Craft Beer Guide: Burlington Breweries and Taprooms
Burlington, Vermont — updated August 21, 2026
Four Burlington breweries pouring on Pine Street, Flynn Avenue and the Lake Street waterfront, ranked by how settled their reputations are.
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Burlington's beer geography is unusually compact: two breweries sit within a block of each other on Pine Street, at 703 and 716, and a third pours a few steps from Lake Champlain on Lake Street. The fourth, Switchback, anchors Flynn Avenue in the South End. This list covers working breweries with taprooms open to the public, ordered by how much evidence sits behind each rating.
1. Foam Brewers - Burlington
Foam is the waterfront option, at 112 Lake Street, and it carries the most tested reputation of any brewery in this guide: 4.7 stars across more than 1,200 reviews, which is a settled figure rather than an early one. The taproom pours a rotating beer list alongside cheese and charcuterie, so it works as a stop before dinner rather than a full meal. Doors open at noon most days and at 10 AM on Saturdays, with late closes at the end of the week. Weekend afternoons in warm weather draw the heaviest crowds, given the lake is right there.
2. Zero Gravity Brewery
The Pine Street beer hall at number 716 is the most flexible spot on this list because it opens at 8 AM daily for coffee, beer and waffles, served until 2 PM. The full food menu starts at 11:30 AM and runs to 9 PM Sunday through Thursday, 10 PM Friday and Saturday. A 4.6 rating over more than 750 reviews puts it just behind Foam on consistency, but the all-day schedule makes it the easiest place to catch a pint outside standard taproom hours. Go early if the point is the waffle-and-beer window rather than dinner.
3. Queen City Brewery
Queen City is the classicist of the group, a tasting room at 703 Pine Street with more than 16 taps built around traditional styles rather than the hazy IPAs that dominate Vermont lists. Reviewers repeatedly single out styles they cannot find elsewhere in town. The 4.7 rating comes from 266 reviews, a smaller sample than Foam or Zero Gravity, so treat it as strong but less proven. Hours are shorter than its neighbors: 1 PM to 8 PM Sunday through Thursday, noon to 9 PM Friday and Saturday. It is a short walk from Zero Gravity if you want both in one afternoon.
4. Switchback Brewing Co.
Switchback, at 160 Flynn Avenue, pairs its beer and spirits with Southern-style barbecue, and it is the only place here with weekday pint deals worth planning around: five-dollar E-Z pints on Tuesdays, five-dollar Switchback Ale pints on Wednesdays, five-dollar Citra Vista pints on Sundays. Note the closures and cutoffs before making the trip. The taproom is closed Mondays, Tuesday service starts at 5 PM, and the kitchen shuts at 8 PM, so a late arrival means drinks only. The rating sits at 4.6 across 391 reviews.
What we left off
The previous version of this guide mixed in places that do not brew. Devil Takes A Holiday is a cocktail lounge, Hen of the Wood and Pizzeria Verita are restaurants with bars rather than breweries, and Starry Night Cafe is in Ferrisburgh, not Burlington. All are legitimate businesses; none of them answer the question this guide asks.