Portland Brewmaster Moving to Hill Farmstead

Laurelwood's Vasilios Gletsos joining the hottest American brewery of the moment

Vasilios Gletsos in front of Mosaic hops at Loftus.

Laurelwood Brewing's top brewer, Vasilios Gletsos, is leaving the company in December to move to his wife's home state of Vermont.

He landed a pretty good gig there, joining Hill Farmstead Brewery in Greensboro, Vt., which is probably the hottest craft brewery in the country.

How hot? Hill Farmstead currently has 23 of the top 250 beers in the world according to Beer Advocate—more than Russian River, Goose Island and Cascade combined.

"Having lived in that part of Vermont before, I am very excited to be near my extended family and friends there," he says. "Having worked for a puppet theater there, I am excited for that community to be part of my life again. Having known Shaun Hill for a while, trying his beers along the way, and seeing what he has built excites me to be part of it."

Gletsos joined Laurelwood in 2011 and made an immediate splash, re-tooling the company's flagship Workhorse IPA out of necessity. The new recipe was named the #3 beer of the year in the 2014 edition of our Beer Guide. From the guide:

Gletsos is very popular in the Portland beer scene and will be missed. He'll miss us right back.

"I moved to Portland ten years ago with a girlfriend and a packed Subaru. In that time a rich garden of family, friends and occupations has grown around us. I will miss all of that, blossom and thorn. It's the best city I have ever had the pleasure of living in and it's part of me," he says. "I'm taking that part with me."

Gletsos plans to make and blend several special beers before he goes. You can try one of the first of the last brews from his line at Laurelwood, an IPA aged on Spanish cedar made with nationally decorated homebrewer Rodney Kibzey, at Saturday's Portland Pro-Am Beer Festival.

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