Favorite Maine Beverages (Portland, Casco: license plate, yard, car)

[Petertherock]

Moxie is the best thing about Maine!! I love the stuff!! But for beer, I have to stick with Boston's best...Sam Adams! Nothing beats a Sam!

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by Petertherock

Moxie is the best thing about Maine!! I love the stuff!! But for beer, I have to stick with Boston's best...Sam Adams! Nothing beats a Sam!

I'm not a huge fan of Sam Adams ales. They're a bit home brewish tasting to me. They certainly do have a huge variety to choose from though.
Jim Kooch (sp) (pronounced cook) the owner of Sam Adams loved the Penobscot Lager we made at Seadog Brewing Company in Camden. It was the first lager made in Maine and in my unbiased opinion the best! We won the gold medal at the Boston Brewer's Festival with it the first year we entered. Jim Kooch hung around our booth drinking that lager all weekend, he raved about it. The next year what comes out? Sam Adams Lager! I do like his lager! He's right in to brewing and a pretty nice guy!

[Petertherock]

Originally Posted by Maineah

I'm not a huge fan of Sam Adams ales. They're a bit home brewish tasting to me. They certainly do have a huge variety to choose from though.
Jim Kooch (sp) (pronounced cook) the owner of Sam Adams loved the Penobscot Lager we made at Seadog Brewing Company in Camden. It was the first lager made in Maine and in my unbiased opinion the best! We won the gold medal at the Boston Brewer's Festival with it the first year we entered. Jim Kooch hung around our booth drinking that lager all weekend, he raved about it. The next year what comes out? Sam Adams Lager! I do like his lager! He's right in to brewing and a pretty nice guy!

I am not much of an ale drinker myself...now that I am a diabetic I am not much of any kind of beer drinker but sometimes I have get myself a brew and just be careful of my sugar levels for a day or so. So about the only thing I get to enjoy is my diet Moxie. At least the diet moxie still has a great taste!!

[knightjohannes]

Originally Posted by Maineah

Maine beer HAS to be distributed through one of the three distributors in the state. They tack on a handling fee. Even at the breweries they can't sell beer to you directly(legally). It's also why wine is so expensive as opposed to other states. You can't buy wine and beer over the internet in Maine unless it is a club and this limits the amount to like a sixpack or two bottles of wine a month. The yuppies in Southern Maine are trying hard to get the wine law changed. The prices on line are just too good to ignore. It won't do the rest of the state much good though I'm afraid!

Well, there's at least one brewery in Portland (recently opened a new brewhaus next to the old one) that sells it out the door.

Think they're trying to fly under the radar?

I understand from your post that you more than likely understand who this might be, and that you have tons of experience in this area in Maine. Perhaps the laws changed since you left the biz as an owner?

Just wondering.

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by knightjohannes

Well, there's at least one brewery in Portland (recently opened a new brewhaus next to the old one) that sells it out the door.

Think they're trying to fly under the radar?

I understand from your post that you more than likely understand who this might be, and that you have tons of experience in this area in Maine. Perhaps the laws changed since you left the biz as an owner?

Just wondering.

You can have an in house area that sells small amounts like six packs, pints, or what we used to sell ,mini kegs if you are a Brew Pub. You cannot sell full cases of beer or full sized 1/2 barrels (kegs). So no the law hasn't changed. I guess I should have been more specific when I said you can't sell it out the door. Regular breweries that are not brew pubs cannot sell beer at the brewery. We were always getting people asking if they could buy cases or kegs directly from the brewery and we could not accomodate them. They had to go through the distributor for any quantity. I guess you could go into some brew pub retail store and buy all you wanted a six pack at a time, but the price is the same as the grocery store. So if you see people walking out of a brew pub store toting a case box they paid for four six-packs not the case price. People always thought that if they bought beer at the brew pub retail store it was going to be fresher. At one of the brew pubs I worked at all of the beer in six packs we sold at the on premise store was a contract beer made at a larger commercial brewery and we had nothing to do with brewing it at all. There are several beers in the stores that are just contract beers.

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by Maine Writer

I like Sea Dog's Blueberry, Raspberry Wheat and Apricot beers. Peppermint Schnopps in hot chocolate is awesome.

I'll never forget the first time we made the Blue Paw Blueberry Ale at Seadog in Camden. We dumped about 6 flats of fresh blueberries into the mash tun and then the head brewer Dennis and I got in there with our sanitized boots and squished them like we were making wine. We were holding each other up, slipping and sliding all over the place trying to keep from falling down or over the side. What a riot that was. That was the most popular ale we made that year.

[island mermaid]

Originally Posted by Maineah

I'm not a huge fan of Sam Adams ales. They're a bit home brewish tasting to me. They certainly do have a huge variety to choose from though.
Jim Kooch (sp) (pronounced cook) the owner of Sam Adams loved the Penobscot Lager we made at Seadog Brewing Company in Camden. It was the first lager made in Maine and in my unbiased opinion the best! We won the gold medal at the Boston Brewer's Festival with it the first year we entered. Jim Kooch hung around our booth drinking that lager all weekend, he raved about it. The next year what comes out? Sam Adams Lager! I do like his lager! He's right in to brewing and a pretty nice guy!

I've worked in a few bars / restaurants down here. I can always tell when I'm waiting on a fellow New Englander when he orders a "Sam". Then ensues the conversation "So, what part of New England are ya from?" Always nice to run into someone from my neck of the woods.

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by Fort Lauderdale mermaid

I've worked in a few bars / restaurants down here. I can always tell when I'm waiting on a fellow New Englander when he orders a "Sam". Then ensues the conversation "So, what part of New England are ya from?" Always nice to run into someone from my neck of the woods.

It's always nice to run into people from here when you're away. We were in Marathon Key one year and at a bank the teller was from Maine. She had been there for a while and missed Maine. She warned me to stay away from the Florida lobster. She said I would be very disappointed with it. We never bothered trying it.

[Maine Writer]

Do people still attach a license plate from the state their from on their mailbox? They did that when I lived in FL.

[island mermaid]

Originally Posted by Maineah

It's always nice to run into people from here when you're away. We were in Marathon Key one year and at a bank the teller was from Maine. She had been there for a while and missed Maine. She warned me to stay away from the Florida lobster. She said I would be very disappointed with it. We never bothered trying it.

I've tried it.... it's horrible!