I’ve drunk Fou’ Foune by the wood-burning stove at Cantillon, sipped the legendary Trappists at Westvleteren, gulped Tankovna pils in Prague, hoisted steins at Weihenstephan, gulped Guinness straight from the factory, ticked the variants at Dark Lord Day, lined up for Younger, muled Julius, and pilgrimaged to Hill Farmstead.

I’m 46 years old. I’ve been drinking craft beer since college. I’ve been writing about craft beer for nearly 20 years. By now, I thought I had tried everything that would ever wow me. I had settled into a life of quotidian beer drinking. Then recently I was in Vermont at The Alchemist’s Stowe brewery and beer café.

For those who want to drink on-site, the only options are packaged; not just the brewery’s more common cans, like Heady Topper and Focal Banger, but also limited releases like Luscious, a British-style imperial stout, and Light, a lager, alongside some bottled wild ales.

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But there was one thing on tap.

There, at the step-up counter where guests order their beer, stood a young kid with shaggy hair pumping the long, black tap handle of a British-style beer engine. What was being slowly dispensed through the metal swan neck dipped midway into the Willi Becher glass below was identified by an animated screen on the wall above: hand-pulled Heady Topper.