Parading around in Portland (ME)

Six days into our holiday vacation it was plain to see that the natives were getting restless. The natives are Jacob and Jessica, and after almost a week of presents, sugar, family, sugar and more sugar, it was apparent that Jenn and I needed to split up the kids for a day. Jessica got to go shopping with her mom and Nana, while Jacob and I headed up to Portland, ME. I would have felt like a schmuck if it was JUST a beer trip, so I took Jacob to the Portland Children’s museum. It is one of his favorites, and he liked the freedom of simply exploring on his own.

Next was something for Daddy, heading over to the Great Lost Bear (http://www.greatlostbear.com/) for lunch. This place specializes in serving Maine breweries on tap, has several cask conditioned ales, and has wonderful food. Jacob had the grilled cheese sandwich (what else), and I tried the Thai Peanut chicken soup with a side of jalapeno macaroni and cheese. It was great! For the beer I concentrated on the Maine brews, starting with a sampler of brews from Geary’s. It contained their Hampshire Special Ale on draft and cask, and their Winter Ale, Pale Ale and London Porter on draft. I followed that with Christmas ales from Gritty McDuff’s and Sebago brewing.

After the Great Lost Bear, I decided to take the opportunity to check out a couple of the breweries in the area. Some places have gift shops or tasting rooms, and others are simply warehouses. When you see the breweries this way, you get a feel about the effort that is being made to brew the beer. All of the locations were close by, and I was looking to see if I could get something different. I started off at Casco Bay, and it met my expectations in that it was being brewed basically in a garage by folks that didn’t seem to want to be there. The same was true for Stone Coast brewing, and although the folks were nicer, they were not able to sell me anything, or were not too helpful on how I could obtain some of their beer. Allagash brewing, on the other hand, was considerably different. The folks offered to give me a tour (I declined since Jacob was getting antsy), and talked to me about their different beers. Similar to Brewery Ommegang here in NY, they focus exclusively on Belgian beers. I was able to get their most recent release, Allagash Black, a Belgian stout. I can’t wait to try it. - 4498

"Give my people plenty of beer, good and cheap beer, and you will have no revolution among them." – Queen Victoria