Favorite Maine Beverages (Portland, Allagash: luxury, best, dining)

[island mermaid]

Maineah, are you related to "Eben"? ARE you Eben? Ah-ha! We may be on to something here....

[mollysmiles]

Originally Posted by mainesnowflake

Moxie is one of those drinks that you either love it or not. I love it. Another maine favorite of mine is Captain Eli's rootbeer, made by the shipyard brewing company, Yum.
Oh and add a scoop of smiling hill farm vanilla ice cream and Wow, awesome rootbeer float.

oh yum!! you are sooooo right! My kids all had the sweatshirts from Smiling Hill when they were little Great place!

And welcome to the forum mainesnowflake!

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by Zymer

Do you brew professionally now? (Edit: Nevermind, read thru the thread and got the answer.)

I tend to use Nottingham for most of my ales. Everyone who tries them seems to like them, I've turned a number of BudMillerCoors drinkers who would never have dreamed of drinking *real* beer (and even a few non-beer drinkers who'd only ever tried BudMillerCoors, didn't like it and thought all beer was the same) into ale afficionados. I also use hops only for bittering rather than for flavor. I've found that most of the people who have told me they don't like beer *really* just don't like the hop smell/taste.

Ah yes Zymurgy. That was the name of a home brewing magazine wasn't it? Is Charlie Papazian still into the home brewing scene? We met him in Boston on a few occasions. He was even at Gritty's once while I was there. There are lots of really good yeasts available to home brewers now. Even Pilsner Urqell's Lager yeast is available. People are really surprised when they get their first taste of good homebrew.We homebrewed for many years before any of us went on to do it for a living. We were all in M.A.L.T. The Maine Ale and Lager Taster's home brew club. We had an absolute ball in that club. No less than seven members of that club went on to become Brew Masters, start breweries, or work in the brewing industry in Maine in some capacity. That's quite a lot for a small club. We made a lots of life long friends!
When we became, for lack of a better term, pro brewers, we always made sure we paid a little extra attention to the home brewers who came for tours of the brewery. They were our roots! We were still homebrewing when David Geary started Geary's brewing in Portland. I never forgot how well he treated us as homebrewers. He gave us grain samples and even yeast samples to try at home, he got us into all grain brewing which eventually led us to doing it for a living....really nice guy and a hell of a brewer. I commend you for being a home brewer! Best folks in the world in my opinion!

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by Fort Lauderdale mermaid

Maineah, are you related to "Eben"? ARE you Eben? Ah-ha! We may be on to something here....

Sorry don't know Eben.

[Maineah]

[quote=bringselpup;3022186]

Originally Posted by Maineah

Well now I'm thinking the last time I was able to buy some was at least 20 yrs ago possibly longer. I remember I bought it because I liked it but I have this sense at least the label just indicated it was something like Portland Brewing or some such. Of course that long ago maybe they didn't own up to being a contract brew.

At any rate had to go in to Belfast today to insure the Jeep. So my Hannafords run included a 6pk of Shipyard Brewers Choice Royal IPA.

I do remember Portland Lager now. It was a contract brew out of Boston but I can't remember the details of who owned it etc. I'll have to ask some of my brewing buddies. I'm sure they'll remember it.

[jenkaye]

Shipyards are my favorite!! The first time I went to Maine I drank one everyday, cherishing them.

On my flight out from Portland my girlfriend and I had a few....well quite a few... before I boarded the plane and we thought it would be great to buy 24 bottles of Shipyard and carry them home with me. Sounded good at the time but it was so stupid!! I had to carry two HEAVY boxes of beer on the plane and off the plane like 4 times, I was late getting to my connection so I had to run with the boxes of beer...mind you the handles broke the minute I boarded the first plane. So I "borrowed" someone's cart that was parked outside a restaurant and pushed the beer from gate 1 to gate 100 (it seemed) in Detroit. Boarded the plane with a bunch of wisecracks and couldn't believe I had to do it all over again in PHX. I was on the last plane with a college softball team and they kept chanting "We want beer" and looking at me. I had a coat on and was sweating while I was squished in between two businessmen that must have thought I was a nut. We landed in PHX and I took a wheelchair and wheeled the good ole Shippy's through the PHX airport all the way to baggage claim.

Now I gave some beers away as gifts when I got home but after that whole fiascio I kept most of them. My arms ached and I was so sore. I called my friend from the first plane and said "Great Idea, it's really working well for me!" and she couldn't stop laughing. Looking back it must have looked silly, I know it did but you just can't find that beer out here in AZ!

[mainesnowflake]

Originally Posted by mollysmiles

oh yum!! you are sooooo right! My kids all had the sweatshirts from Smiling Hill when they were little Great place!

And welcome to the forum mainesnowflake!

Thanks for the welcome mollysmiles, my kids had sweatshirts also when they were little, from smiling hill farm. Time goes by way too fast.

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by mainesnowflake

Thanks for the welcome mollysmiles, my kids had sweatshirts also when they were little, from smiling hill farm. Time goes by way too fast.

Smiling Hill made a scrumptious Chocolate Mandarin Ice Cream I just loved! We used to take the kiddies there a couple times a year. Cool place! Let me also welcome you to the forum mainesnowflake!

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by jenkaye

Shipyards are my favorite!! The first time I went to Maine I drank one everyday, cherishing them.

On my flight out from Portland my girlfriend and I had a few....well quite a few... before I boarded the plane and we thought it would be great to buy 24 bottles of Shipyard and carry them home with me. Sounded good at the time but it was so stupid!! I had to carry two HEAVY boxes of beer on the plane and off the plane like 4 times, I was late getting to my connection so I had to run with the boxes of beer...mind you the handles broke the minute I boarded the first plane. So I "borrowed" someone's cart that was parked outside a restaurant and pushed the beer from gate 1 to gate 100 (it seemed) in Detroit. Boarded the plane with a bunch of wisecracks and couldn't believe I had to do it all over again in PHX. I was on the last plane with a college softball team and they kept chanting "We want beer" and looking at me. I had a coat on and was sweating while I was squished in between two businessmen that must have thought I was a nut. We landed in PHX and I took a wheelchair and wheeled the good ole Shippy's through the PHX airport all the way to baggage claim.

Now I gave some beers away as gifts when I got home but after that whole fiascio I kept most of them. My arms ached and I was so sore. I called my friend from the first plane and said "Great Idea, it's really working well for me!" and she couldn't stop laughing. Looking back it must have looked silly, I know it did but you just can't find that beer out here in AZ!

Shipyard like all non pasteurized beer needs to stay cold if it can. If it gets too warm it gets nasty quite quickly. They used to ship it to Florida but it just was never handled properly and they got a lot of returned product. Even though it's highly filtered there is still a bit of live yeast in it as it is not heat treated. It it gets too warm this little bit of yeast will ferment the beer further causing phenolic alcohol to form giving the beer a chemical taste. That's why local beers are best drunk locally! Speaking of which I think it's time for a Geary's.....Good stuff!!

[Zymer]

Originally Posted by Maineah

Ah yes Zymurgy. That was the name of a home brewing magazine wasn't it? Is Charlie Papazian still into the home brewing scene? We met him in Boston on a few occasions. He was even at Gritty's once while I was there. There are lots of really good yeasts available to home brewers now. Even Pilsner Urqell's Lager yeast is available. People are really surprised when they get their first taste of good homebrew.We homebrewed for many years before any of us went on to do it for a living. We were all in M.A.L.T. The Maine Ale and Lager Taster's home brew club. We had an absolute ball in that club. No less than seven members of that club went on to become Brew Masters, start breweries, or work in the brewing industry in Maine in some capacity. That's quite a lot for a small club. We made a lots of life long friends!
When we became, for lack of a better term, pro brewers, we always made sure we paid a little extra attention to the home brewers who came for tours of the brewery. They were our roots! We were still homebrewing when David Geary started Geary's brewing in Portland. I never forgot how well he treated us as homebrewers. He gave us grain samples and even yeast samples to try at home, he got us into all grain brewing which eventually led us to doing it for a living....really nice guy and a hell of a brewer. I commend you for being a home brewer! Best folks in the world in my opinion!

Zymurgy magazine, saw it, don't think I ever read it.

Papazian's gingermead recipe gave me the idea for my very first brew- a strawberry/raspberry gingermead to be served instead of champagne at my wedding. Coming up with the idea only 18 months before the wedding made it a one-shot deal, I had to get it right the first time because with the long aging that would be involved, there would be no time for a "do over" if it turned out badly. The folks on the usenet rec.crafts.brewing newsgroup were excellent sources of information and reassurance.

I don't know if Papazian is still involved.