"Raindrops on roses and fresh, malty cold ones...." OK, so beer may not have been among Maria von Trapp's favorite distractions--at least according to Sound of Music lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II. But in my head, I could hear Julie Andrews crooning, "I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel so bad," as Brew Master Allen Van Anda explained why he was hired to launch New England's newest--and one of its most distinctive--breweries at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont.

Johannes von Trapp, the mountaintop resort's president and the youngest son of Baron George and Maria von Trapp, "has been wanting to do a brewery for over 25 years," Van Anda told me. According to the Brew Master, von Trapp's rationale for getting into the beer business now was: "The economy's bad. We need to do something to make us happy. We're going to build a brewery."

A year after he was hired--and nine days before the April 17, 2010 grand opening of the Trapp Lodge Brewery--Van Anda offered me a behind-the-scenes tour of the brewhouse and revealed why Trapp lagers are destined to become a local favorite in Vermont and beyond.