Category: Beer

The Drinking Classes has posted an article on the Portland beer industry and specifically on Bissell Brothers and their Swish double IPA.

Served in a stemless wine glass printed on both sides with Bissell Brothers’s instantly recognizable triple-B logo, Swish poured out a dense, cloudy orange.  Its appearance is right in line with the so-called New England IPA style, a label for the fast-growing collection of unfiltered IPAs coming out of Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont.  A thick, bright white foam slowly faded before my eyes.  Swish looks a lot like The Substance, only darker, and more brooding.

There’s a front page article in today’s Maine Sunday Telegram about the increasing vitality and contribution to the bottom line of brewery tasting rooms.

An explosion of microbreweries in Portland – and throughout Maine – is being fueled by a 2011 state law that allowed beer-makers to sell beer right at their breweries, in “samples” that can range from 4 to 16 ounces or more. The law gave birth to the modern craft brewery tasting room, an innovation that has pumped up revenues, expanded the market and attracted even more would-be brewers into the industry.

Baxter Brewing’s Pamola Xtra Pale Ale (#41), and both Peeper (#7) and Mo (#2) from Maine Beer Company were rated some of the best Pale Ale’s on the market in Paste magazine’s blind tasting.

The verdict: Whoever formulates hop-forward beer recipes at Maine Beer Co. just knows how to push our buttons, but we’re glad to at least note that beer geeks everywhere seem to agree with us. MO is the slightly bigger brother of Peeper, and it’s also the more assertive and unforgettable beer by the same margin…It ends with the immaculately clean crispness we’ve come to expect from MBC. There’s no brewery in 2016 using American hops so well, so consistently.

The Press Herald reports that the City has decided to allow snack sales at breweries and may create a separate $500 city license to for breweries, distilleries and wineries that operate in Portland.

City officials this week reversed a previous determination that breweries located in industrial zones could not sell prepackaged snacks in their tasting rooms.

The move will allow Allagash Brewing Co. to begin selling snacks from Portland Fruit and Nut Co., Coastal Maine Popcorn and Maine Vintage Kitchen as soon as next week. The request to sell snacks to beer tourists was made so the brewery can help temper the effects of alcohol on customers who might spend an afternoon visiting the half-dozen breweries on Industrial Way.

The Portland Phoenix has published an article on the remarkable growth and success of Bissell Brothers since their launch 2 years ago,

So what’s the endgame? Is the new location the first stepping stone towards an even larger-scale brewery? Cool your jets. Both brothers made it clear that their first priority is to meet demand here at home. From the beginning the goal has been to focus on Portland first, and then push out into Maine. They’ve done the latter admirably, but even with the expansion and the increased capacity, they’re still a comparatively small brewery. Peter explains, “We certainly want to grow, but of equal value to us is the social currency of always being able to control our product, to be able to touch where it goes and the people it goes to, and do our best to be a hometown beer that people here are excited to drink.”

and the Press Herald has a report on Fore River Brewing, which recently  opened their doors in South Portland.

Standing in the brewery with LeGassey and Hansen, the only word to describe the new tasting room is “gorgeous.” Mainly the work of Alex Anastasoff, the room is industrial-rustic-chic: all warm woods and concrete floors. Wood beams abound. A wood stove burns next to a brick chimney. Handcrafted light fixtures blink on the walls. Custom wood boards line the ceiling. I know I write about beer, but the tasting room alone is worth the visit.

The Press Herald reports that Oxbow Brewing is seeking to raise $850,000 in equity investment funds, presumably to expand their business.

Oxbow filed a Notice of Exempt Offering of Securities form, signaling that it intends to solicit investments in exchange for shares in the company. The brewer indicated that it would accept amounts as little as $5,000 per investor, and that it expected the offering period to last more than a year.

Rising Tide  is holding a bottle release on January 15th for Mockingfish, their tequila barrel-aged Gose.

Draft magazine included Mockingfish  in their list of the Top 25 Beers of 2015.

The release begins at noon and there will be a 12-bottle limit.

Confirming what those of us who live already knew, SmartAsset has declared Portland the Best City for Beer Drinkers.

The nation’s top beer city is Portland, Maine. The city is home to 17 microbreweries, one for every 4,000 residents – the highest per capita microbrewery rate of any U.S. city. Perhaps the most well-known of Portland’s breweries is Allagash Brewing Company, which reintroduced Belgian style brews to America in the mid-90s.

SmartAsset based the rankings on the number and per capita ratio of breweries, bars and brewpubs, the average Yelp scores for the breweries, and the average price for a pint of domestic beer.

Today’s Press Herald reports on changes in wholesale beer can supply market that are impacting Maine brewers.

All of that has created a growing demand for craft beers in 16-ounce cans and strained the segment’s primary supplier, Pennsylvania-based Crown Holdings. Normally, beer can suppliers deliver a minimum order of 155,000 cans – the payload of a conventional 18-wheeler. But Crown, a metal can manufacturer, developed a niche business catering to those small brewers who only needed half-truck orders.

A few months ago, word started trickling out that Crown would no longer offer half-truck orders, and was dropping some customers entirely – even if they ordered full truckloads.