Blaze Brewing Company announced Thursday it is closing its Biddeford tasting room as it prepares to open a new location on Big Moose Mountain in Greenville.
Blaze’s five-year-old Pearl Street tasting room, set along the Saco River on the outskirts of downtown Biddeford, will close after service Sunday night. In a detailed, extensive Facebook post, owner Matt Haskell explained that Blaze is shutting down the tasting room for at least the next three months “and very likely for good,” because Maine liquor license laws require him to relinquish one of his licenses before opening their new location in Greenville this month.
Haskell has multiple Blaze restaurants and tasting rooms in locations including Bangor, Bar Harbor and Blue Hill. Blaze will operate out of a temporary location on Big Moose Mountain this winter while its permanent site is being built out.
Blaze’s 15-barrel brewery at the Biddeford venue will continue to brew beer until later this summer, when the company plans to move the production operation to Doles Orchard in Limington. Haskell has been in negotiations to buy the orchard and expects to close the deal in February.
Blaze is buying Doles from the Bunting family, which has operated the roughly 100-acre orchard for more than 30 years. Haskell’s post says the orchard will be open for the full 2025 season starting in late spring, with pick-your-own cherries, peaches, apples, plums, raspberries and blueberries, noting that they may also bring back strawberries.
Blaze has applied for a federal winery license, and the company plans to launch Dole’s Maine Hard Cider Company later this year.
Haskell also noted that Blaze is now part-owner of Black Bear Brewing in Orono. Closed since May, the venue will reopen in mid-February as a brewpub, full-service restaurant and live music space, Haskell said. Blaze is now brewing Black Bear beer in Biddeford.
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