Made in Vermont: Trailside Baking Company

ST. ALBANS, Vt. (WCAX) - A new bakery in St. Albans wants to be the go-to spot for hikers looking for a post-hike bite.

The weather is warming up and it’s almost time for people to really hit the rail trail. If you happen to be in the St. Albans area, there’s a new bakery to keep in mind as you plan your adventure.

“If you like good bread, come on down,” said Beth Minor, the co-owner of Trailside Baking Company. “Hungry hikers, welcome.”

Crackers are crumbly and tortillas may be too thin, but freshly baked bread can rise to the occasion and be just what people need.

“I like baguettes because you can slice them up, put some cheese on them. Dip them. They’re best eaten fresh. Good flavor, good crust, first thing to go after, after a long day, and then the butter croissant,” said Doug Hood, the co-owner of Trailside Baking Company.

Minor, a St. Albans native, and Hood own Trailside Baking Company and are avid hikers themselves. But they had a passion for baking they just couldn’t shake.

“We’re open now. It feels unreal. We’re happy and proud to have built it with our experience and our tastes, and to be able to do everything ourselves feels really good,” Hood said.

“It’s our love of the trail combined with our love for artisan bread,” Minor said.

For Minor, baking is a science, and she uses all five senses to make sure it comes out right.

“I like the math, even though I’m not good at math, I have to have a calculator. But I like figuring out, like, I have 40 minutes, and then I fold this and then mix that, and like, I have meticulous schedules of when I could how much I can fit in a day,” Minor said.

She’s really got it down, having been in the food industry for almost 20 years.

“I’ve been baking for a little while, 18 years now. I started in St. Albans, but then I moved away. I went to South Carolina, I went to Philadelphia, I came back and I met Gerard Ribbon, who baked wood-fired sourdough out in Westford. And then I loved that, but I wanted more, so I went to O Bread on Shelburne Farms, and I worked there for a long time, six plus years. And then me and Doug took a break when we went and hiked the Appalachian Trail and came back,” Minor said.

They hiked 2,200 miles from Georgia to Maine in six months. But in their own words, the bread life was still calling, and coming back home to St. Albans became the natural choice.

“I recognize everybody who has come in, if they’re not my uncle or my uncle’s friend or my grandmother or all the people she worked with, or my dad,” Minor said.

“Even though we do everything ourselves, it’s not really all by ourselves, because it takes support from the community, which we’ve had a lot of really good support from,” Hood said.

They take advantage of the local ingredients Vermont is known for and say all of their grains are grown within 100 miles.

“We really like bread. Good bread. Local ingredients,” Minor said.

And Trailside Baking really is trailside.

“We’re gonna get some connection to the trail, like a path. For now, you can come down from up the road. There’s a little crossing, and you can make it your way here,” Minor said.

But try to get there early, because their bread is flying off the shelves.

“I’m glad we’re selling out because that means I can bake more,” Minor said.

Trailside Baking Company is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day except Tuesdays.