Adventures in Maine by Girl Kyle

We went on this trip with the intention of visiting different breweries and brew pubs in New England. We decided to start off in Maine and continue on in Vermont. We were going to stay a night in each town on our list until we got to Plymouth Vermont where we would camp for two nights. So I will start off this post talking about Maine. Oh Maine how I love thee. I have only been to Maine once and that was when I was 13 or so and I was in Portland for about 3 hours waiting for a cruise to Nova Scotia. So I don't have much of a history with Maine. We visited Portland for the night and then went on to Belfast.
I was really excited about Portland and kind of indifferent to Belfast. The first bar we visited was a nice Irish bar near the waterfront. Naturally and to my great excitement they had Kilkenny on tap so of course I had to have that. I swear I never get sick of that beer. It was the beer I drank during most of my time in Ireland so it brings back good memories. After we left there, we went to Novare Res, which as Kyle mentioned is an amaaaaazing place. They have over 200 beers available by the bottle, 25 beers on tap, and two cask beers. We were in heaven. We stayed there for quite a long time and enjoyed ourselves immensely.

We made our way to Gritty McDuff's after leaving Novare Res. Kyle was more excited about this place than I was. They brew their beer in the basement. That sounds pretty sketchy but I'm pretty sure that's the way most brew pubs do it. I'm not the biggest fan of their beer. We had the Halloween Ale and after the Flemish sour we had at Novare Res, it was really hard to get super excited about this beer. Oh well. We were pretty tired after driving all day and then drinking beer so we decided to call it a night.
The next morning we went to Allagash to take their tour. This was the only official tour we had for the whole vacation. I'm really glad it was at this brewery because they tend to go outside of the box with their beer. We went with a big group of people that were from the store Hannafords. They were quite loud and slightly annoying but whatever. The tour guide was really nice and she showed us some interesting stuff so we were happy. It was my goal to get a bumper sticker from every brewery we went to on the vacation. I didn't succeed but I think I added 4 more stickers to my already highly decorated car. After we left Portland we made our way to Belfast.
Belfast was a very interesting place. We had to drive about 2.5 hours to get there so when we pulled up to the motel that we were going to stay at I was not a happy girl. This place looked like it was somewhere that people went to commit murders in horror movies.
To my very very pleasant surprise, it was surprisingly really clean, cute, and the people who worked there were very nice. I think that was my whole impression of Belfast. It looked like a place where people got murdered but then when you actually spend time there, it's actually quite nice. And it was my favorite place of the vacation. It was a really quaint little town. It was right on the water and it felt like it has been a fishing town for centuries. The Three Tides was where we had our first beers. I had an imperial IPA which I think is the best one I've ever had and Kyle had a barley wine.

When we left the Three Tides, we made our way into town to have dinner. There weren't that many places open and it felt like we were back on the Cape since it was so quiet and it was only about 6 or 7. We decided to eat at an Italian place that had yummy food. We each had a Shipyard there but by that time I think we were a little over done on beer for the day. We then left the restaurant and took a walk around the town. They had a big foot bridge over the water and we spent some time there. So all in all Maine proved to be a pretty awesome place. We found some fantastic beer there and I would love to go back to both Portland and Belfast.

Adventures in Maine by Boy Kyle

Portland, Maine. I've never spent any time there until last week and I'm really glad that it was part of the road trip that Kyle and I went on. Portland was the first stop on our whirlwind New England Brewery tour. Turns out due to lack of funding and time off from work we had to whittle the trip down a bit. But I'm glad that we did because by the end of the 6 days I was pretty tired and, I'll be honest, a bit sick of beer. I'm getting ahead of myself. Portland was great and it really started the trip off on the right note. After checking in to our hotel we went down to the waterfront and located an Irish tavern called Bull Feeney's and had a snack of fries. From there we wandered over to a brewpub called Gritty McDuff's. The clerk at the gift/souvenir shop recommended a bar up the street named Novare Res (latin for "to start a revolution"). Novare Res is tucked back behind everything and had great outdoor seating. The highlight, however, was the overwhelming selection of beers from all over the world. Kyle and I finally settled on a wild Flemish ale. It was a little pricey but delicious. Novare Res definitely gets a thumbs up from me, despite the online suggestions that it's filled with "pretentious dirty hipsters". I saw no evidence to back up those claims and found the staff working there to be delightfully friendly and helpful. Dinner back at Gritty McDuff's, a nice walk by the water and then off to sleep.

The next day we went on a tour of the Allagash Brewery. It was a great tour and we got to see the barrels where they age their specialty beers. Had I been more read up on the brewery I would have asked about seeing their koelschip room, which is where they do open air fermentations. Perhaps next trip.

After Allagash we went to the Shipyard Brewery and were disappointed to discover that we wouldn't be able to take a tour. But the gift shop was nice and we picked up a few souvenirs and headed out to our next destination.

Belfast, Maine. I'd never heard of Belfast before but had read about a great restaurant there so we added it to the itinerary. Driving in to Belfast, we had our doubts. It's a small fishing village with a lot of uninhabited and run down buildings and not much else. Or so it seemed. Once we got settled in we went out exploring and discovered that the Three Tides restaurant and Belfast itself was absolutely delightful. A very small downtown area but a lot of fun. Also there was a lovely foot bridge over the river.

It's hard to narrow down a single highlight from the trip to that point because everything about it was great. Besides the driving, that was a bummer. And not touring Shipyard. But Allagash was terrific, Novare Res was a brilliant stroke of luck, Three Tides and Marshall Wharf were fantastic, Belfast was a great surprise... All in all Maine was amazing. We were pretty sad about having to leave but it left us really excited for our next state... Vermont.