Brewery
144 College Street
Burlington, VT
802-865-0500