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| Ms. Hen outside the brewery |
The Allagash Brewing Company
50 Industrial Way
Portland, ME
Ms. Hen decided to take a short trip to Portland, Maine
recently. She had been there before, and she wrote a review of Portland years
ago, but she wanted to go someplace that was easy to get to. Even though she
doesn’t usually go places where she has already been, she figured there are
things that she hadn’t seen, so she booked her stay.
Ms. Hen went on a brewery tour of the Allagash Brewing Company on
a cloudy Sunday afternoon. The place was a long walk from where she was
staying, so she took an Uber both ways. The brewery is situated in the middle
of a residential area, and even though Ms. Hen is not afraid of walking, there
is not much to see on the way.
Ms. Hen is a fan of Allagash White, which she usually drinks
when she goes out. She learned that that particular beer consists of 80 percent
of the sales of the company. The young woman who gave the tour was
knowledgeable and enthusiastic. She explained the history of the company and about the owner, Rob
Tod, and how he started the company. He got sidetracked from his college degree in
education, and started working at a brewery in Vermont to pay the bills,
and became enthusiastic about beer. When he started the company, he had a difficult
time trying to sell his beer, and he would go to the bars that had it on tap
and would buy pints for people to introduce them to the beer so they would enjoy it and spread the word. The company didn’t fully take off until the early 2000s when the craft beer
movement became fashionable. After that Allagash became successful.
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| Ms. Hen tries Barrel and Bean |
The guide explained that Allagash is Belgian style beer,
which is considered “kitchen sink” beer, and that means they will put anything
in it, unlike Germans who have strict rules about their ingredients.
German beer only has four ingredients: water, barley, yeast, and hops.
Ms. Hen remembers going to the Sam Adams brewery in Boston and learning that particular beer is German style, and it’s the only one that is allowed to be imported into
Germany. Ms. Hen likes the idea that anything can be put in a beer, and thinks
that the German method might be a little snobby.
The tour guide told the group that there is a tank in
the brewery that makes smaller batch beer that are experiments. Every person
who works at Allagash, from the servers, to the accountants, to the machinists,
has the opportunity to create their own beer recipes. She explained to the
group that the creations are piped into the employee break room to taste while
they’re on breaks. Ms. Hen thinks that’s cool! They can drink beer on their
breaks! (That wouldn't be possible where she works.) She said if the beers they create are popular, they
will serve them in the taproom, and if the public likes them, they will produce
them.
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| Beer fermenting in barrels |
Ms. Hen thinks this is a great opportunity for people to be
creative about their jobs. Ms. Hen has mostly worked at corporations where
there is no place for creativity for everyone. Ms. Hen doesn’t think she would
work at a brewery, but she thinks that it must be a fun job if they
drink beer on their breaks, and everyone has a voice in the products they
create.
Ms. Hen tried a beer she loved at the end called Barrel and
Bean, which has coffee in it, and is 10 percent alcohol. It has a slight coffee
taste and is delicious. Ms. Hen ate a Caprese sandwich from the food truck that
was parked outside the brewery, and had a pleasant afternoon drinking beer in
Portland. She read some reviews that some people said that this was the best
thing to do in Portland, and she thinks it was informative and enjoyable. The
next time she drinks an Allagash White, she’ll enjoy it even more, knowing where
it came from, and the history behind it.
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| Ms. Hen drinks Allagash Saison after the tour |
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