Lone Pine Brewing Co. and Allagash Brewing Co. took home two gold medals at the prestigious Great American Beer Festival in Denver this week.
The Portland breweries won top prizes for “world-class beer that accurately exemplifies the specified style, displaying the proper balance of taste, aroma and appearance,” according to the festival’s criteria for gold-medal beers.
Allagash won gold for its signature “White,” a Belgian-style witbier that the brewery describes as the “hue of pale straw,” possessing a “silky, almost pillowy texture.”
Lone Pine received a gold medal for “Cuvee De Funk,” a wood- and barrel-aged sour beer. And the brewery also snagged a silver medal for “Choco Tuesday,” an experimental beer offered at its Gorham tasting room that has aromas of “vanilla bean ice cream, peanut brittle, pizzelle cookies, bakers chocolate, and … coffee bean.”
Founded in 1982, the Great American Beer Festival describes itself as the “premier U.S. beer festival and competition.” Events this year moved online because of the coronavirus pandemic, running from late September through this Saturday, Oct. 17.
Breweries from all over the U.S., from Utah to Georgia, racked up 272 gold, silver and bronze medals this year.
Recent years have also seen awards for Maine at the festival. In 2019, Lone Pine won a bronze with “Chaos Emeralds,” an imperial IPA, and in 2018, Allagash White won another medal, a bronze. There were no Maine winners in 2017, according to the festival website, but in 2016 Allagash won a gold medal for Allagash Tripel, a Belgian-style tripel – a strong, golden pale ale.
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