Category: Beer

Justin Velgos, Mark Woollard and Billy Flaherty have produced an unofficial Uprising iPhone app (website, twitter) for people who have taken on the challenge of drinking their way through The Uprising beer list at Novare Res.

You can download it from the Apple App Store.

For more info on The Uprising and Novare Res’s Chalice Room see Active Beer Geek.

A  pair of Portland brewery updates:

• New England Brew News reports that Peak Organic is the first non-GMO certified brewery.
• BDC Wire has published a article on the growing popularity of Bissell Brothers.

Today’s What Ales You column writes about Foundation Brewing and their launch last week of their first two beers: Blaze and Eddy.

Earlier this week the Bangor Daily News published an article about the Maine Beer Mavens.

“The stereotype is that a woman is going to go for a glass of wine and guys go for beer,” said Christie Mahaffey, a member of Maine Beer Mavens, gathering in a new brewery for their monthly meetup.

One part girl’s night out, one part beer appreciation club, the Maine Beer Mavens, together since 2012, are putting a new swirl on the craft beer scene.

Allagash has announced that they’ll be releasing the 2014 production run of Allagash Avancé at the brewery this Friday morning. There will be a 2 bottle purchase limit.

Allagash Avance is a product of patience. Aged with strawberries for three years in bourbon barrels, this strong, sour ale has the aroma of strawberry preserves and toasted oak. The oak and berries continue their presence in flavor, and compliment the sweet, warm finish. 10.8% ABV.

What’s Brewing in Maine has posted an article about Austin Street Brewery.

Maine magazine has published a feature article about Allagash Brewing and its founder Rob Tod.

But, while walking back through the Allagash brewery past a door that reads: “Innovation: Continually pushing the limits of beer and ourselves,” I can’t help but feel that some magic has happened here that, if not found in the chili, must be hiding in that little sugar-hut-looking koelschip building built off the back of the brewery. There, shrouded in clouds of sweaty steam and fed by locally sourced and totally free yeast that comes through church-like stained glass windows near the ceiling, the brown, syrupy wort will be fermented and aged for another two years before being sold in little batches that usually sell out in a couple of days.

I had the pleasure of joining in on the Maine Brew Bus new breweries tour this past weekend. We visited Banded Horn in Biddeford, followed by Austin Street, Bissell Brothers and Foundation Brewing on Industrial Way in Portland. It was quite interesting to see how incredibly different the personalities of the breweries were.

Bissell Brothers will soon be canning The Substance, Foundation is about a week or two away from launching their first beer and Austin Street still seems a few months out from selling their beer.

Authors Joshua Bernstein and Kate Cone were special guests on the tour. Berstein has just published The Complete Beer Course and Cone is working to update her 1997 book What’s Brewing in New England.

Local beer writers Carla Companion (aka author of the Beer Babe) and Tom Atwell also joined in. Companion has posted a pair of reports on Austin Street and Bissell Brothers. Presumably the tour will figure into Atwell’s upcoming What Ales you column in this Thursday’s Press Herald.

For some photos check the PFM Instagram page.

 

If My Coaster Could Talk reports that state authorities have reversed their policy of enforcing the 1937 law that prevents the display of a beer’s alcohol by volume.

The back pedaling started on Tuesday when the Operations Director of the Maine Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages & Lottery announced that under an updated enforcement policy bars, pubs and tasting rooms could begin displaying ABVs (alcohol by volume) in menus and on signage at the bar or in the tasting room. The information is allowed to be displayed as long as it’s not embellished. Basically the information can be displayed as it always was as basic information about the product for sale.

The Press Herald has published an update on the recent enforcement by regulators of a 1937 law which bans bars from displaying the alcohol percentage of the beer they serve.

“(The law is) absolutely asinine,” said Greg Norton, whose store on Forest Avenue in Portland, the Bier Cellar, specializes in small-batch beer and wine. “It’s an important piece of knowledge for a customer, to plan how many beers they’re going to have that night.”

It’s unclear why the restriction was added to state law, which included rules for Maine’s post-Prohibition liquor industry with arcane terms such as “high test,” “high proof” and “pre-war strength.” Legislative documents from the time suggest it was aimed at advertisements that sold beer based solely on its strength.