Category: Beer

Food Republic has published an article on the origins on wild-fermented beers in the US. The article relays details on a seminal trip in 2006 by the owners of 5 American breweries to Cantillon in Belgium: Allagash, Dogfish Head, Russian River, Avery and The Lost Abbey.

[Russian River Brewing owner Vinnie] Cilurzo wasn’t the only brewer inspired on that voyage. In 2008, Allagash Brewing of Portland, Maine, became the first to utilize a coolship, a large pan used for open-air “wild” fermentation. As Allagash brewmaster Jason Perkins recalls, shortly after the trip, “[owner] Rob Todd came in, and basically said, ‘Fuck it, let’s build a coolship. And let’s do it right.’” The brewery had been emulating old-world Belgian brewing techniques for decades, but had never taken on an experiment like this.

The Bangor Daily News has published an article on the Maine Malt House, which supplies malted Maine grown grains to brewers in the state.

Aroostook County is not home to the bustling craft breweries that have sprouted up across Maine, New England and other parts of the country. A brewery and pub that opened in Presque Isle in 2004, Slopes Northern Maine Restaurant and Brewing Company, closed for lack of business not long afterward. But, 10 years later, the Buck brothers are not trying to sell beer locally; they want to produce and sell malts across the state through an integrated farm and malthouse business.

Men’s Journal has included Allagash White, Allagash Coolship Resurgam, Mo from Maine Beer Co. and Bissell Brothers Substance in their 2015 list of the 100 Best Beers in the World.

The Bangor Daily News has published an article on the growth in the Maine beer industry.

New crowds are trekking to hidden places across the state, such as Bigelow Hill in Skowhegan, where chocolate chili stout is paired with wood-fired pizza, and to Marsh Island Brewing Co., which is located in an Orono auto repair shop where wheels are aligned and Downrigger IPA is brewed and bottled under the same roof.

Breweries in Maine are revving up so fast and furiously that Sean Sullivan, executive director of the Maine Brewers’ Guild, is having a hard time keeping up with marketing material.

The Press Herald reports on Geary’s new brewer Ben Rossignol.

When I visit the brewery to talk with Geary and Rossignol there’s a session IPA brewed with Jarrylo hops and American ale yeast on draft at the tasting room. It’s the first beer brewed with American ale yeast since Geary’s opened in 1986. This single-hop IPA has a fruity aroma of pears, bananas and oranges. The flavor is a fruit cocktail mixture that Rossignol says tastes like a “Dole fruit cup.” I agree. And it’s good.

The next experimental beer that will be on tap at the tasting room is a saison brewed with seventy pounds of strawberries from a farm in Limington. A saison? From Geary’s? With strawberries? Yes, yes and yes.

The August/September issue of Celebrator Beer News includes a survey of the Portland beer scene (page 21).

 When many people hear “Portland craft beer,” they immediately think of Portland, Ore. But New England’s Portland also has a great deal to offer. For the first few months of this year, I found myself working on a project in our country’s original Portland during its stormiest winter in years.

The article mentions Geary’s, Allagash, Bissell,  Rising Tide, Foundation, Austin Street, Great Lost Bear, Novare, Bunker, Maine Craft Distilling and many more brewers, brewpubs and restaurants.