Twice in a Lifetime: Magdalen Islands Redux - Part Trois (feat. Toolin' 'round Portland and thereabouts)

OK, so I decided to add a third part to the story since we hit up so many places in Portland on the way back from our Canadian jaunt. It's always a pleasure to visit Maine's hippest town, and it seems as though every time we return, there's more to see and do. So, here's part three (or technically "part two" of part two, since I originally intended this to be written in two parts). But enough with the confusing episodes. Let's get on to it, shall we?

Our first stop of the day in Portland was a familiar one. We'd first visited Lone Pine during our Drinksgiving 2016 adventure. Back then, they were the new kid on the block. Since then, they'd grown quite a bit. Once we got settled in, I decided I was thirsty for hops. Ultimately, I went with
Brightside IPA, it's best-selling beer, knowing that I had it during our previous visit and feeling it wasn't a standout. Well, either they improved on the recipe or my tastebuds changed, because this time it was quite enjoyable. Brightside balances a subtle malt character with smooth, clean bitterness and layers of citrus zest, tropical fruit, and pine.

I also had to get a pour of Chris Farley-wine, a 12% barleywine-style ale that, if one drinks too much of it, he or she will be living in a van down by the river! I shared this one with the group, because we still had a long way to go before the end of the day.

Right around the corner and back behind Lone Pine is Goodfire, an up-and-coming brewery in Portland touting the latest in hazy IPA technology. Back in the summer of 2019, I was still gobbling up juice bombs like they were going out of style. Ironically, the style has since worn out its welcome with me and my palate. Sorry to beat a dead horse, but even though I'll still enjoy one from time to time, I'll take a solid West Coast IPA any day. 

With that said, Goodfire seems to brew a respectable version of the NEIPA. I'd even go on record and say that I prefer their beers over the ones I've had at Bissell Brothers, which I find to be largely overrated. But let's not go down that slippery slope. Let's talk about Goodfire. First up was a NEIPA called Prime. Featuring Citra and Amarillo hops, this soft, somewhat dry IPA is perhaps Goodfire's all-day drinker. The brewery's debut can release, Prime has quickly become a staple of Portland's burgeoning craft beer scene, and its no wonder why.

I was beckoned by Prime to stay on the NEIPA path, so for my next beer I settled on CMYK, a generously hopped with NEIPA featuring Comet, Simcoe and Galaxy as well as malted spelt, a common grain along with oats and wheat used in hazy IPAs. Peppery with hints of citrus zest, pine, and tropical fruit, this one was pretty similar to Prime. The beer takes its name from the four basic colors used for printing color images: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. I suppose it's an apt name for a hazy IPA, because with CMYK, the colors get darker as you blend them together.

What if Q-Bert was a snail and his grid was a hop flame?

I was pretty hazed out after those two beers, so I decided to switch gears and go with a Pilsner. Their There They’re is Czech-style pilsner featuring a small portion of malted spelt in the grist and a blend of noble hops including Saaz, Spalt Select, and Saphir. Dry and effervescent with floral and bready notes, this beer offered a nice change of pace. I also appreciated the name of this beer, as so many people can't seem to grasp the difference between these three simple words. Brewslut and I are proud officers of the Central PA chapter of the Grammar Police, so we both got a chuckle out of this one. Perhaps Goodfire can release a beer named "To Two Too" and feature two elephants each wearing a tutu. Perhaps not. The general consensus was that Goodfire was more than good, and we all enjoyed our visit there. But it was time to steer the ship elsewhere.

After our visit to Goodfire, Brewslut and I ducked into Urban Farm Fermentory on the way back to the car to kick back a few samples of kombucha and pick up a couple of jars to bring home. We really like the vibe of this place, and they're churning out some tasty, forward-thinking kombucha, cider, mead and eccentric hybrid concoctions that we really like. Founded in 2010, Urban Farm was the first craft beverage maker to set up shop in Portland's East Bayside industrial area, which is fast becoming the city's most recognized brewery cluster. This area also includes Rising Tide, Lone Pine, Oxbow, Goodfire, and others as well as a variety of other establishments slinging artisan coffee, distilled spirits, and more. After our quick drive-by, we regrouped with the others down the street at another new-to-us brewery.

Urban Farm. Photo courtesy of wescover.com.

Founded in 2013, Austin Street is one of the Portland breweries that had eluded us prior to this trip. Whether they weren't open at the time or we just couldn't squeeze it in to our agenda, for whatever reason we'd yet to visit this brewery. Originally, they were located catty-corner from Allagash on Industrial Way (more on that area in a bit). They've since expanded to add a location on Fox Street, right next door to Rising Tide in the East Bayside Industrial area. The new space boasts an additional brewhouse as well as a modern tasting room and adjoining patio. It reminded me of an upscale bistro along the beach in northern California. We also got to catch up with our long-time friend, Vikki, who had moved to Portland several years ago with her boyfriend, Bill. The two now work in the cannabis industry (hey, it's legal in Maine)!

We only had time for one beer, so I went with something different: Bennu, a black IPA brewed with roasted coconuts. Hopped with Cashmere and Simcoe and featuring 75 pounds of toasted coconut, the aroma is dominated by coconut with just a hint of fleshy tree fruit and some citrus. And with that, it was time to move on. 

After an enjoyable visit at Austin Street, we headed back to Industrial Way to check out Definitive, which is situated in the same complex as Goodfire and Battery Steele. Inside, it's kind of dark with lots of black walls, white trim, and neon lighting. It reminded me of the basement of a fraternity, for some strange reason. We decided the beer garden out back was more of our speed. 

I was delighted to find a "peach" beer on tap. Peels & Pits is a collaboration with Bier Cellar brewed in celebration of their 7-years anniversary. The beer itself is an IPA made with copious amounts of tangerines and peaches as well as a hint of lactose. Reminiscent of a glass of orange juice, this beer comes across like a mimosa with a pleasant peachy finish. 

For my follow-up, I decided to stick with fruit. Portals (Mango & Vanilla), is the second release in Definitive's "kettle sour with vanilla" series. Boasting an insane amount of mango purée and vanilla beans, this beer is slightly sweet and with a dash of tartness and finishes with a lush vanilla note. All in all, two solid offerings from this new up-and-coming Portland brewery. 

Of course, no visit to Portland would be complete without a stop at Allagash. We've visited many times in the past, had taken the tour, seen the coolship, and enjoyed rare beers in the exclusive VIP lounge. Ultimately, this would be a quick visit to pick up some bottles and merch... and also drop off some beers for the good folks at the brewery. I don't think I'd hesitate to place Allagash in my Top 10 breweries in the country. Its White, a hazy Belgian-style wheat beer, is kind of like the "Spotted Cow" of Maine, and accounts for somewhere around 70% of the brewery's sales. But Allagash is so much more than this beer. Its barrel-aging program is one of the most mature, diverse I've come across in our travels. Just setting foot inside the barrel room and taking a whiff of the surrounding air is something I can still trigger in my olfactory memory.

During our visit, I sampled Tiny House, a diminutive 3.4% ABV dry-hopped "house beer." This small beer actually reveals quite a bit of flavor including hints of melon, grapefruit, and subtle malt notes. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I also got to sample Martin Road, a new sweet stout aged in bourbon and Maine-grown oak barrels. This one was quite roasty with touches of oak and coffee.

We headed back across the street to check out yet another newish brewery, Battery Steele, which is situated on Industrial Road in the same development as Definitive and Goodfire. This spot seems to be Portland's incubator for start-up breweries. The brewery takes its name from a U.S. military fort on Portland's Peaks Island, which is located in Casco Bay. Some more useless trivia for you: the fort is named for Harry Lee Steele, a Coast Artillery officer during World War I. From its inception in 2017, the brewery began in an old barn in South Portland and eventually found its home at Industrial Way.

The beer menu was, as expected, heavy on the IPAs, so I decided to try one. Ascent, an IPA hopped with Topaz, Mosaic and Simcoe, was pretty solid and in line with lots of the other NEIPAs I tried during our visit. Portland seems to have dialed in its own variation on the theme.

After Battery Steele, it was time to hit the rickety road and head out of Portland. The adventure was quickly coming to an end. Honestly, after subjecting my liver to two weeks of intense drinking, I was ready to get home and sleep in my own bed.

Still, there was one place that we were all anticipating with much anxiousness (actually two, but more on that shortly). We'd been to Barreled Souls in Saco, ME, on one previous occasion, but it was during my blogging hiatus, so unfortunately I never committed our visit to "digital paper." I did, however, remember that it was an awesome brewery with a penchant for bold sour ales and behemoth barrel-aged creations. We were all pretty excited to get back here and dig in to the draft list, which featured an eclectic assortment of 23-odd beers.

With so many interesting - and high gravity - beers available, I decided that a sampler flight was in order. Here's the low-down on the line-up:

• Maple Pour Over - oatmeal stout brewed with coffee and Maple syrup
• Ginger Molasses Dark Matter - Dark Matter variant brewed with fresh molasses and ginger
• Rye Barrel-aged Soul of a Lion - Soul Of A Lion English-style barleywine aged for 14 months in a Hillrock Rye barrel. Brewed in collaboration with Aslin Brewing based out of VA. 
• Booker's Bourbon Barrel Aged Nocturnem Milkshake - white stout brewed with cacao nibs, almonds, vanilla, and marshmallow fluff and aged for 11 months in Booker's Bourbon barrels. Brewed in Collaboration with Nocturnem Draft Haus in Bangor, ME. 

Oddly enough, the only beer that didn't jive with me was the Ginger Molasses Dark Matter. I love both ginger and, especially, molasses, but the combination of the two blended into this imperial stout just didn't work for me. The Booker's BBA Nocturnem Milkshake, on the other hand, was an utterly decadent stout with everything thrown in except the kitchen sink. It was easily one of Pleeps' favorite beers of the trip. I mean, of course it was!

We'd visited our next - and final - stop of the day, Earth Eagle, on numerous occasions over the last few years. As a matter of fact, this Portsmouth, NH-based brewery is probably one of the most eclectic breweries I've ever encountered in our travels. They definitely brew some oddball stuff, and you can oftentimes find upwards of three different Gruits (ancient ales brewed with herbs, botanicals, and other ingredients in place of hops) on tap. Here's a small sampling of beers we've tried at Earth Eagle in the past: a curried pumpkin porter with rum-soaked coconut; a bourbon barrel-aged old ale brewed with maple syrup and Chaga mushrooms; and a black gruit with horehound, star anise, sweet fern and coltsfoot. I don't even know what the hell horehound and colts foot is... but I drank the beer anyway. (Editor's note: the former is an aromatic herb of the mint family, while the latter is a plant in the daisy family. Both are native to Europe and Asia.) 

This time, the beer list was a bit more tame. After perusing the available 8 or 9 beers on tap, I settled on Litha, a strawberry blonde ale with Kveik yeast. Over the last two years, many breweries began experimenting with this Norwegian yeast strain, which ferments at extremely high temperatures and produces tropical flavors reminiscent of pineapple.  

Speaking of Kveik yeast, my next beer, What the Fuggle, was a pale ale also featuring Kveik yeast and, presumably, Fuggles hops. Fuggles once was one of my favorite hop varieties back when I was a noob, and I still get kind of excited when I see a beer brewed with this antiquated hop varietal of British descent. While these two beers were fine, I missed the weird, off-the-wall stuff this time around. It's one of Earth Eagle's hallmarks and certainly the one aspect I appreciate most about the brewery. Still, it was a pleasure to get back to this place that we only get to visit sporadically. 

And that, my friends, is it. 

Or is it? 

Actually, there's still the first half of the story to reveal. Tune in next time as we explore everything the Magdalen Islands have to offer. Until next time, here's a weird suit of armor...