Category: Beer

Lone Pine Gorham Opens Next Week

| Posted in Openings, Beer

Lone Pine Brewing have announced plans to open their new Gorham brewery next week.

April 13th will be the first glance of our new Gorham production facility. A staff meet and greet and, for Saturday only, we will be running personal tours through our entire campus. We will otherwise not offer full tours until later this year.

The tasting room will have 16 drafts pouring, including a showcase of our first barrel-aged sours. Long-term barrel storage is the center-point of our warehouse and Saturday will be our first display of what we have been aging for the past 12 months.

Lone Pine will continue to operate their East Bayside tasting room after the Gorham location opens.

For more on Lone Pine’s new brewery see this article from Mainebiz.

2 Maine Brewers Among Fastest Growing

| Posted in Beer

The Brewers Association released it’s 2nd annual list of the fastest growing craft brewers on Wednesday. Two Maine brewers, Lone Pine and Mast Landing were in the top 50. Lone Pine is #5, Mast Landing is #24.

Representing 27 states across the U.S., these small and independent breweries experienced a median growth of 163 percent with the median size being 1,350 barrels of in-house production in 2018. Breweries on the list range from 50 barrels to more than 40,000, and grew from less than 70,000 barrels collectively in 2017 to more than 170,000 barrels in 2018. As a group, these brewing companies represent approximately 10 percent of total craft growth by volume for the year, and include 13 brewpubs, 35 microbreweries, and two regional craft breweries.

2018 Best Breweries

| Posted in Beer

Hop Culture has included Allagash in a list of the best breweries of 2018.

They might have a larger distribution footprint than the other breweries on this list, but no operation in the world has managed to grow with more grace and integrity than Allagash. Every time I wear one of their shirts, I feel proud to support an organization that in turn supports their employees, their community, and provides an unparalleled taproom experience. Despite being a well-established brewery, Allagash continues to innovate with canned releases hitting the market and an increased distribution of brewery favorite: Coolship Resurgam. There are few breweries we could name that have never made a bad beer. Allagash might be one of them.

Beer Releases at Oxbow & Rising Tide

| Posted in Events, Beer

Two beer releases are taking place this weekend:

  • Rising Tide will tapping 12 barrel-aged beers on Saturday which will include “several never before released projects” including a “spontaneously fermented ale with raspberries”.
  • Oxbow is releasing a pair beers brewed with Maine honey to celebrate the landmark accomplishments of Karl von Frisch to explain the dancing behavior of bees. Both Dance Language beers blonde farmhouse ales brewed with Maine honey. “To showcase the flavors and aromas of different varieties of honey we brewed a single base saison recipe. The DL: Buckwheat Honey is light gold in color with notes of pepper, dried flowers, fresh baked bread, and honey with a medium body finish. While the DL: Blueberry Honey version has notes of  fresh citrus, dark fruit, and honey with a medium body and dry finish.”

Beer: Record Numbers, Allagash White, Early Training

| Posted in Beer

The Press Herald has published an article on how “beer lovers visited Maine breweries in record numbers this summer“,

Perry can’t separate out summer visitors, but the Maine Brewers Guild says June to September is the busiest time for beer tourism (and all tourism) in Maine. In 2010, Allagash welcomed 9,000 visitors. By last year, that number had skyrocketed to 150,000. Some of that growth can be attributed to the brewery’s location. There are now five other breweries in the immediate area, along with one distillery, so it’s a popular place for tourists to come and hit a number of breweries at once.

and an article on “how Allagash White shaped the nation’s beer tastes“,

So what is it about White that makes it stand out? Its soft, cirtusy palate and delicate spicy notes stand out from many other styles, and it’s a welcoming beer for both new and experienced drinkers. Allagash’s rigorous quality control procedures ensure that the beer tastes just as good at a bar in Los Angeles, as it does in a flight in the tasting room in Riverside.

and Dave Geary reminisces about a brewing internship in the UK for an article in The Bollard.

In the early ’80s, I was doing an internship at Belhaven Brewery, near Dunbar, Scotland, an ancient and beautiful place. Belhaven (the name means “beautiful harbor”) is nestled among the rolling barley fields of the East Lothian coast, about 20 miles east of Edinburgh. Established in 1719, Belhaven is Scotland’s oldest working brewery. With abundant local barley, fine water from the brewery well, and access to markets up and down the coast, Belhaven was the perfect place for a brewery three centuries ago, and it still is today.

Allagash Bottle Releases

| Posted in Events, Beer

Allagash is holding a double bottle release on Saturday:

  • Coolship la Vigne, a spontaneously fermented beer made with with freshly pressed St. Croix and Sabrevois grapes from Maine Coast Vineyards in Falmouth, Maine. Allagash describes the beer as ” tart and funky with rounded notes of wine and apricot. The finish is both crisp and dry”.
  • Saison Gratis, “a tart and fruit-forward beer that’s hopped in our coolship and then open fermented”.

There’s a single bottle limit for the La Vigne and a 2 bottle limit for the Saison Gratis. Doors open at 10:30.

3 Brewery Expansion for Freeport

| Posted in Under Construction, Beer

Three new breweries on Route 1 near Maine Beer Company are in various stages of development.

Brad Nadeau who started developing Stars and Stripes Brewing Co. (website, facebook, instagram) late last year has leased space in Freeport at 8 Varney Road where he plans to open a 2,000 sq ft brewery later this Fall. For more info check out this article in The Forecaster.

Mast Landing (website, facebook, instagram, twitter) is working on a project to build a 6,000 sq ft brewery at 475-491 US Route 1. The new space will include a 2,000 sq ft deck. You may remember, Mast Landing’s owners originally planned to open in Freeport before finding their current building in Westbrook, so this is a homecoming of sorts for the brewery.

A third brewery is being considered for a 15,300 sq ft lot at 392 US Route 1. Details are scarce at this point, but plans do call for a 2-story brewery to built on the site.

Stars and Stripes, Mast Landing and the proposed 3rd brewery will all be located near Maine Beer Company, potentially creating a new beer destination in the Portland area.