MAINE BREW GUIDE
MAINE
FERMENTATION LAND That’s what our road signs and license plates should say for the State of Maine. Craft breweries across the state create destinations for locals and visitors who are here for the beer...
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The Maine Brew Guide’s mission is to bring together brewers and consumers. Our job is to educate readers on Maine brews, from the classics to the newbies, where to sample them and how to find them before the taps run dry. We owe a big thank you to all the supporters who partnered with us to make this first issue a reality. Stay tuned for the next Maine Brew Guide, where you’ll find more local brew knowledge and a list of restaurants that serve high quantities of fresh beer. In addition, we’ll include a home brewing and local hops segments. Drink well!
6 winter | spring 2014-2015
Get Beer Here S
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ocal breweries do a wonderful job with brewing delicious and unique beer. They mash in their creativity, boil in love, pitch their innovations, and ferment the hard work. The end product is something they are proud of and want everyone to enjoy. How does the brewery get the liquid goodness to the consumer? How does the brewer & owner get their story out to the masses?
A website & a good social media campaign can do the job pretty well. Even an email campaign can let loyal imbibers know what’s going on with a brewery. At the end of the day those aren’t the only solutions for showing your product to the public. There are so many traditional and unique ways to introduce beer to consumers. A growing culture in the Maine beer industry is a warm & inviting tasting room. A tasting room is a way for a brewery to create an environment they envision you to fully enjoy their beer in. In Maine, we’ve been lucky enough to enjoy the tasting room craze that started on the west coast 5 years ago. These past few years have brought a wonderful improvement to already existing tasting rooms as well as new ones. One of the last breweries to open a tasting room is Maine’s oldest brewery, Geary’s Brewing Company. A tasting room is just what Geary’s needs. It’s located in the Riverside area of Portland near Industrial Parkway where Allagash, Bissell, Foundation, and Austin Street breweries are all located. Now long time fans of Geary’s English style ales can see where they are produced and the unique equipment involved. Adorning the tasting room are news paper clippings, awards, and other things that act as a timeline of events for the brewery to showcase to curious imbibers. A tasting room is a perfect way to gather people into your web of tasty beers at the place of its creation. What else is there to marrying brewery and consumer? A tasting in a store front is a great, and often free, way to spread the word about your beer. Choosing a craft beer store is the way to go because the customers are presumably knowledgeable beer drinkers and would be open to trying new beers and hearing your company’s story. A tasting allows the owner and brewer face time with consumers. The brewer can tell the story about the beer and describe it as the consumer drinks it. The opportunity to buy the beer in bottle at the store is another bonus for the customer. A store like the Craft Beer Cellar has regularly scheduled beer tasting events every couple weeks. A simple beer tasting isn’t the only way to bring the beer to the consumer. Sometimes you have to pair other things with it too.
ince 1988, Gritty McDuff’s has been creating fine, handcrafted ales and traditional pub fare. From our humble beginnings as a small brew pub in Portland’s Old Port we’ve grown to become the brew pub of choice for Mainers and folks “from away”. From the start, Gritty’s was at the forefront of the brewing renaissance in the Maine. Founders Ed Stebbins and Richard Pfeffer had two simple goals in mind: to create a true, English-style pub serving fresh ales and great food, and to have fun doing it. Ever since we opened our doors, the accolades for Gritty McDuff’s have been piling up. Gritty’s has frequently been awarded the titles of “Maine’s Best Brew Pub”, “Best Maine Microbrew” and “Best Bar” in statewide polls. Gritty’s ales have been repeat winners at the annual Real Ale Festival in Chicago and have also appeared as Featured International Selections at the Great British Beer Festival. Stop in to our Portland, Freeport and Lewiston/Auburn Brew Pubs and treat yourself to the very best in real ale, real food and real Maine hospitality.
Gritty McDuff’s brew pub & restaurant Maine’s Original. Maine’s Best. Handcrafted Ales Traditional Pub Fare Fresh Seafood Pizza, Pasta and More! Casual & Affordable! Outdoor Seating
Stop by our Brewtique for the best in Grittywear, Grittygear and fresh ales to-go!
PORTLAND 396 Fore Street 207-772-BREW
FREEPORT
Lower Main Street 207-865-4321
AUBURN
68 Main Street 207-376-BREW
www.grittys.com
Another great way to get your craft beer to the people is a simple tap takeover. This is a win-win scenario to both the bar/restaurant and the brewery. This could be in the form of a beer & cheese see ‘beer’ on page 11
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MAINE BREW GUIDE
Photos: Michael Leonard
Maine Brew 101 O
ur first annual Freshmen Orientation event was a huge success. Over a hundred people showed up to meet and spend some quality time with brewers and owners from our state’s newest breweries - and the format worked perfectly to make this happen. With 120 minutes parsed out into 10-minute ‘classes’ with each brewer - every single attendee got to try every beer, meet every brewer, and do it all without waiting in lines. Our goal was to take the best parts of major brewfests, eliminate the worst parts, and we feel we’ve created a format that does just that. Based on the feedback from our attendees, we will DEFINITELY be doing this event again. In fact, we might even end up doing this freshmen orientation event twice next year - once in southern Maine, and once further north. At the rate brewers are opening in Maine, it can be hard for even the most diehard of beer fans to try beers from every brewery in the state, and we aim to solve that. It’s clear the Freshmen Orientation format offers a fun way to ‘study up’ on all that’s happened in the past year, and also gives our brewers a great opportunity to spread the word about the beers they’re creating. It’s a win-win and we can’t wait to do it again. Cheers, Sean Sullivan -Executive Director of The Maine Brewer’s Guild
8 winter | spring 2014-2015
MAINE BREW GUIDE Shipyard Brewing Company is a family owned brewery -- rooted in tradition and brimming with innovation. Our award-winning beer is carefully handcrafted by our talented team of brewers who learned the fine art of brewing from world-renowned master brewer, Alan Pugsley. Cultivating and showcasing the creativity and passion of our brewers is what excellence in brewing is all about. Located on the waterfront in Portland, we offer video tours and tastings every day. Seasonally, we also offer full, in-depth, brewery tours on Tuesday evenings led by our trade brewer. This in-depth tour, along with our daily video tours, is free. Ever wonder what it would be like to brew on a larger scale? We also offer the unique opportunity of brewing vacations. From January through May, book a Maine Brewing Vacation with Shipyard and learn with some of the country’s best brewers. For more information, visit www.shipyard.com or contact us at 1-800-BREW-ALE. Shipyard Brewing Company is located at 86 Newbury Street in Portland. Our brewery store is loaded with Shipyard gear, beer, and unique Maine-made gifts. #SipaShipyard @shipyardbrewing
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MAINE BREW GUIDE Maine Beer Tours offers an ALL INCLUSIVE brewery tour experience. While on the big white bus, we will give you some of the rich beer history here in Maine and share with you our knowledge of the inner workings of the local beverage scene. At Maine Beer
Photo: Michael Leonard
Tours, we have an appreciation for Maine craft beverages, and love how it can bring strangers together. The Maine scene is extremely collaborative, and we are excited to include all of you as well! Maine Beer Tours has been connecting beer enthusiasts to the source since August of 2012. We offer several different tour options, two on Friday and two on Saturday, where we will pay a visit to some of the many great breweries, wineries and distilleries in Portland and beyond. So, what are you waiting for? Hop on board Maine’s most entertaining bus, and let us do the driving for you!
Maine’s Tasty
FOR TICKETS CALL 207.553.0898 OR GO TO WWW.MAINEBEERTOURS.COM
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Umbrella Factory Outlet (U.F.O.) in Naples Be sure to visit the The Umbrella Factory Outlet (U.F.O.) on Route 302 in Naples in the Naples Shopping Center. The store boasts more than 450 kinds of craft beer along with more than 1,750 wine selections including champagne, sake, boxed wine, organic wine and 75 made-in-Maine wine brands. Open daily. 639 Roosevelt Trail, Naples
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here has been a new precedent for new breweries: you need to have a tasting room. This wasn’t always the case but I’m happy that it is today. An example is Geary’s Brewing Company who recently opened a tasting room after decades of being in production. Now, all of Geary’s vast amount of fans can enjoy the environment of the brewery. This all means you can enjoy local craft beers in a welcoming environment with other like minded people. Tasting rooms make or break a brewery. If there wasn’t a tasting room than you’ll only be able to enjoy what the brewery had to offer at bars. You wouldn’t get the culture and environment that a tasting room can offer. The tasting room employees can always go on and on about the beers pour. If the brewer is on premise you can talk to him about the beer and the company. There is so much learning in a tasting room. Below I’ve selected my 3 favorite tasting rooms from North of Portland, Portland, and South of Portland.
Northern Maine
I define anything “north” as being past Portland on I-95 and I-295 on a map. If you’re heading north I would pay a visit to Maine Beer Company, Lively Brewing Company (Ebenezer’s Brewpub), and Baxter Brewing Company. 10 winter | spring 2014-2015
MAINE BREW GUIDE While in the greater Portland area and Sebago Lake Region, be sure to visit Patman’s in North Windham for an impressively large collection of craft beers - 500 choices including the newest and seasonal beers! Plus beer tastings are scheduled twice a month. Follow them on their facebook page for details.Patman’s also features a liquor store and wine selections.
Sebago Lakes Region Largest Selection of Craft Beers! 500 Craft Beers 33 Doors of Choices!
Latest Craft Beers - Craft Beer Kegs Seasonal and Limited Release Beers Two Beer Tastings Monthly Agency Liquor Store - Over 500 Wine Selections Windham: Route 115 (95 Tandberg Trail) - Open Daily
‘beer’ from page 7
pairing, beer & food pairing, or any other unique pairings that utilizes the restaurants culinary abilities to use the beer and food to accentuate one another. Sometimes you need a unique and new way to bring people to the beer, or in this case, the brewery itself. The Maine Beer Tours is a company that popped up in 2012 that drives you to different alcoholic beverage creators for you to experience. Basically, they drive you from brewery to brewery so you can be fully immersed where the beer is being brewed. You also get to hang out with the creators of the product as they tell their unique story. The Maine Beer Company is located in Freeport, just south of exit 20 bonus is the bus is licensed so you can try beers from long drives off of 295 and the outlet shops on Route 1. They have a sizeable, from location to location. clean, and classic-looking tasting room with white walls - a minimalist design similar to their beer labels. Their beers, which Photo: Benjamin Moore vary but often hoppy, are a nice way to break up a day of shopping.
Tasting Rooms
Lively Brewing Company is located inside Ebenezer’s Brewpub(formerly Lions Pride) and is located on Main Street, Brunswick. They serve hefty portions of family-style food as well as brew their own beers on premise. Veterans in the craft beer business, Chris Lively and Michael LaCharite are working together to produce some amazing beers at the pub like Magin Mike Saison and Space Taxi Belgian Quad. The custom blown glass tap handles are beautiful to look at as well. Baxter Brewing Company is located in the center of Lewiston in the Bates Mill building. They brew delicious seasonal and yearround beers. The tasting room is homey and industrious and always includes friendly faces behind the bar. There are picnic tables and cornhole games in the brewery itself. Baxter tends to keep on a few small batch beers that you can’t get outside of the tasting room. If you’re in Lewiston for the day, this is a staple for a visit. activitymaine.com 11
MAINE BREW GUIDE
Portland
Portland has so many breweries and tasting rooms it has it’s own place as the middle. There are many breweries and brewpubs in Portland that provide a wide variety of environments and craft beers, and a visit to any one supports the local community. The tasting rooms I want to highlight this time are Allagash Brewing Company, Rising Tide Brewing Company, and the NEW Oxbow Brewing Company Portland tasting room. Allagash Brewing Company is Maine’s 2nd largest brewing company and the 47th largest craft brewery in the country according to data from the Brewer’s Association. The past two years was spent expanding the brewery and tasting room to what it is today: a fantastic craft beer experience. Just by walking into the tasting room you can have a free flight of 4 of their beers on tap. However, I suggest visiting their website and scheduling a tour of their vast and breathtaking brewery - THEN doing a flight of beers. The tasting room is also a wonderful opportunity to buy some rare Allagash beers that aren’t distributed outside of Maine, as well as their merchandise. Rising Tide Brewing Company has a tasting room with a custom concrete bar with wood accents underneath, and a polished floor containing smooth bits of recycled glass. The room is large and can house lots of thirsty people, also spilling out (weather permitting) to an outside seating area. You can find Rising Tide’s year-round beers pouring, as well as all of their seasonals. On the weekends they have a food truck parked outside of the brewery so you can enjoy local grub while drinking their beers. The tasting room staff always has a smile on their face and are full of energy. This is a great place to take a few friends to and try a bunch of Rising Tide beers, especially in the summer time. Oxbow Brewing Company has - until recently - been exclusively located in the rural town of Newcastle, Maine. In November, they opened a second tasting room on the East End in Portland. Their new tasting room has barrels forblending and aging the saisons and sours they brew. Their tasting room includes some on-tap selections and bottle pours of some of the harder to get Oxbow beers. The huge space is inside of a warehouse, and includes picnic tables with wood accents all over the place. The Oxbow crew will have no problem explaining their brewing and blending process they do for their craft beers with a space like this.
Southern Maine
Like Northern Maine, I will over-generalize and call my “Southern” selections those in York County - Maine’s southernmost county. There has been a recent boom of new breweries and beer spots popping up in York County as well as some awesome ones that have been there already. The first brewery I want to mention is Barreled Souls Brewing Company, which opened this summer. They are located off of Route 1 in Saco. They are located in the basement of an office building, and is furnished with chairs, benches and other 12 winter | spring 2014-2015
furniture made from reclaimed wood and staves of barrels. They use a special Burton Union System to barrel ferment all of their beers. With a large TV to watch the game on Sunday, this place is fun to have a flight of craft brew. Tributary Brewing Company is located in Kittery, Maine and was started by brewing legend Tod Mott (creator of worldrenowned Kate the Great at the Portsmouth Brewery). This is an easy place to hit up if you’re visiting the beautiful city of Kittery. The tasting room is painted blue and has picnic tables and a sizeable bar area. The beers are tasty, and many are not available anywhere but in the tasting room. The next southern tasting room that I love hanging out in is not a tasting room, it’s a bar & café called Elements : Books, Coffee, Beer. It’s a combination of a relaxing café environment where you can read a book and a comfortable bar where you can enjoy a pint or bottle of local beer. The sign from the street as well as all the signs inside are designed to look like the periodic table. The bar/ café also serves coffee if beer isn’t your first beverage of choice. Benjamin Moore is photographer and martial artist. He has been blogging about craft beer for 4 years for Southern Maine. The Run of the Mill and The Liberal Cup bring the comfortable, inviting atmosphere of English style pubs to Maine. Housed by a sprawling mill building in Saco, ‘The Mill’ offers ample indoor and (seasonal) outdoor seating with views overlooking the Saco River and up-and-coming mill district. Smaller and more intimate than its southern counterpart, ‘The Cup’ is located in the heart of Hallowell- a vibrant, historic town. Both feature hand crafted beer and home-style food surrounded by distinctive architecture and old world charm in rustic brick & mortar structures. Our pub style menus feature an array of lighter fare, hearty entrees and creative specials made from fresh, local ingredients. To wash it all down, we use the finest malts and hops to create 25 varieties of craft beer which flow directly from our in-house breweries. Eat, Drink, Relax & Enjoy!
Photo: Michael Leonard
LiveME® is a Maine lifestyle brand based in Scarborough. It began in 2009 when the founder Chris Avantaggio designed a t-shirt that he and his friends could wear to the Maine Brewers Festival. After a friend literally sold one off his back, he decided to make some more to sell around town and expanded into many other designs that celebrate Maine and it’s activities. LiveME® offers a wide variety of items for the Maine beer drinker such as BeerME pint glasses, bottle openers, koozies, t-shirts, hats,
MAINE BREW GUIDE
hoodies and more. You can explore their entire line of goods online at www.livememaine.com Baxter Brewing Co. is a Maine-based craft brewery which is the first of its kind in New England to can all of its beer. Located in Bates Mill in the up-and-coming community of Lewiston/ Auburn, ME, Baxter Brewing Co. currently distributes its flavorful and unique craft beers in ME, MA, NH & VT, CT, & RI both in six-pack and on draught.
ADVENTURE BEGINS WHEN YOUR CANS ARE PACKED.
BAXTERBREWING.COM | FACEBOOK.COM/BAXTERBREWING | @BAXTERBREWING activitymaine.com 13