Two Maine breweries 2016 World Beer Cup award winners:
The May issue of The Bollard includes a breakfast review of Crooners and Cocktails,
I ordered the Chef’s Special Panini of the Day ($14), a warm sandwich of speck (a smoked, cured Italian ham), gruyere cheese, tomato, arugula and raw onion, the bread pressed to deliver a satisfying crunch. The flavors were excellent, though I would have liked something sweet (like a fig jam or fruit purée) as a counterpoint to the salty meat and bitter greens.
a dinner review of Chez Okapi,
Kabata’s Congolese cuisine is minimalist fare, seasoned with restraint. The bone-in, bite-sized pieces of chicken and goat were rubbed with cayenne and other spices, then grilled. Being Americans raised on BBQ, we missed having some sort of dipping sauce, but the meats didn’t really need it. Their innate flavors shone through.
and an article on the growing trend of using fruit as a beer brewing ingredient.
The obsession with hops that accompanied the IPA craze has made it possible for guys to order a pineapple-flavored beer at a crowded bar without a hint of embarrassment. And brewers of the best varieties now eschew fake flavorings in favor of fresh fruits or purées that give their beers a bright character. The improvement in taste has been dramatic.
Portland resident Jack Van Paepeghem is one of just six people in the world to have earned the Advanced Cicerone Certification. The day long exam for the advanced level includes six hours of written questions, four taste panels, and two oral exams.
“It is incredibly exciting to be named as one of the country’s very first Advanced Cicerones,” said Van Paepeghem. I am proud to represent not just Oxbow and The Maine Brew Bus, but Maine’s beer community as a whole.”
The Press Herald has published an article on Lone Pine Brewing,
While Madden was honing his brewing chops, Paul was working in the music industry in Boston, and after college, he accepted a job in the industry in L.A. When Paul visited Maine, he and Madden would meet up for a beer and dream about starting a brewery.
After a few of these meetings, the two friends reached a crossroads; it was time to make this dream a reality or move on with their lives.
The article reports that Lone Pine will be opening their tasting room this Saturday, noon to 8pm.
Great Beer Adventure has posted an interview with Verrill Dana’s Colin Hay about his work as lawyer for breweries,
Law and beer are complicated and goes back to the start of our country. The need for an alcohol lawyer due to the specialized legal needs this highly regulated industry which includes breweries, distilleries, and wineries. Some of the areas regulated include employment, shipping,environmental, as well as federal and state statutes. Colin and his coworkers identify potential problems before they become problems and navigate the 3 Tier System.
For their latest episode the Great Beer Adventure has interviewed the wives of brewers from Fore River, Dirigo and Mast Landing.
Here in Maine the Brewer’s Wife has a lot in common with the Sea Captain’s Wife: many nights are spent home alone or with the kids while the men work late into the night and they provide moral and financial support while the new business blooms into something we beer drinkers take for granted. Surprisingly, there is more to being a brewer’s wife than you think. Listen in to learn what is is like to find all your missing sweaters and scarves wrapped around a fermentor in the bathroom sink and how one woman turned her Coors only drinking husband into a craft brewer.
The City Council voted last night to approve a $500 fee for breweries operating a tasting room in Portland, according to a report in today’s Press Herald.
In a unanimous vote, the council approved the new license requirement as a way to level the regulatory playing field with traditional bars, which pay thousands of dollars in licensing fees to serve a variety of alcohol and food.
Maine Today has launched the 2016 edition of their bracket beer competition, Maine Beer Maddness.
This first round features some big match-ups. Dinner from Maine Beer Company goes against Allagash White — two behemoths in their own right. Super Fresh from Peak Organic meets Peeper Ale from Maine Beer Company, which will be a fun hoppy beer match-up to watch playout.
This Round of 64 will run for five days, giving you the opportunity to try a slew of brews and get the word out about the tournament. Voting ends on March 20 at 8 p.m.
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.