Getting the flavor of...A New England winter tradition

A New England winter tradition

“Harvesting ice is not a spectator sport,” said Whit Richardson in National Geographic Traveler. My arms and back learned that during my last trip to Maine. Every February, the Thompson Ice House museum in South Bristol revives the New England tradition of ice harvests. Though electric refrigerators long ago killed the ice industry, visitors can still participate in this “quintessential Maine activity.” Starting early on Feb. 20, “seasoned volunteers” will use a “sled-mounted circular saw” to cut deep into the ice in a local pond. Guests will then ply antique saws and hooks to “guide the floating blocks to the cradle-and-pulley system that feeds the ice to the ice house.” By 3 p.m., hundreds of blocks, “each weighing as much as 300 pounds,” will be stacked for storage. That ends the harvest, but guests won’t fully savor their achievement until July, when the museum uses the blocks to make the headlining treat at its annual ice-cream social.

Contact: thompsonicehouse.com

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St. Louis’s new brew crew

“There’s a lot more on tap” than Bud in the beer-drinking city of St. Louis, said Kristen Hinman in The Washington Post. Craft breweries and brewpubs have opened “in the shadow of Anheuser-Busch,” giving the paternalistic beer giant a little competition. On a recent trip to the Midwestern metropolis, I plotted out a pub crawl that took me from Morgan Street Brewery on Laclede’s Landing to the Stable in the Cherokee Street District. Along the way, I took “swigs of small-batch honey weizen, blackberry cider, one ale punched up with chocolate, and another redolent with lemongrass”—plus a couple of others that “I wasn’t clear-headed enough to note.” Come spring, there will be even more to try as A Civil Life brewery and Perennial Artisan Ales open their doors. At least 15 microbreweries exist now, but St. Louis could easily reach 40, the number it had prior to Prohibition. “Cheers to that.”

Contact: explorestlouis.com