Mad River Valley Brewery Trail: Waitsfield's Mountain Town Breweries

Lawson’s Finest Liquids

Lawson’s Finest Liquids is the valley’s best-known name, founded in 2008 by Sean and Karen Lawson out of a one-barrel nano-brewery next to their home in Warren. The brewery is built around its “Sunshine” family of IPAs, especially Sip of Sunshine,^[1]a tropical, floral-hopped double IPA that’s become one of the most recognized beers to come out of Vermont. One quirk worth knowing before you go: since 2014, Sip of Sunshine has been brewed under an alternating-proprietorship arrangement at Two Roads Brewing^[2]in Stratford, Connecticut, to meet demand — while Lawson’s other year-round and seasonal beers are brewed on-site at the Waitsfield facility, which opened in October 2018. The timber-framed taproom has a beer garden, indoor seating, a retail store, and a viewing area where you can watch the brewing and packaging operation. It’s a natural starting point for this trail and doubles as a stop on the longer Route 100 route to the north.

Cousins Brewing Company

Cousins Brewing is the valley’s smaller, more locals-oriented stop — a 3-barrel nano-brewery^[3]pouring at the junction of Route 100 and Route 17 in Waitsfield, inside the Localfolk Smokehouse building. Six house taps rotate through a lineup that usually includes a couple of IPAs, a double IPA, a brown ale, an Irish red, and a blonde, brewed with local ingredients including Peterson’s Quality Malts and Vermont-grown hops. There’s no separate destination taproom — it’s a low-key, sit-down-with-a-plate kind of stop, and a good contrast to Lawson’s higher-profile operation. A couple of things worth knowing before you go: the tasting room keeps limited hours (typically Fridays and Saturdays at 5 p.m.),^[4]and the food side of the space is in transition — as of February 2026, Localfolk’s kitchen relaunched as part of a new collaboration between Cousins Brewing and chef Savitri Bhagavati, under the name Silk Road,^[5]serving Californian, Turkish, and Lebanese dishes. This is a small operation and the food situation has changed more than once recently, so confirm current hours and menu before building your day around this stop.

American Flatbread

American Flatbread got its start in Warren in 1985, when founder George Schenk began baking wood-fired flatbreads out of a backyard oven, later serving them one night a week at the Tucker Hill Lodge^[6] in Waitsfield. The restaurant found its permanent home at Lareau Farm,^[7]on the valley floor of the Mad River, in the early 1990s, and it remains one of Vermont’s most recognized restaurants — known for organic, locally sourced toppings baked on dough made with organically grown wheat. It isn’t a brewery, so it’s not a stop on the trail map above — but it’s the food stop that anchors a day in the valley, the kind of destination restaurant that’s worth a trip on its own. It’s a popular sit-down spot on weekends, so check current hours and wait times before you go.

Planning Your Mad River Valley Trip

• This is a short, low-mileage trail.Both breweries sit within Waitsfield, less than a mile apart, making this the most compact of Vermont’s brewery itineraries.
• Pair it with Route 100.Waitsfield sits about 24 miles south of Stowe via Route 100 — roughly a 35-minute drive — so this trail combines naturally with a drive north to extend the trip.
• Mind Cousins’ hours.The tasting room is typically open only Friday and Saturday evenings, so plan this leg accordingly — and confirm before you go.
• Save room for American Flatbread.It’s a sit-down meal, not a quick bite — plan the day so it doesn’t get rushed, and call ahead on busy weekends.
• Seasonal crowds vary widely. As a ski-town valley anchored by Sugarbush and Mad River Glen, expect heavier weekend traffic in winter and a quieter pace in summer and fall.