Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

What Ales You: Let Beer Trail lead you to new brews

By Tom Atwell tatwell@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

The Maine Beer Trail has just been updated, which has two major benefits. First, the new trail includes all the latest breweries and a couple that haven't quite made it yet.

Second, you can pick up some freebies just by going to places that make beer. How much better can it get than that?

Pamphlets describing the Beer Trail are available at all members of the trail, at Maine visitor centers and online at www.mainebrewersguild.org and www.visitmaine.com/restaurants/beer_beverage.

The best gimmick, though, is the beer pass. All you have to do is visit five breweries on the list and have an employee at each spot initial and date the pass. Then you can send it in and get a free baseball hat from one of the Maine breweries.

Visit 10, and you get a free T-shirt. Be a real beer warrior and visit all 25, and you get a prize pack of Maine beer gear.

"It is having an immediate impact," said Tami Kennedy of the Brewers Guild. "It has just come out at the pubs, not at the visitor centers yet, and I have received just under a dozen passes" from people who had visited five breweries and qualified for a baseball cap.

The pamphlet is designed to attract people to the breweries, Kennedy said, and perhaps get people to travel a bit farther to visit a brewery they might not have gone to otherwise.

Don Chandler of Oak Pond Brewing Co. in Skowhegan, who became a member of the Beer Trail just before the update, has noticed the effect.

"It's only been on six weeks or so," Chandler said, "but we have had people stop in who had the Beer Trail pamphlet in hand, so it has certainly shown to have brought us some traffic."

Chandler said that with the pamphlet coming out after the height of the summer tourist season, the effect is not going to be as great as it might have been.

However, his business does get a boost Friday afternoons and early Saturday mornings when skiers head to the mountains, so it should have some benefit for the winter.

Kennedy said that in a couple of cases, the Maine Beer Trail pamphlet is actually ahead of the actual Maine Beer Trail.

Construction for Baxter Brewing Co. at the former Bates Manufacturing complex in Lewiston is taking longer than anticipated, and the goal of opening this month is not going to be reached.

And Rising Tide Brewing Co. in Portland, which reported on Facebook on Monday that it had just received its labels for Ishmael, its first beer, is not yet offering tours.

"So if the Beer Trail pamphlet says to call ahead, people should really do so," Kennedy said.

The only surprise for me on the updated trail was the addition of Penobscot Bay Brewery in Winterport, which I had not heard of. It is an addition to the Winterport Winery and is something else I am longing to try.

Something I did try from a company on the Beer Trail was Andrew's Pale Ale, the flagship of Andrew's Brewing Co. in Lincolnville. It was on tap at the Great Lost Bear Monday night, and while I had drunk it before, it had been years. It was a light amber color with a clean white head. The aroma was mild, as was the flavor, much milder than I would expect for an English pale ale and a little bit sweeter. But it was a pleasant, easy-drinking beer.

Tom Atwell can be contacted at 791-6362 or at:

tatwell@pressherald.com