Goodfire Brewing Company — Restaurant in Portland

Goodfire Brewing Co. in Portland, Maine for two pints & a half pour on a Sunday afternoon. I was here last about a year & four months ago on my previous Portland tour, but had been looking forward to returning to try some more offerings. My friends & I were doing nine different breweries in one day so I had been keeping it light & was happy to be able to grab a couple beers under 5%. I wanted to attempt to keep my wits about me as we walked from place to place. Earlier in the day we had passed the Goodfire taproom in Freeport, Maine, but decided to check out the Portland location again since it was pretty much next to our AIRB&B. 🍻💪

Alright let's get to the beers. I started off with a pint of the LEAGUE NIGHT LAGER which was good & at 4% was perfect for my attempted sobriety. The next pint I got was the excellent WORMS Bitter, which is a style I've really started to enjoy over the past year. The half pour I ended with was the DOUBLE LUTRO Sour Gose, that had a nice subtle lemon finish. Overall some good beers & a few different styles to try & get a good grasp on what they're about. 🍻🔥

There wasn't a ton of seating options, but plenty for the space. There was no bar seating, but there was hightops, rail seating along the wall & a outside patio area. The beertender was nice & super helpful, being knowledgeable about the beers you're serving allows you to have better customer service & interactions since you can relate to what your customers are drinking. Beer to go & a fun merchandise area as well. Another great experience here & will be checking out the Freeport location next time so I can get my completionist badge for this brewery. 💪🍻🍻🔥🍁

BEERGASM RATING - HARRRD 8 ¹/⁴ out of 10.

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

Checked out their new Freeport location last night. Not a lot of food choices but what they had was very good and a the have nice variety of beer options. All of which were quite tasty. Only frustration is the additional fee they build in. There is not a waitstaff - you order from your phone and they bus your food out when it is ready. This is absolutely fine with me, except they also charge a "kitchen fee" and the ordering app gives you options of 18, 20 and 25% tip. So a 17 dollar sandwich (with no sides) quickly becomes 23 dollars with tax and tip. Again - no waitstaff to ask questions of, request items or bus your table. So who is the tip going to if not the kitchen? As someone who actively tips 20-25% this trending kitchen fee add on is going to force me and others to lower the base tipping rate for actual servers. Owners - pay your kitchen staff a competitive wage or bake the additional cost into you 17 dollar sandwiches so you do not need to trick the consumer into absorbing this cost.

Oh and one more thing - if you get a beer (which you can only order from the bar), that fee and tipping is baked in there as well. What does the kitchen staff have to do with tapping and pulling a beer? Just seems a...

Another stop on my self-guided walking brewery tour of Portland was Goodfire. It's location directly next to Lone Pine didn't help me burn off any extra walking calories, but the convenience definitely helped me stay on schedule. For a small brewery, they had some unique offerings. They didn't have flights but offered half pours. I really enjoyed the Tchotchke, which is a Grodziskie/Grätzer style that had a unique smokey quality. I also enjoyed the Strictly Analog Kellerbier, which hit the spot on the relatively hot day I visited. But my favorite of all was the Prime Hazy New England IPA. Prime was everything you want from a NEIPA- fabulous. Goodfire would be a destination brewery unto itself- having it next to Lone Pine, make the pair a can't miss on any Portland...