Maine Beer Company Releases Another Round of Dinner

(Originally published in Maine Today Magazine on August 7, 2014.)

I dream about Dinner. No, really. I have actual dreams about this double IPA from Maine Beer Company.

Here’s my latest one. I’m walking down a street in a city that vaguely looks like London and a woman with striking white hair approaches me and says, “I’m the one who wrote you the letter about Dinner.”

“You are?”

“Yes,” she says, “but I want to tell you about Supper.”

“Supper?”

The woman smiles, “Yes. Maine Beer Company’s triple IPA.”

Then I wake up. Not only do I dream about Dinner, but also I dream about IPA’s Maine Beer Company has yet to brew. What do you say about that one, Freud? Actually, I don’t want to know. I’m not emotionally mature enough to handle that kind of truth.

But less about me and my emotional shortcomings and more about Dinner. Maine Beer Company has released this beer three times: in March, May, and most recently on July 31^st. Each release has caused near pandemonium. In May, a guy from Massachusetts slept in his car overnight outside of the brewery to ensure that he would get a case.

If you haven’t had the sublime joy of placing a glass of Dinner to your lips and experiencing the sensory overload of this beer, then I pity your senses.

Here’s a verbal tour of the physical joy of drinking the citrus bomb that is Dinner.

Dinner has a golden, hazy appearance. The haze is most likely a result of all the beautiful hop resin jammed into this beer. The lively hop resins are what give this beer the aromatic explosion when you lift the glass to your face. Before tasting Dinner, I like to take in a few deep breaths of its tropical fruit salad aroma.

Next, the all-important taste factor. Dinner’s flavor, coupled with its lush aroma, makes for a world-class beer drinking experience. And I don’t use the label ‘world-class’ lightly. Maine Beer Company hops and dry-hops the ever-loving heck out Dinner with Citra, Mosaic, Falconer’s Flight, and Simcoe hops. And boy does it pay off. The flavor is grapefruit and mango and passion fruit. Since they focus mainly on flavor and dry-hops, this beer doesn’t decimate your palate with bitterness. It’s more of a bright IPA than an offensively bitter IPA.

After a healthy gulp of Dinner, I like to let the citrus symphony linger on my tongue before I greedily go back for another swig.

After the last bottles of this release of Dinner have been tossed down our collective grocery holes, I’ll be back to dreaming of this beer. Who knows, maybe I’m clairvoyant and we’ll see a release of Supper in the near future.

Cheers!