May 2019 | view full story as a .pdf

Brand new brews, tasting rooms, and returns…What’s on tap for Maine’s favorite season?

By Olivia Gunn Kotsishevskaya

If you’re like me, you follow craft beer as closely as you follow Game of Thrones. It’s fun to see dragons, but as soon as someone brings up So-and-so Stark you’re tapped out. But if you’re the only person still bringing up Robb at the barbecue when everyone’s talking Sansa, well…you get the idea. (Spoiler: Robb Stark’s dead.)

The same goes for Maine’s game of beers. To prep for the season, I put down the stout and stopped by a few breweries to get a taste of what’s new.

Paved With Hops

Portland’s Industrial Way is in high gear preparing for the influx of thirsty seekers making their summer pilgrimage to the beer mecca.

The first stop is Foundation Brewing, where John Bonney and his team–wife Tina and partners Joel and Christie Mahaffey–have concocted two brand new summer quenchers: The Weekender and Mango’s My Jam.

“Mango’s My Jam is the newest of our fruit beers—we’ve done raspberry, peach, and, guava—mango’s just been released,” Bonney says as he carries out the samples, each varying in opacity. The first sip shocks with a lip pucker, but I easily find the mango and smile. “That’s a bit sour, huh?”

“We’ll actually pre-sour the beer before we ferment it. We use lactobacillus, which is in yogurt, and that gives it a crisp, bright, almost lemony tartness. Then we ferment it out, and you can add fruit at different points. We typically add fruit during fermentation, and in this case, it was a bunch of mango.”

As it’s just 5.3% ABV, I wouldn’t hesitate to have a second on a July afternoon. While some sour beers can land heavily in my stomach, this one feels light, and Bonney promises variations through the summer. “We’re actually going to do a fruit-punch version, so think of Hi-C. It’s going to be a blend of cherries, cranberries, peaches, and tangerine. It’ll come out in May.”

Steps away, at 100 Industrial Way, Allagash Brewing Company is launching their newest farmhouse ale, Darling Ruby. Taking me to the VIP tasting room, Brett Willis, marketing specialist, steps behind a small bar and cracks open a refrigerator. “This is a fun one when you’re talking about personal flavor, and it’s one of our new beers that just came off the pilot system,” Willis says. It’s the brainchild of industry specialist Lindsay Bohanske. “It’s a farmhouse-style ale with grapefruit juice and zest. The biggest task was juicing and getting the zest from two thousand pounds of grapefruit. Totally manual. You’re not gonna get a huge, ‘Woah! That’s grapefruit juice!’ It’s fruity, but it’s not necessarily grapefruit. Basically, we add the grapefruit before fermentation. It’s food for the yeast.” “I love how light and citrusy grisettes are, while still having a ton of flavor,” Bohanske says. “I felt like the grapefruit juice and zest would be perfect to tie in.”

It’s nice, it’s easy to drink, but Willis is right—it’s not shocking me with a grapefruit flavor. “Could you actually taste the difference in the beers when you first started?”

He laughs. “I think there was an element of ‘similar-tastingness.’ We do Belgian-style beers, so there are definitely similarities.”

Launched in 1995, Allagash is a chief in the Maine brewing world. Founder Rob Tod is looked at by many greener brewers as something of a King of the North, a guide for the industry. “Our grain comes out of Wisconsin, but we do a lot of local grain,” Willis says. “Rob just made it an initiative in 2017. He said, ‘We’re going to buy a million pounds of local grain per year by 2021.’ We were up to 18,000 pounds per year of local grain in 2017. I think we used like 235,000 last year, and we’re set to use 600,000 this year.”

At Batson River Brewing and Distilling, they have local covered. The Kennebunk brewery grows its own hops just down the road on a Kennebunkport farm. The team aims to “capture the joy of sweet New England summers” with its brews, so on the edge of their first summer in business, head distiller Matt Dyer and head brewer Wade Ritchey chat with me over an Estate Pale at their tasting room overlooking Western Avenue.

“It’s made with 100-percent Maine-grown ingredients. We work with Maine Malt House and Buck Farms for our base malt in this beer. Then we used the hops that Matt started around four years ago and add a little Maine honey,” Ritchey says. “It’s a good summer drinking beer. It’s a lower ABV; it’s soft and refreshing. It’s floral but not overwhelming. That’s generally how I want our beers to drink.”

Good Time Guys

You may not see a new summer brew from Lone Pine this season, but their brand-new tasting room in Gorham makes up for it. When you’ve just opened your second location and have been named the fifth fastest-growing brewery in the country by the Brewers Association, you might be a little preoccupied. In between an inspection and electrical fixes, owners John Paul and Tom Madden sit down to talk shop and hops.

With the crisp crack of a can, I find myself drinking “probably the freshest Oh-J anyone’s had”—pulled off the line that day. “This is a double IPA,” Madden, head brewer, says. “There were a lot of ingredients we had that, through experiments, tasted like orange juice—coming from the yeast we’re using and the esters. We wanted to recreate a mimosa. Vic secret and citrus hops give you that orange pith sensation, and the yeast we use gives you that creaminess.” Big reveal (for me, anyhow): “No fruit is used. There’s no orange in it at all. It’s all through water, hops, and yeast. It’s made to mimic orange flavor. That was the challenge. Can we use the natural brewing ingredients to create that impression?” Success!

Farm To Washington

At Oxbow Brewing Company, brewer Mike Fava says their Grizacca “has a low enough ABV and is light enough, dry enough” for more than one round. “It has a slight limey flavor to it, so its bright notes go well with summer. Not to get into calorie stuff, but it’s swimming around 100 calories per serving. I like to drink beer. I like to have a few, and this is one you can have a few and still be active.” This is the first summer that it’s being offered in cans, making it perfect for your first beach visit this season.

“This is a 5% ABV. Grisettes are traditionally a wheat farmhouse ale,” says Rebecca Thomas, events manager. “With this beer, in particular, we use Belgian wheat but then also Maine-grown spelt, which is a wheat varietal—an ancient grain. We brew this beer with that wheat and the spelt that comes from Aroostook County. The hops we use are called Azacca hops, which come from the Pacific Northwest. So the name “Grizacca” comes from the grisette and the Azacca together.”

Hot Child In The City

At just two years old, Goodfire Brewing is a brew baby among giants like Shipyard, Allagash, and Geary’s. As the team says, “All of our beers are pretty new,” but their provocative “Their, There, They’re,” a pilsner, will be canned for the first time this month.

“Their, There, They’re is a four-percent pilsner,” says head brewer Gordon Jones before he goes into details.

I sip my beer.

“That’s pretty low for a pilsner. It’s a style, and it’s also brewed with spelt, so it’s a dinklepils.” Dinklepils? “Pretty much is what it sounds like.”

Still lost.

Jones, 27, was brought onboard by Goodfire’s owner David Redding. It’s clear he’s a team asset, but getting the specifics of a beer can send him on quite the tangent.

“We’ve got a grammar lesson in that branding, a graphic design lesson in ‘CMYK,’ and a math lesson in ‘Prime and Super Prime,’ says Dylan Ettlinger, distribution manager.

Mom, I drank my homework.

“We’re a little nerdy.”

Beer geeks they are, but they’re the cool kids on Anderson Street this season. 

What’s On Tap in Breweries Across Maine?

Allagash Brewing Company:
Darling Ruby, Farmhouse-style Ale, Saison, 4.5% ABV
River Trip, Belgian-style Session Ale, 4.8% ABV

Austin Street Brewery:
Pactolian Pils, German Pilsner, 5.0% ABV

Battery Steele:
Endless Ride (rotating series), blueberry/lemon Kettle Sour, 3.9% ABV

Baxter Brewing Co.:
Gopher It (June), Triple IPA, 8.8% ABV
Prost Secco, Kettle Sour brewed with Champagne, peaches, and pears,
5.3% ABV
Summer Swelter, Citrus Ale, 4.7% ABV

Foundation:
Mango’s My Jam, sour fruit beer, 5.3% ABV
The Weekender, sessionable IPA, 3.8% ABV

Funky Bow Brewery:
Cover Charge, IPA, 7.5%, Mid-May
High on the Hog (collaboration with Buck’s Naked BBQ, available at both locations), Pale Ale, Mosaic and Citra hops, 5.5% ABV
Percussion Mango (available in June), IPA, Galaxy hops, 7% ABV
OTTOTune (available in June at OTTO locations and select stores), Kolsch, 6% ABV

Goodfire:
Their, There, They’re, Pilsner, 4.2% ABV

Gritty’s:
Meddybemps Blueberry Ale, small batch brew, 5% ABV
Vacationland, Golden Ale, 4.8% ABV

Kennebec River Brewery:
Northern Light, Blonde Ale, 4.5% ABV

Oxbow:
Grizzacca (now available in cans), dry-hopped Farmhouse Ale, 5% ABV

Lone Pine:
Oh-J, Double IPA, 8.2% ABV
Raspberry Sparkler, American Sour Ale, 4.8% ABV

Liquid Riot:
Vinlandic, Norwegian-inspired Barrel-Aged Ale, 8% ABV
Herbie (May 21), Dry-Hopped Session Ale,
4.3% ABV
Nama (May 28), Japanese-inspired Lager, 5.3% ABV

Maine Beer Company:
Post Ride Snack, Session IPA,  4.9%

Mast Landing:
Little Choppy (end of May), Hoppy Session Ale, 4.3% ABV

Rising Tide:
Maine Island Trail Ale (MITA), Hoppy Session Ale, Pale Ale, 4.3% ABV

Sebago Brewing Co.:
Hop Swap IPA, ever-changing hop varieties, 7.2% ABV
Bog So Hard (June), Sour Ale aged in Pinot Noir, and gin barrels on Maine cranberries, 7.1% ABV
Yellow On Friday, classic Pilsner, 5.4% ABV