An All About Après Top Pick to Live it up or Wind Down in the High Country
It was Ben Franklin that once said, "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy," and we definitely follow that mantra at All About Après. As you may have noticed, we like craft beer on this site. This is especially true when you combine great craft beers with après ski. Vermont has it's fair share of both, being the number one ski destination in the east and having the highest amount of breweries per-capita in the country. With two top rate characteristics like that, you'd be hard pressed to not find amazing beers and après ski bars all over the state.
Five Corners Pub, A Brewery and Après Ski Bar all in One
In the case of Five Corners Pub and Brewhouse, you have both of them all rolled into one. Five Corners Pub and Brewhouse is a nano-brewery and relative newcomer to the Vermont Craft beer industry having only opened last winter. That being said, their reputation as a brew pub and go to, après ski hot spot grew quickly. Their location between two major mountains, Killington and Okemo, is ideal, however, this is only half of it. I'm a sucker for reclaimed wood, exposed beams and anything else of the sort. Since Five Corners is set inside the rustic yet, tiny Salt Ash Inn there is plenty of it. The quaintness of the pub itself makes for a pretty hopping après ski bar during the winter where the likes of Haley Jane and the Primates have utilized these sick acoustics and rocked the house. Playing further on my lust for good beers, they are also serving up two really tasty brews, the Five Corners Pale Ale and Cone Trooper IPA, with another recipe rumored to be on the way.
Making Five Corners Pub and Brewhouse Unique
We recently caught up with owner, Paul Kowalski, to talk more about his inspiration for creating this unique brew pub that is ideal for après ski.
- What was your motivation for starting a brewery? It’s great if you get to work with something that you love. I tried banking for about a decade – was a branch manager – but eventually I realized that my heart wasn’t in it. Eventually the bank realized it, too.
- How many beers do you currently brew and what makes them unique? We have two recipes of ours that we’ve contract-brewed at McNeill’s Brewery in Brattleboro (VT)… Five Corners Pale Ale and Cone Trooper IPA. We’ll have a third recipe out by ski season, and when we’re licensed to brew on the property here, we’ll brew different stuff all the time. Small batch. Large heart.
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What is it about the atmosphere and the brew pub that sets it apart from other après ski locations in the area? We’re a small pub (11 barstools, 22 seats) in a nice, bright room with major post-Irene renovations and deep historic bones in this old country inn. Stage coaches stopped here. It was a post office. As a pub, it’s had many incarnations in its 200-plus year history. “Sensitive” people have said they can feel the history in the building, and that it’s a good vibe overall. So we have that going for us, which is nice.
- Being a short distance between Killington and Okemo, what do you do to separate yourself from other locations and draw visitors to the brew pub? Besides beer, our beers and an assortment of guest beers, we try to differentiate ourselves by the quality and value in our food. We use only grass-fed Vermont beef in our burgers, locally-raised lamb in our lamburgers, and in almost every application of cheese in our menu, we use our own local favorites from Plymouth Artisan Cheese… just up the hill from us. Our Plymouth Plate is a five-cheese sampler from the local cheeserie, served with all Vermont-made crackers, jelly, chutney and smoked pepperoni from the Green Mountain Smokehouse, where we source all of our bacon from, too. Plymouth Cheese and the Green Mountain Smokehouse (in Windsor, VT)… that’s who you should be writing about.
- Can you give me an Insider's tip on your place that only regulars, or locals know? Several locals order our chicken tenders with dipping sauce “the way that Mikey likes them,” after how one of our best customers – and a good friend- likes his dipping sauces. Thanks to him, we now combine several of our sauces to make an Everything Sauce, which is pretty good.
