I fear I’m becoming the boy who cried beer. You know, I tell you, You gotta drink this! It’s the best beer ever! or You need to visit this pub and drink their IPA! Only to toss out another tasty brew you must try or an establishment you must visit a week later. It’s not about beer supremacy here in Patterson-land though. It’s about the great beer revolution we live in. It’s about a man who wants you to drink it all.
With my mission established, here’s a brewery you must visit. I won’t be offended if you stop reading this right now and storm up 295 to Freeport, Maine so you can sample the hop-filled offerings of the Maine Beer Company.
Ok, for whatever reason you’re still reading this, and I’m glad you are.
The Maine Beer Company recently left its facilities in Portland’s Back Bay and built their new brewery on Route 1 in Freeport. You know what this bigger facility means? More beer! More Peeper! More Lunch! More Zoe! Yeah!
A few years ago when the MBC unleashed their Peeper (a hoppy American Ale) onto the scene, borderline pandemonium ensued. I remember going to Gnosh just on the vague rumor that they had Peeper on tap. Momentum built. The people demanded more, but the guys at MBC could only make so much beer to meet the demand in their small space.
Here’s how crazy it got. I heard a story about a beer drinker in Massachusetts who drove to Maine once a week to buy bottles of this beer. Every week! These guys could have sold their beer for $100 a bottle and people would have drank it. $100? Maybe that’s pushing it, but not by much.
Have you had Lunch? It’s an off-the-charts IPA with a citrus wallop that smacks you in the mouth. Hard. And all you want is more. It’s almost sadistic. The most impressive thing about Lunch is that it’s not an obnoxiously big IPA. My guess is that they use less malt to keep it from being one of those ridiculous, undrinkable IPA’s.
Accompanied on my first visit to their Freeport campus by my fellow beer enthusiast Tim, he made a wise statement after our first paddle of beers. “Tasting rooms,” he said, “are the new bar.” He brings up a great point. The laws must have become more lax in the last ten years, because breweries seem to be able to serve a solid amount of beer, and not just the limited samples I recall from even five years ago.
Oh, added benefit to Maine Beer Company — as if you needed another benefit to tasting their delicious beers in a cool environment — they have Jenga. You got it. Jenga. Tim’s pictured here making a surgical move in a heated mano a mano match. (Click on the picture to take in how heated this match really is.) In about two moves I make that tower crash down.
But did I care? No way. ‘Cause I’m drinking Lunch!
Cheers!
DAVE PATTERSON 