A little more than two weeks ago, while the Washington Wizards were off on the west coast losing three of four critical games on their last significant road trip of the year, I spent a couple of days in Portland, Maine watching some NBDL basketball. This was the second year in a row I've taken a trip to watch D-League ball and as it turned out, Portland may have been the perfect place for me to do so. It gave me the small time atmosphere I was looking for in my five trips down to the sub-NBA level since February 2013.
I've pointed out in this blog last week that my decision to visit Maine (and Springfield, Massachusetts before that), was a cause of some internal strife for me due to my aversion to most things New England. Lobsters, quaintness, the New England Patriots, Boston accents...just not on board with any of that. However, there was a significant ulterior motive to me stopping specifically in Portland: BEER!
Now, if there's a Portland most people associate with craft brewing, it's probably Portland, Oregon. Indeed, most beer enthusiasts consider the west coast Portland to be the cradle of the modern craft brewing industry in the United States. The rise of small brewers started there in the mid-1980s after the state of Oregon passed legislation in 1985 permitting the manufacture and sale of alcohol on the same premises. This was a very important step forward for brewpubs, who were equipped to brew and sell, but not bottle and distribute.
But Portland, Maine, wasn't far behind their left coast namesake in the last couple of decades of the twentieth century. And today the Portland I stopped in at two weeks ago has the highest number of breweries per capita in the United States. A part of this distinction is undoubtedly due to the city's small size. But an internet search for "breweries in Portland Maine" turns up a pretty good sized list. So...basketball and beer? How could I refuse to take advantage of this situation and take a little side quest to explore one of my major passions in life.
So because it's me taking this trip, there's a lot of planning involved. I didn't want to leave my beer adventure to any sort of chance, so I took some time to map out a route that would cover the whole spectrum of the almost 30 year old beer renaissance in the Portland area. Realizing I had only about half a Saturday and most of the day Sunday to sample all I could, I tried to strike a balance between big and small, well known and unknown, and old and new. Like most things in life, my plan yielded some good things, some bad things, some disappointments and some pleasant surprises.
For the record, I picked the largest in town (Shipyard), a pioneer (Gritty McDuff's), some place I'd never heard of (Rising Tide) and a brewery I respected but didn't think I knew enough about (Allagash). Here's what I found, in the order I found it.
Allagash Brewing Company
Generally speaking, there are three beer brewing traditions in the world: Belgian, English and German. Most brewers in the United States brew in either the English (ales fermented and conditioned in warmer temperatures using top fermenting yeast) or German (lagers fermented and conditioned in cooler conditions using bottom fermenting yeast) styles. Most craft breweries brew in the English style; mass market brewers like Miller, Coors (yes, I know those two are one company now) or Anheuser-Busch brew in the German style.
Less popular in this country is the Belgian brewing tradition, which is generally ale-based but produces a sweeter, stronger, often way more complex but less hoppy product than those in the English style. That statement is a too simplified version of the Belgian brewing style but for the purposes of this blog post, I'm declaring it good enough. I know, there are beer geeks among the dozen or so people who read my blog gnashing their teeth over the dumbed down, lambic and other unique Belgian beer styles omitting, description of a great art.
Allagash Brewing Company was founded in 1995 around the Belgian brewing tradition but today they are allowing subtle influences from other traditions or just downright experimenting with American improvements on European brewing flavors in addition to sticking true to its roots. I'd had Allagash beer before I arrived in Portland. Their flagship beer, Allagash White, a witbier or white beer, can be found around D.C. in good beer bars and I'd had a glass of Allagash Black once last fall. But I knew I hadn't explored the breadth and depth of beer they had to offer so I was eager to take a tour (the only tour I took) of their brewery and taste some more of their beer.
I've been on a lot of brewery tours in my time, more than I can count on my fingers and toes, from the very small Cooperstown Brewing Company in upstate New York to the largest single site brewery in the world in Golden, Colorado, so touring a brewery was no new thing for me. But what came across in Allagash's tour was the way they built the business and cared deeply about everything they did throughout the process. I was intrigued by the fact they introduce sugar into the beers at both the brewing and bottling stages and impressed by some of the fermentation times (six days for Allagash White but nine months (!) for their Interlude beer).
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| Allagash White, Saison, Curieux and Odyssey. |
Following the tour we were treated to samples of White, Saison (a good, but not the best, American saison I've tasted), Curieux and Odyssey (a dark wheat aged in oak barrels) beers. All were good but the gem here for me was Curieux, a tripel ale (meaning it is fermented three times) aged in Jim Beam bourbon barrels. I've had beer aged in bourbon barrels before but I've never had one like this. Despite its strength (11% ABV), the beer doesn't taste of alcohol or even that strong. The beer is not that sweet but the notes of wood and all the good things about bourbon come through loud and clear without the alcohol aftertaste that such beers sometimes leave on the palate. It's honestly one of the best beers I've tried for the first time in a while. I now have a bottle ($17.99!) sitting in my fridge waiting for me to open it.
The experience at Allagash was awesome. These guys really care about what they are doing and it shows. The place was packed when we visited and deservedly so. I'd hang out here once in a while myself if I could, although next time I'd make sure someone else drove so I could finish my samples. I gave the remainders of mine to my friend Mike, although rest assured he didn't get any Curieux from me. Two enthusiastic thumbs way up!
Rising Tide Brewing Company
The second stop on my mini brewing tour of Portland was Rising Tide, a place I'd never heard of before but picked out off the internet based on their webpage and what sounded like some good beers. Always dangerous, I know. I made sure we parked our car and checked into our hotel before walking the just less than a mile to Rising Tide's place so I could really sample everything I wanted here.
Unlike Allagash, which is located in a custom built brewery on the edge of Portland, Rising Tide is located in an industrial park made into a sort of strip mall for its thirsty customers. Rather than Allagash's six or so employees, Rising Tide featured only two, dutifully pouring beer for us and the rest of the customers in the place on a mid-Saturday afternoon.
Rising Tide is an English style brewery, so traditional ales were expected and found here but they managed to go off the path a little like Allagash to create some unique brews. The sampling flight at Rising Tide features small tasters of their tap beers. I found the Ishmael copper ale to be solid but unremarkable, not something I would seek out in Portland or elsewhere. I felt the same way about the Daymark American pale ale (despite the interesting addition of local rye) and the Ursa Minor weizen stout, which when I first heard the description of a stout made from wheat really piqued my interest since that sort of inventiveness is really right up my alley.
But Rising Tide really came through for me with the last two beers I tried here. Their Atlantis beer, a black ale, was especially tasty. I generally disapprove of black ales because I think there is a disconnect between what looks like a really flavorful beer and the inevitable letdown I feel from their relative lack of complexity when drinking them. But Rising Tide's base of cherry wood smoked malt in this beer adds a ton of flavor. I'd say it's one of the best, if not the best, black ale I've had. I felt similarly, although nowhere near as strongly, about the Andromeda, a hoppy sweet beer that I found interesting.
I liked my visit to Rising Tide. I think these guys have something going here and I'd without question get some more Atlantis given the opportunity. It helped finding a New York Jets fan behind the bar, especially since I'd worn my Jets shirt deliberately to thumb my nose at the local Patriots fans. It was good to find a sympathetic soul behind the bar while drinking some good beer. Two enthusiastic thumbs up here, too.
Shipyard Brewing Company
After an hour or so at Rising Tide, it was on to brewery number three, Shipyard Brewing Company, the largest brewery in Portland. I used to love to drink Shipyard beer when I lived in Cooperstown, NY. It was one of the first domestic craft brews I remember being able to get in upstate New York. I especially loved their Old Thumper IPA beer, created from a recipe from the Ringwood Brewery in England, the same area of England that supplied the yeast for my beloved Cooperstown Brewing Company. So I arrived in Portland with a very positive impression of Shipyard and their beer. That changed quickly.
Since their founding in 1994, just one year before Allagash was born, Shipyard has grown. A lot. They have expanded their four of five signature brews into multiple variants and offshoots. They have also acquired other breweries like Sea Dog Brewing Company and have contract brewed for a number of local and regional breweries. We managed to make it into the Shipyard Brewery Store just before 5 p.m. on Saturday and sneaked on to their final tour of the day, a 15 minute or so video followed by a tasting of (seemingly) as much beer as you could drink or stomach, depending on how you view Shipyard's beer.
I've never been much impressed with breweries that use recorded videos to inform you about their beer. I think some of that works if there is someone there in person to reinforce the beer experience in a positive way. I didn't get that at Shipyard. Our "tour guide" who talked us through the beer tasting was less than reassuring. She was extremely enthusiastic, but described their beer using non-beer terminology and didn't display the kind of deep diligent knowledge that I got from Allagash and to a lesser extent, Rising Tide.
The beers we sampled at Shipyard were disappointing. We started with the Shipyard Export, which was described as a Canadian style IPA and which tasted like a sort of junior version of a good IPA; not horrible which in the early 1990s in upstate New York I probably welcomed alongside Old Thumper. But we are not in the early 1990s any more and beer brewing has evolved in this country and standards are higher. We followed the Export two beers later with their Brewer's Brown Ale, a slightly hoppier and really pretty good traditional brown ale. I usually do not care for brown ales primarily due to what I find is a watery finish. This one, if I were ever inclined to drink brown ale regularly, would be towards the top of my list.
But the rest of the beer experience at Shipyard was a bust. We sampled a Sea Dog Sunfish, a grapefruit peach wheat beer that was pretty grapefruit-y, very peachy and about as unappetizing a beer as I have ever had (keep in mind I don't like peaches before you blindly follow me on this). After the first three beers, we were permitted to try as many of the other nine taps as we wanted and I foolishly opted for the Pugsley's Signature Series Smashed Blueberry stout. I don't know who Pugsley was but this beer tasted like it was a dry stout with some IHOP blueberry syrup mixed into it. Not appealing at all. And while I acknowledged earlier I don't like peaches, I love blueberries and stout (hell, I love IHOP blueberry syrup) but I would not drink this beer again.
But the real measure of Shipyard's worth for me came in their Double ESB, a double hopped Old Thumper beer aged in bourbon barrels, much like Allagash's Curieux beer that I found so excellent just hours before. Unlike the Curieux, though, Shipyard's similar beer was excessively sweet, overly bourbon-y and it stank of and burned like alcohol. The difference between the two similar beers was astounding. It didn't help Shipyard's case that they talked this beer up to us. I think my trip to Shipyard was quite unfortunate; I left with a negative opinion of this brewery, a complete 180 from when I walked in. Two thumbs down here, I'm afraid.
Gritty McDuff's
In the late 1980s, right after I turned 21, my dad gave me a pocket guide to beer as a way to introduce me to what was becoming a burgeoning craft brewing movement in the United States that started to bring this country up to an equal footing with the rest of the world. That little book was my guide to buying beers foreign and domestic in the beer shops around my apartment in Ann Arbor and I read the pages over and over (keep in mind this was before the internet). I remember the Maine section of that book contained two breweries that served as leaders in the young American brewing movement. One of these was Geary's, a brewery founded in 1986 and still brewing today. The other was the brewpub Gritty McDuff's, founded in 1988. I knew I couldn't leave without stopping in for a couple of pints at the original Gritty's in downtown Portland.
Let me say this about Gritty McDuff's before I describe the beer I had there: I have imagined going to this place for 25 years and over that time the place has acquired a sort of mythology surrounding it in my head. I imagined a dark, dank (in a good way and yes, there is a good sort of dank), historic establishment with a proud brewing tradition and excellent beers that would make you want to stay there all night, a welcoming place to stay on a cold winter's night in Portland. I am sure this romantic vision of Gritty's affected what I am about to write about its beer.
We stopped in at Gritty's for two pints on Saturday night and another couple with brunch on Sunday morning. The beer to me was reminiscent of Shipyard, although that's probably a little bit of a disservice here: good beer for the late 1980s or early 1990s in the United States but less than good by today's standards. I imagine I would have very much enjoyed this beer 25 years ago; today it is competent but that's about it. The place also didn't live up to my imaginings. The bar didn't look old, the decorations in the place looked like St. Patrick's Day had recently come and gone and we sat on the corner of the disproportionately high bar closest to the door to the street on about a 25 degree or maybe colder night. Not warm, not historic, not welcoming. So my experience at Gritty McDuff's didn't match what I wanted and some of that is probably my fault.
I sampled the Original Pub Style, Best Bitter and Black Fly Stout and none were beers I would crave, although I thought the Black Fly was a serviceable dry stout which I would order again if I ever find myself at Gritty's. I also drank their Red Claws Ale at the Maine Red Claws game, which I thought was the best of the four beers from here that I drank. Unfortunately, the Red Claws Ale is not available at the pub. Overall, I think I was set up for failure by my own expectations. One thumbs down and one thumbs sideways here I think.
So that's it. That's the story of my beer trip to Maine. Last year I took in barbeque on my D-League trip. This year it was beer. Both trips produced some culinary losers and some unforgettable experiences. If you are ever in Portland, I suggest you stop by Allagash and Rising Tide. You won't regret it.
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