We had hoped this week to write about one of the rarest beers out there: Kate the Great Russian Imperial Stout from the Portsmouth Brewing Company of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The brewery distributes Kate only once a year in limited quantity. This year Kate Day was Monday, March 1. We left Bowdoin at 5:45 a.m. intending to arrive in Portsmouth before 7:00 a.m., when the brewery was supposed to distribute 450 individual tickets with which to then purchase two of the 900 Kate bottles available this year.
We arrived on time and saw a long line of people wrapping from the brewery door, around the corner, and down a side street. Like the good, freethinking folks that we are, we followed the crowd and got in line. The people directly in front of us figured this was the line for bottles, and the people behind us were way too gothed out to bother attempting a conversation with. We waited 15 minutes in line only to learn, though, that the brewery had distributed tickets much earlier than expected, as the maximum 450 people had already arrived by 5:30 a.m., some of them lining up as early as 12:00 a.m. in the dark, cold, and rain.
We had only planned to go for bottles, because we had to be back on campus before the 11:30 a.m. keg tapping in the brewery restaurant. Thus we drove back to school, Kate-less and disappointed. Kate is supposed to be one of the best beers in the world, but we won't find out for ourselves this year. Our first attempt at Kate the Great proved a big swing and a miss, but at least we tried.
With our road trip for Kate a failure and us out of a column topic, we turned to our own backyard for this week's column. We decided to focus solely on Maine beers, which we purchased in bottles from Bootleggers. The beers hail from Allagash Brewery (Portland), Bar Harbor Brewery (Bar Harbor), Gritty McDuff's (Portland), Maine Beer Company (Portland), Penobscot Bay Brewery (Winterport—wherever that is), and Kennebec River Brewery (The Forks —probably not even a real place).
This week our only fellow panelist was Brian Powers '10. Apparently our other regulars have midterms and no sense of priorities. Brian brings far more beer knowledge to the table than anyone else among us, but we missed the usual contributions of Garrick Sheldon's philosophizing and Carl Woock's sass.
Unlike in past columns, we decided in this one to rate the beers by the quality you get relative to the price you pay. With this rating system in mind, we reluctantly left the Allagash offering out of our top three. At $14.99 per 22 oz. bottle, Allagash Four proved by far the best but also the priciest beer we tasted this week. Made with four types of malt and four types of hops, this Belgian-style "Quad" was awesome. It was extremely complex with a pleasantly fruity and peppery character throughout. A must-try, but too expensive for us to recommend to the casual beer drinker.
Of the other five beers, Penobscot Bay Brewery's Whig Street Blonde Ale, though still a pleasant offering for a less daring beer drinker, impressed us the least. The brewery sums this beer up well with their own description on the bottle: "uncomplicated and clean." It's not that expensive ($5.99 for a double-bottle at Bootleggers), but it doesn't offer the quality of flavor you can get from other beers at the same price.
The Kennebec River India Pale Ale (IPA) narrowly missed cracking our top three this week. We really liked this beer with its beautiful aroma floral hops and its smooth, balanced, approachable amount of hops throughout the body. Brian noted that it seemed less like an IPA and more like a regular IPA because it lacked the intense hops usually found in an American-brewed IPA. That being said, this was a very easy to drink India Pale Ale that we recommend to all. Kennebec IPA is available at Bootleggers, $8.99 for a six-pack.
The beer that took home third place came all the way from Bar Harbor. The Cadillac Mountain Stout (Bootleggers, $4.99 per double-bottle) does well to dispel the common misconception that stouts are all necessarily thick, heavy, and syrupy. It poured black with a creamy tan head and had a strong burnt coffee aroma. Its body was remarkably light with a robust flavor of coffee. The beer finished very clean, leaving very little lingering flavor (which some people like, and some don't). For only five dollars, Cadillac Mountain Stout offers some real bang for your buck.
Placing second was the Gritty's Scottish Style Ale. We struggled to pin down exactly what we liked about this beer, but we characterized it as a generally sweet, crisp ale with a slightly fruity (cherry?) and full flavor. Available in six-packs for only $8.99 at Bootleggers, we recommend this and really any other Gritty's offering you may come across. Gritty's beers typically exceed other comparably priced brands in complexity of taste and overall quality.
Our tour of Maine came to a close with another Portland brew and our first place winner—Spring Peeper Ale from the micro-est of microbreweries, Maine Beer Company. Spring Peeper provided unexpected delight. Pleasant, crisp, and hoppy in a light way, the beer proves difficult to classify in typical beer taxonomy. Based primarily on the name, we imagine it best enjoyed in the springtime. Considering the crisp, refreshing drinkability, though, you could really enjoy Spring Peeper any time. Bootleggers had Spring Peeper on sale for $4.49 per pint, so get some now before they run out.
Maine offers an incredible variety of locally brewed beers from many different breweries. More often than not, these beers are very good. We encourage you to try as many as you can while you're still at Bowdoin and have the opportunity.
And lastly, remember the Lion's Pride Belgian Beer Fest begins this Friday. See you there.
The Bowdoin Orient has a promotion in partnership with Bootleggers Beverage Warehouse in Topsham, Maine. This week, Bowdoin students can receive 10 percent off Whig Street Blonde Ale, India Pale Ale, Cadillac Mountain Stout, Scottish Style Ale and Spring Peeper Ale upon presentation of a Bowdoin ID.