Day Four Report Part 2: Even Lobsters Love Guinness

We made it to Geary's with a bit of time to spare. Curtis was our friendly tour guide. We start the tour with a fresh-as-it-gets glass of Hampshire Special Ale - straight out of the tank!

This tour was by far the best of the trip. We took a leisurely 45 minutes to stroll through the brewing process. Here's bottling. . .

We got to check out the yeast doing it's work in the vats. . .

Curtis gave us every opportunity to ask questions and by the end I felt like I was ready to tote my own brewing kit home and get started. Really fascinating though was the story of the brewery business. Anyone who's been around a while can tell you the story of craft beer. Back in the 80's it was a sad time for American beer. There wasn't much taste to it. (Couldn't that be said for most stuff in the 80's?) Since prohibition, when there used to be breweries on every block in most cities, most never rebounded and instead we had mega companies like Coors and Budweiser adding as much water as possible to make beer as cheap as possible.

The two entrepreneurs to break the trend were Jim Koch, Sam Adams founder, and D.L. Geary. Both brewer's companies started taking off. Then each made a critical decision. Jim invested in marketing, Geary in really nice brewing equipment.

The rest is history. Sam Adams beer is now shipped all over the country and you're lucky to find Geary's at your specialty liquor store. Both beers I really appreciate, but there's something about Geary's flagship pale ale that is just so crisp and flavorful. It is now my go to beer for bringing to parties.

And now for something completely different. . .

Allagash! A Belgian-style brewery right down the street from Geary's. Starting off with a tasting we were led around the brewery (for the first time in safety goggles) to check out their process. I'm a big fan of wit beers, made with wheat instead of barley and it was nice to have a beer so totally different then the other 60 or so we'd had up until this point. (The list was starting to get mixed up in my head.)

Allagash started making Allagash White, Dubbel, Trippel, but now they even do crazy stuff like Belgian-style Porter. (I'm sure the monks would scoff at this.) They encourage their staff to experiment and when a batch isn't quite right for shipping to stores they'll send out an email to their listserv and have a special edition beer sale for one day. Usually its all gone in a few hours!

After all this drinking we were in need of some food . . . and more beer. We headed into downtown and what is apparently a popular hangout, Gritty McDuff's. Solid pub food, a round of beers, including Scottish Ale, of course and friendly people. A little tipsy, I was dropped off at the Portland office of my non-profit and the rest of the crew sobered up for the drive home.

Yes, all good beers come to an end. With 77 tastings under our belt (perhaps literally now, too) I knew that the journey wasn't over. We had just hit up one small corner of the country, there were more beers to be downed. Along the way, we'd discovered that good beer is about good brewers. Its about place, and pride in one's craftmanship. It's about experimenting and taking risks.

And yes, it's about getting drunk. - Cheers!

Day Four Report Part 1: Must all good beers come to an end?

Our last day of the trip, we nailed out of the ballpark. We started up early, and got some great recommendations from the Quimby House owner. He was an obvious lover of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park and gave me the best route to see the park despite the many winter road closings. His farewell was warm, if not a bit confused sounding: "Thanks for visiting Bar Harbor . . . in the Winter."

We set off on an hour drive through the park. Not all of us had hiking boots, so serious trail blazing was out of the question, but we caught some beach time. I remembered doing star-gazing at this same beach as a kid and trying to swim in the water, which apparently doesn't get above 50 degrees in the winter. I don't even want to imagine what it's like right now.

Still beautiful though. . .

We next started driving back down to Portland, and decided to map out the rest of the day. Should we rush and get more brewery tours in? Hang back maybe hit up a pub or two?

Our Good Beer Guide says you have to call ahead for Geary's tour, so we make some phone calls. I got put on hold for a while for Geary's waiting for, what turned out, the secretary to call a brewer and ask him to come in to do a tour. "How's 3:30 work for you?"

We looked at the clock. We could make it happen . . .

Day Three Report: Mt. Desert Island is reached

Day three was a bit of a missed connections day. Puritanical values still hold sway in New England, or perhaps it's just labor laws, so many places were closed for Sunday. We unsuccessfully attempted a few breweries, but ended up at a homey bar on the waterfront munching on free popcorn and beer that actually cost money for once. . . at 11am.

By the time we made it to Bar Harbor we were thirsty again, so after several failed attempts at closed storefronts, we swung into Geddy's. Geddy's just happens to be the biggest tourist trap restaurant on the island. It also happened to be open.

They also served me the biggest surprise of our trip - a bad beer! Puffin Pale Ale was absolutely disgusting, or should I say tasted like Bud Lite. Well, same thing. The waitress overheard my complaint and kindly brought me a new beer. The beer still remains a mystery. We don't know who the brewer is and I while I do remember seeing Puffin Pale Ale t-shirts at the Kennebunk Brewery, there doesn't seem to be anything on their website indicating they brew the stuff. Perhaps no one's interested in taking credit for this crappy stuff.

Full of beer, we went and bought more beer at the liquor store. Then we spent a good while hanging out at our luxurious Quimby House Inn. I think we were the only folks staying there, if you don't include the crazy cat that liked to hang upside down off the banister.

We soon got tired of drinking and headed over to the Jack Russell's Steak House and Brewery. Their beer was from the Maine Coast Brewing Company and the four beer sampler was so delightful, we decided all to get one. Some beers and apps later, we were ready to crash. This vacation was getting to be hard work, having to remember one beer from the next!

Beer Tour 2010 in Photos

Beer Tour reunion (all are invited) at my place, coming soon . . .

Day Two Report Part 1

Our second day of Beer Tour was a slow meander up the Maine coast. We land first in Kennebunk at the Federal Jack's Brewery at 11am.

Oddly the power went out just before we got there and the staff apologized they wouldn't be able to cook anything. "That's okay: we're just here for the beer!" we replied. So no problem, we got seated and delivered two orders of the sampler. Oddly most of the beer was from Shipyard Brewery. Chris dutifully took notes of all our tastings. Favorites of the group were the Brown Ale and Chamberlain. I loved the taste of the 'Taint Town a British bitter. (Read the story of Taint Town here.) Taint town unfortunately was the only beer not sold in the gift shop; it was only available in the bar.

Next stop was Biddeford-Saco. On an island between the two towns is a charming repurposed industrial complex with the Run of the Mill Public House and Brewery.

This was my favorite brewpub on the trip. A dark interior with rustic wood everywhere, the big windows opened up to the water. The food was amazing. The cooks weren't thrown off by my request for a reuben vegi burger. The beer was cleverly named: Alewife Ale, Bug Lager, Smelt Camp Strong Ale, Impact Pale Ale, and Cassk Kickin IPA. Folks were fans of the Alewife Ale and Tarbox Cream Stout.

Our trick to making friends everywhere was to announce that we were on a beer tour. The staff were all helpful in making suggestions for our next stop and we learned a bit about the politics and economics of breweries in Maine. Apparently the 'cute and local' Shipyard owned a lot of the breweries we were planning on visiting. Whenever a brewery wasn't doing too well Shipyard would buy it up. Or if a brewery grew past it's capacity they'd give their recipe to Shipyard to brew.

Well, there went our quaint little brewery fantasy. Turns out Shipyard owns Seadog, Casco Bay and Kennebunk. (Later in their brewery we'll see Peak Organic boxes in their brewery too.)

After Saco it was just another hour to Portland. . .

Day One Report

Well I've finally taken this book for a spin. Colleen, Adrian, Chris and I have headed up the Eastern Seaboard for Beer Tour. First stop was lovely Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The schedule was tight: we did a tour at Smutty Nose, then Redhook and finished it off at the Portsmouth Brewery.

Smutty Nose has been our favorite so far. A real microbrewery, you could tell these folks really care about their beer. With no interest on taking over the entire market, the owner has turned down offers to pair up with a distributor to go big, favoring having control over his beer and brewing process. They offer unlimited samples before and after the tour.

Next up was Redhook. Redhook it turns out is a bit of a traitor to many craft-beer enthusiasts. Several years back they sold 33% of their company share to Anheuser Busch to pair distribution with them. Now they're one of the top beers in the country, but some think at a sacrifice to their beer. I didn't find it too lacking. For $1 we got a tasting glass and a tour with a old hippie. (And I'm not just being prejudice here. The guy was wearing tie-dye and was a former Berkley resident.) It was very Sam Adams-styled. Quick tour with lots of scripted jokes finished with lots of beer at the end. And this time no only 3 beers a tasting rule. We drank it up!

We ended the night at the Portsmouth Brewery with a flight of eight beers and a free pint courtesy of a coupon from the Smutty Nose Brewery. Desert was a delicious milk stout with a shot of vanilla stoli dropped in . . . mmmmmm.

Day One Count: 17 beers

More reporting to come . . .

Day Two checkin

A quick hello from Sebago Brewery!