Lone Pine Brewing Co., which opened a new location in Old Orchard Beach this spring, won a gold medal last week in the prestigious World Beer Cup.

Lone Pine took top honors in the specialty beer category for its Imperial Maple Sunday, a robust imperial brown ale modeled after a sweet and hearty pancake breakfast, featuring a touch of sweetness with maple syrup from Merrifield Farm in Gorham.

More than 2,300 breweries from 51 countries entered the annual global competition, often called “the Olympics of beer.” In all, judges reviewed more than 10,000 beers, with an average of 99 beers in each competition category. Winners were announced at the awards ceremony in Nashville, Tennessee, on May 10.

Lone Pine had won a bronze medal for its beer in the 2019 Great American Beer Festival and a gold and silver in the same competition in 2020. This year’s gold is Lone Pine’s first win in the international showdown.

“We worked really hard to try to perform well on that stage,” said Thomas Madden, Lone Pine’s brewer and co-founder. “It’s definitely an honor to have all the hard work validated in such an exciting way.”

The win comes on the heels of Lone Pine’s launch at the end of April of a beer garden at 32 East Grand Ave. in Old Orchard Beach – its third location, along with Portland and Gorham – in the outdoor space that Definitive Brewing used for a beer garden last season.

The venue has a capacity of about 200 people and is open from noon until 9 p.m. daily. Trevor Gerity, director of hospitality for Lone Pine, has developed a food menu for the garden that includes crab melts, hot dogs, flights of lobster rolls and eventually pizza.

Madden said Lone Pine also plans to open a full indoor bar and tasting room at the site later this season, with seating for about 49, that would be open through the winter.

“The reception has been great so far,” Madden said, noting that the clientele has been mostly locals and area business owners opening for the season. “It’s sort of a little bit of an oasis among all the excitement of Old Orchard.”

BROKEN ARROW CLOSES TO REPLACE CORE STAFFERS

Broken Arrow restaurant and bar in Portland closed unexpectedly last week as it works to replace three key members of the restaurant team.

The chef, chef de cuisine and general manager gave their immediate notice May 9. Owner Lyle Aker and former general manager Jessie Robb both confirm that, but otherwise tell conflicting stories about what happened.

Aker said on Monday that the Congress Street restaurant will open again within a week or two. After the restaurant closed last Wednesday, a sign went up on the door – that’s since been removed – explaining it was “closed due to circumstances beyond our control.”

Aker said he closed Broken Arrow so that he had time to hire a new chef and revamp the menu for spring. A new chef already has been found, he said, although he wasn’t yet ready to name that person.

“They decided not to honor their two weeks’ notice,” Aker said of the team, “so instead of trying to operate at a level we are not accustomed to, we decided we would take a week or two off. It’s not nefarious. The chef decided to make a change, and that’s fine. I respect it.”

But Robb, who had been with the restaurant for much of its existence – Broken Arrow opened in October 2020, in the depths of the pandemic – said that the management team put in their standard notice “but as things developed” were unable to honor the usual time frame. She said that the rest of the staff of roughly 10 bartenders, servers and cooks also immediately quit after hearing details of the situation from the management team, a fact that Aker disputed.

Neither Aker nor Robb was willing to give specifics about the nature of disagreement.

NEW CAJUN DINER AND PUB FOR NORTH DEERING

The owner of a North Deering consignment shop has partnered with Bayou Kitchen on plans to open a diner and pub in a space adjacent to his store this summer.

Samuel Eakin of Cherished Possessions at 64 Auburn St. said his store has entered into a licensing agreement with Bayou Kitchen, the Cajun-themed breakfast and lunch spot on Deering Avenue. The agreement will allow Cherished Possessions to serve Bayou Kitchen food in the 1,800-square-foot space from 6 a.m. until 2 p.m. for breakfast and lunch, while the pub will serve drinks and food from Eakin’s home state of Louisiana from 2-10 p.m.

Eakin expects the new diner and pub to launch by early August.

MAINE FOOD CONVERGENCE HOSTS TALKS

The Maine Food Convergence, an event featuring discussions on how to make the state’s food systems more socially just and resilient in the face of climate change, will hold an online session Thursday.

Angela Okafor, a Nigerian immigrant and director of community engagement for the permanent commission on the status of racial, Indigenous and tribal populations of Maine, is the keynote speaker for the virtual event, which runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The morning session includes talks on how to improve processing methods for local Maine foods, making dairy farming more equitable for migrant workers and implementing food justice for Maine’s incarcerated population.

The afternoon virtual session includes a talk from Northeast Grainshed Alliance Executive Director Hannah Smalls, who will discuss the business plan for her Windham market garden, Soulful Soils, which is supported by the Black Farmer Fund.

The Maine Food Convergence also will host an in-person event May 25 at the YMCA Camp of Maine in Winthrop. This companion event runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and includes talks led by Hilary Robbins of the Maine Food Policy and Advocacy Alliance, and Ben Martens of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.

Tickets for both the virtual and in-person sessions are available for purchase online on a sliding scale depending on need that ranges from free to $230.

CASCO BAY SEAFOOD FESTIVAL IN JUNE

Brunswick is set to host the Casco Bay Seafood Festival next month, a hyper-local seafood event benefitting the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.

The event – scheduled for Sunday, June 4 from 1-4 p.m. in Lemont Hall at 2 Pleasant St. – features seafood samplings, art and presentations from local harvesters, farmers, artists, chefs and thought leaders based in the Casco Bay region.

The festival will include food and product samples from more than 17 local vendors, such as seaweed specialties from Atlantic Sea Farms, lobster banh mi sandwiches from Fisherman’s Net of Brunswick, Good Food Award-winning monkfish stew from Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association and raw Wet Smack oysters on the half shell from Maine Ocean Farms in South Freeport.

Tickets – $15 in advance, $20 at the door, with a $15 add-on for a wine pairing from Brunswick’s Vessel & Vine – can be purchased online.

Staff Writer Peggy Grodinsky contributed to this column.

« Previous

UMaine System grad students say they’re underpaid, look to unionize

Next »

Former pro baseball manager has become prolific restaurateur, now with Westbrook sports bar