Allagash Brewing Company — Attraction in Portland

Had a awesome free tour around Allagash Brewing Company with friends that was over a hour of knowledge, tastings & fun. For the last brewery of our ten brewery, 26 hour tour around Portland & Freeport I couldn't have ended it with a better experience. The tour started through the merch room outside the bottling facility, where as civilians we were made to put on a safety vest & glasses. We then headed up to take a look at the operation & got to check out the insanely productive bottling process. We learned that 93% of the annual income Allagash makes comes from the sales of their flagship beer ALLAGASH WHITE. That allows them to experiment & try new styles & techniques throughout the year's without hurting their bottom line. 🍻🔥

We then took a walk next door to the private function room called "The Cellars" with a great selection of bottles for sale, not available upfront. My friends got some good stuff for upcoming shares, ranging from years 2016 & above. We got a couple different pours here including a half pour of the ALLAGASH LAGER & a full pour of the HOUSE BEER Belgian Enkel. Walking around the warehouse & seeing all the different barrel-aged styles & options from wine, bourbon aged & more was wild. There was so much here aging, including beers that haven't been released yet, waiting until they're ready. The tour guide Steve was fantastic & threw more information at us than I'll ever be able to retain, but it was all interesting & had to do with beer so I was in. 🍻😂🤷‍♂️

We then went back into the bottling facility & checked out a really cool concept they have going on. Theres a program called "Pilot Team" that allows employees to come up with & small batch there own experimental beers. Luckily we were able to try a couple & check out the different employees random styles & tastes. I just enjoy drinking secret beer that isn't readily accessible to the public, for bragging rights to friends. The beers we got to taste were the R&D TRIAL STRAWBERRY WINE & both the DRY HOP TRIAL HAZY IPA #847 & #937 respectively. We then grabbed a great group photo & finished the tour. I was given three free drink tokens & unleashed back out into the main tasting area to grab a few pours, but I'll save the tasting room write-up for next time. 🍻🍻🔥☘🍁

BEERGASM RATING 🍻💦 - 9/10 STILL SORE

TOUR RATING - 10/10 STEVE-O IS THE MAN

#craftbeer #supportlocal #beerstagram #BeerGoals #untappd #NewHampshire #newengland #newhampshireeats #Maine...

Probably the biggest and most organized of the multiple breweries located here. It was a rainy day but there was plenty of tented space. For some reason they want you to walk through an entry portal and get your hand stamped. There’s no admission fee so it didn’t make sense. But we lined up like lemmings anyway. The people on staff, with the exception of the beer tenders, are very friendly and helpful. There’s great merchandise for sale. There’s a food truck parked on site with amazing lobster rolls and plenty of food anyone could want and it can all be brought to your tasting.

Tasting prices are very reasonable at around $5. When we were there, there were about 10 varieties. The beer tenders that day clearly needed to find another line of work. Several were surly and intolerant. One guy with a long beard kept giving one or two word answers when asked about the profile of some of the beers. But more than one seemed clearly inconvenienced by anything more than speaking which one you wanted and handing over your cash. That was the downside to our visit. The rest of the breweries we visited were far more friendly and interested in our experience. I guess Allagash in that respect believes they’re the kingpin , so their people can be aloof. If you go, do what we did. Ask for a beer tender who enjoys taking about the product. Some clearly don’t. Overall, a nice experience but we won’t go back. The beer...

So...I just had a really irritating experience at a BBQ joint in Austin TX, which made me think back to the exact OPPOSITE (positive) experience I had recently at Allagash Brewing Co. in ME...so I am writing this up!

My wife and I had spent some time at the breweries across the street, following a visit to a dying friend. Not realizing the closing time, we headed over to Allagash around 15 minutes after they closed up for the day. Instead of kicking us out, one of their employees invited us in...and offered us some beer to take home...ON the HOUSE! Who does that??? ALLAGASH!!! That's who! Way to make me a customer for life (as if I was not one already!) Their employee realized that we had come out of our way to visit and patronize their business and (even though they had closed for the day) made it so that we could still enjoy their product and made me a PROMOTER for LIFE!

Not all businesses figure this out (see my review of a certain BBQ joint in Austin TX). Night and Day experience!!!....