When the Market at Pineland Farms in New Gloucester announced it was doing a beer tasting for Goose Island Brewery, I had to drop by.

Goose Island began with a brew pub in 1988, opened a full-fledged brewery in 1995, and is now sold in almost 40 states. The National Distributors employee doing the pouring said Goose Island has been available in Maine for about a year.

Additional Photos

Goose Island’s Matilda is a highly complex beer, somewhat reminiscent of a Oude Geuze style of lambic. Courtesy photo

The six beers available were Honker’s Ale, 312 Urban Wheat Ale, India Pale Ale, Sofie, Matilda and Pere Jacques.

The Honker’s, 312 and IPA were sold in 12-ounce bottles, while the other three Belgian-inspired beers came in 22-ounce bottles with a standard cap. Trying to go from lightest to heaviest, I tasted the Honker’s Ale first — although I found out later that the pourer was telling people to start with the 312.

Honker’s has a lot of flavor despite being only 4.2 percent alcohol, and is a really good American representation of the English-style bitter. It was hoppy, but the hops were well-balanced by a good malt flavor and just a little bit of caramel. It has enough body to be a year-round beer, which it is, but it is a true session beer, so you could drink two or three of them on a hot summer afternoon and be happy.

The 312 was an American witbier, and would have fit the category of white beers that I tasted for last week’s column. This is another low-alcohol beer — also 4.2 percent — dominated by the wheat and pouring a cloudy golden yellow. It is a little bit herbal, but not citrusy as a lot of the white beers last week, and it was just a little bit thin. I liked this beer, but both the Allagash White and the Hoegaarden would blow it away.

The Goose Island website describes the India Pale Ale as English-style, but I found it was English-style with a detour through the West Coast of the United States. It isn’t as hoppy and bitter as many West Coast IPAs, and at 5.9 percent alcohol, it’s lower in alcohol than most of them. But it is hoppier than most of the ones from England. It still has a strong malt background, but the hops definitely dominate.

The three ales in 22-ounce bottles are in what Goose Island calls its vintage collection. The bottles are dated, and the company says they can be aged for up to five years.

I really liked the Sofie ale a lot. Like the 312, it had a cloudy appearance, but there were a lot more things going on. Part of the beer is aged in wine barrels, the National Distributor’s pourer said, when I commented that this beer was wine-like. It is a little sweet but tart at the same time, very clean on the palate, and fairly mild but complex, with a nice viscosity.

It is brewed with wild yeasts, but it does not have the sour Brett-yeast flavor that many wild-yeast beers have.

This is a beer that people are going to either love or hate. While I loved it, other people at the tasting either had other people finish it for them or simply dumped it. I think wine drinkers who are lukewarm about beer would really like this one, although at 6.5 percent alcohol, it is about half as strong as most wines.

Pere Jacques is an American version of a Belgian dubbel, with a great malty flavor and aroma and some dates, figs or other dried fruit along with it. At 8 percent alcohol, this is an absolute sipping beer, very well done.

Matilda, at 7 percent alcohol, was a highly complex beer with some Brett yeast that made me think of an Oude Geuze style of lambic, although the label says it is a Belgian-style strong pale ale.

This is another beer that people are either going to love or hate, and a beer of which about 6 ounces would be enough. 

I left the Market at Pineland Farms with a six-pack of Honker’s, which cost $10.99, simply because it is a really great example of an English-style bitter that people visiting last weekend — when Greater Portland’s population must have tripled — could drink and enjoy without thinking about. 

I also spent $9.79 for a bottle of Sofie. I probably will not keep it for the full five years that Goose Island says is OK, but I will save it for a special occasion. I liked it that much.

IT HAD NOTHING to do with the tasting, but while looking in the cooler at Pineland, I saw a six-pack of Atlantic Brewing Co.’s Bar Harbor Real Ale for $10.99.

I had tasted it on draft an Silly’s a few weeks ago and was impressed by the flavor, so I wanted to compare it to the bottled variety.

Real Ale in bottles is better than I remembered from the days before I was writing this column: rich, smooth and flavorful, but easy drinking. Still, it was not as great as the Real Ale on draft I had at Silly’s.

That being said, with a house full of company, everyone who tried it liked it a lot, and the six-pack disappeared quickly.

Tom Atwell is a freelance writer living in Cape Elizabeth. He can be contacted at 767-2297 or at:

tomatwell@me.com

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