Category: Beer

The release date for Allagash Vrienden isn’t officially scheduled until Tuesday, but you can try this new beer tonight at The Great Lost Bear starting at 5 pm. Vrienden was the result of a collaboration between Allagash and New Belgium Brewing. It’s brewed with dandelions and elderberry and described by Allagash as “tart, fruity, earthy”.

Mainebiz reports that Allagash Brewing is “investing about $1 million to expand its production facility by 50% and is planning to hire two or three new beer makers by the end of the year.”

“We’re growing significantly. We’re planning to be up 40% this over last year,” Dee Dee Germain, the company’s spokeswoman, says. “The new facility should get us a couple more years at 40% growth.”

Today’s What Ales You column in the Press Herald reports on some newly released beers including the Pamola Xtra from Baxter Brewing,

The beer — which is 4.9 percent alcohol — has a lot of body, especially for a pale ale. It just felt substantial in the mouth, and had some malt sweetness followed by a slight hop bite at the back end. All three people who tasted this liked it a lot.

Brews and Books has published a review of Pamola Xtra Pale Ale, a new beer from Maine’s newest brewery, Baxter Brewing in Lewiston.

If you’re looking for a hop bomb or a malty mouthful of a beer to impress your beer geek friends, Pamola ain’t it. Even in Maine’s landscape of mild English-influenced ales, it’s a notably subtle brew. Coming into the beer looking for big APA, you might very well be disappointed. If you’re looking for a fridge staple, however, or the fabled “gateway beer” to get non-drinkers in the craft beer camp, you’re in luck. The Pamola Xtra is crisp, light, dangerously quaffable, and tastes wicked good.

Hometown favorites The Great Lost Bear and Novare Res made it onto the 2011 Draft magazine list of the 100 Best Beer Bars in the America. Ebeneezer’s in Lovell, Maine was also included in the list. (via the Rabelais Facebook Wall)

Josh Christie has published the next installment in his series on The Beer of Maine. In part 7 he writes about Shipyard Brewing,

Among all the breweries and brew pubs in Maine, Shipyard is the big momma. Alan Pugsley’s brewhaus isn’t just the biggest in Maine, though it easily passes that test at over 80,000 barrels of beer a year. Shipyard’s massive production scale positions them as the 21st largest craft beer company in the US, ahead of well-known brands like Rogue, Victory and Long Trail. All this from an Englishman with a love for Ringwood yeast.

According to the What Ales You column in today’s Press Herald, Baxter Brewing expects to starts shipping beer by the end of this month.

The Stowaway IPA is a great example of a West Coast IPA. It has an aggressive hoppy aroma at the start and a strong flavor, but you still can taste the malt in the background. The Stowaway, at 6.9 percent alcohol, is a beer you would want to take some time with.

Gritty’s is spending approximately $100,ooo to redesign their packaging. Competition from the growing number of Maine brewers was part of their motivation,

With Gritty’s feeling the pressure of more competitors, it must also tend to the discerning tastes of its demographic. “We’re all in the business of providing something new for customers,” Pfeffer says, and brewers must keep up by creating new ales or packaging. “We’re in the entertainment business.”