Shipyard Brewing‘s Imperial Porter won 2nd place at the 10th West Coast Beer Fest earlier this month.

A Blog About Beer has a report about the new Maine Beer Trail and some suggestions (be more complete, give participants a fun incentive to make the rounds) on how to improve it.

While I think the Maine Beer Trail is a great idea (I’ve been calling for its creation forever), and a tourist-driven, Maine-brewing-community-collaborative is exactly what the state needs, the initial version of the Trail the Guild has rolled out leaves a little something to be desired.

A Blog About Beer has the scoop on Gargamel, the new a Belgian Style sour ale that Allagash is releasing on Thursday morning.

BeerBloggers.com has a report on the vertical tasting of Ola Dubh held last night at Novare Res.

The differences among these beers are subtle but noticeable. The 12 tasted the most like a traditional stout. The 18 showed a bit of tar and was lovely. The 30 was my favorite, very smooth…The 40 was round and mellow, and offered more of a beer-whiskey synthesis on the palate.

Blog About Beer has a report on the new IPA from Peak Organic. “Portland’s own Peak Organic Brewing has released their own IPA and I have to say, it’s the single best Peak beer yet! After trying a pint myself at $3 Dewey’s a few days ago”.

In a post earlier this month, Beer Locavore drew attention to the recent spate of IPA launches. IPAs from Gritty’s Sebago and Peak are now all available.

Blog About Beer was mentioned in Mutineer Magazine‘s short list of brew blog must reads.

In anticipation of St. Patrick’s Day, The Maine Switch has published a primer on drinking Guinness.

Being that it’s a glass full of black, it has to be bitter with an aftertaste that hangs on for days. No thanks, was always my answer. I’d rather settle for a Coors Light than go down that road.

But since we’re closing in on that annual celebration of St. Patrick, the day when the Guinness flows non-stop at places like Ri Ra, Bull Feeney’s and Brian Boru, I figured it was high time I actually gave the old Irish favorite a try.

Beer Examiner has done a statistical survey to answer the question “Where is Beertown, USA?” Their measure is the number of breweries per capita. Portland is now #7 on the list (1 brewery for every 15,706 people) but they continue to update it as new data comes in. (via Portland Psst!).

There’s a “brew review” in the latest issue of the USM Free Press extolling the virtues of Belgian witbiers.

Shipyard’s Pumpkinhead Ale won a silver award at the 2008 European Beer Star competition in Nuremberg, Germany. (via Original Portland)

Beer Locavore has posted his thoughts on the new Barleywine from Shipyard and the Espresso Amber Ale from Peak Organic.

Allagash Brewing made it into a list of the nation’s top microbreweries (via Blog About Beer). Ray Daniels of the Brewers Association and Julie Bradford of All About Beer magazine compiled the list for an article in Men’s Health magazine.

Blog About Beer has a report on the Trappist Beer Tasting taking place at Novare Res next week. A total of 21 beers from all 7 Trappist breweries, plus 3 from De Struisse as beer dessert, will be part of the tasting.

According to a post from Blog About Beer, Shipyard is set to release a “Barleywine-style brew”. The new beer will be appearing on shelves at the start of November.

Allagash has collaborated with the famed brewers from De Struise to produce a beer they’re calling Fedeltá. Homebrew Chef has a great photographic record of the collaboration in action. Fedeltá will be available this Fall at select locations and only in draft form.