Pink Boots at Allagash and Visit to Shipyard

"Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." ~Scott Adams
August 24: I arrived at Allagash just as their new 120-barrel fermenter was being moved inside the big roll-up door. I quickly introduced myself to Brewmaster/ Owner Rob Tod and Head Brewer Jason Perkins. I didn't want to miss any of the action so I got myself into a safe position to snap a few photos. Below are four photos of two men on forklifts, one forklift on each end, standing the fermenter up. A big steel red scaffold was attached to aid in manipulation.

Once the excitement of standing up the fermenter was over, Jason gave me a tour of the brewery. Then I worked with brewer Dee Dee Germain as she managed two back-to-back brews of Allagash White, their Belgian-style Wit and most popular summertime beer.

Photo at top of page, L to R: Rob, Teri, Jason and Dee Dee in front of the new tank.

I had fun talking shop with Dee Dee. I've really enjoyed discussing beer and brewing with women brewers on this trip. It's been a great opportunity for me to meet other women brewers, because I only knew a few before this. In the past I think I've been too busy with my responsibilities at conferences or judging events to seek out other women brewers to talk beer and brewing. I hope to partake of more girl-beer-chat in the future.

[Note: If you're a woman brewer (or you know of one), please see if your (her) name is on my list of women brewers, which I am calling the "Pink Boots Society." If not, please email me with your (her) name, brewery, etc., so I can add you (her) to my list. Thanks!]

Because of the tank delivery and installation, it was an untypically light day at Allagash. Rob bought ice cream sandwiches from the ice cream truck for everybody. They tell me Rob does that a lot. It started at their old location next door, which they just moved out of in April, because it got so darn hot over there in the summer.

Allagash has had a very busy year: They have doubled their production from 5,000 to 10,000 barrels per year in the last two years. They are nearly out of space in their new facility, and have to begin planning the next expansion almost immediately. That makes Jason a really busy guy, as his family is expanding and their children will double from 1 to 2 this month!

One of the highlights of my day at Allagash was in the early afternoon when Jason and Dee Dee invited me to join them on a barrel tasting of their three oldest wood-aged beer barrels. Jason drew out the beer with the glass wine-thief, and released a portion into each of our glasses. We tried one batch of the employees' favorite beer, Curieux (pronounced "curio"), and two samples of what is tentatively known as Gargamel; one with Raspberries and one without. Each of the samples was completely unique with Beligan yeast character, sourness and vanilla notes. The Gargamel had been aged in red wine casks from California, and I thought that was a great idea for the flavors and styles of beer that Allagash produces.

Afterwards, Jason opened a bottle of Curieux that had been blended with 20% un-wooded Triple. The dilution gave the beer just the right balance. It was a delightful blend of vanilla wood and Belgian character. I wouldn't have guessed that putting a Belgian Triple into a Jim Beam bourbon barrel would have worked so well. That's why it is wise to experiment.

Jason and Dee Dee gifted me a mixed case of Allagash beer for my collection. The lucky brewers on my route west of Allagash's distribution range will enjoy the benefit.

At about 2:30 I departed for Shipyard Brewing, down in Portland's old marine district, which is very close to where Gritty's is located.

Shipyard is a very big brewery, and it took a little while for the employees to track down Brewmaster/ Owner Alan Pugsley. Alan gave me a full tour of the extensive facilities including the finished beer warehouse expansion they are in the middle of.

Gee, is there any brewery in this country that is not either in the middle of an expansion, planning an expansion, or that has just moved into newly expanded facilities?

Shipyard owns its complex of buildings and a few other buildings nearby. The warehouse expansion is needed because Shipyard sold a portion of their complex to a hotel group that will put up a business-style residence hotel. Alan says Portland's nearby waterfront development has increased the value of Shipyard's land, and it made sense to sell a portion of it to finance further expansion.

Shipyard is the largest Peter Austin Brewing Systems brewery in the U.S. (Alan - please correct me if I am wrong.) In the photo above, Alan is standing in front of his twin 50-barrel brick-clad direct-fire brew kettles. The sweet wort is split up as it is transferred from Shipyard's 100-barrel mash tun.

Alan has several sizes of open-topped fermenters, from 100-barrel to 300-barrel. As we walked through the maze that is the four floors of Shipyard's brewery, Alan showed me two different sets of 300-barrel open-topped fermenters. The 100-barrel fermenters are round/cylindrocal, but the 300-barrel fermenters are square.

The photos below are of the exterior and interior of some of the 300-bbl fermenters. The photo on the right shows one tank, not four. The tank's side walls are supported by crossbeams across the top.

I asked Alan if the tanks have some kind of a CIP (clean in place) system, and he pointed to one of his brewers walking by and said, "There's the CIP system right there." The tanks are scrubbed and sanitized by hand, just like Gritty's tanks are.

I looked for signs of automation in the brewhouse and found a high-low level controller in the grant. Spent grain removal was also automated. I looked at the glycol lines as we walked by a fermenter, and there was a valve cracked open to trickle. I didn't see any thermocontrollers, either digital or analog on any of the fermenters, and I believe Alan when he tells me that Shipyard is basically a giant version of Gritty's extremely manual system.

Most of the automation was reserved for the darkly-lit packaging area, where Alan had recently had a bulk glass depalletizer installed. Hand-bottling is not an option at Shipyard. Ed Stebbins had guessed that Shipyard produces 60 brands of beer. Alan estimated it at 80-100 brands of beer, both in bottles and in kegs. Shipyard contract brews beer for lots of smaller companies. For example, they produce Gritty's 12 oz. bottles. (But not Gritty's 22 oz. bottles or kegs.)

Therefore Shipyard has to dedicate tons of warehouse space to packaging materials for all those brands of beer. Thus the recent addition of the bulk glass depalletizer. They just don't have storage room for 80-100 brands of pre-pack glass!

We wound our way through the maze back to Shipyard's extensive visitor center and gift shop. Alan gifted me a mixed case of his beer and a mixed case of his Capt'n Eli's Soda Pop. I thought the Ginger Beer was excellent. What I liked best about the Capt'n Eli soda I tried (Ginger, Root Beer, Lemon-Lime and Blueberry) was that they were not too sweet.

Shipyard had other soda flavors, but those are the ones I tried. The Lemon-Lime had more lime character. I wonder if it would make a good Marguerita mix? (Who says sodas are only for kids?) Retired to the Leavitt household, where Pete and Marie's Rhode Island friends were also visiting for the night. After our fabulous "lobsta" dinner steamed in ocean water (see August 22 post for photo), the four boys settled down to a movie and the adults settled down with cocktails outside. The weather was great and we all stayed up a bit too late and probably talked a bit too loud. You know how it goes when you're having fun! (Photo above, L to R: Christy, Marie, Pete and Geoff.)

Pink Boots at Gritty McDuffs

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” ~ Stephen Covey

August 23: Those of you who haven't visited Portland, Maine may have heard of Gritty McDuffs. Those of you who have already been there are on a first name basis with the brewpub. You call it Gritty's.

Brewmaster/Owner Ed Stebbins got me parked and situated in the busy waterfront/ working port area of Portland. As we walked back to Gritty's I noticed the sign in this photo. Every metal sign like this that I saw was bent. I think people want to steal them in a big way. Maybe Gritty's should print up a bunch identical metal signs and sell them in their merchandise area?

Ed handed me off to Assistant Brewer Jon Shaw for the day. Head Brewer Andy Hainer had the day off. Jon mashed in Gritty's popular pale ale, known as Original Pub Style. Gritty's has one of the first Peter Austin brewing equipment systems that Alan Pugsley made famous.

Gritty's brewery was probably the most labor-intensive and least automated brewery I will see on my trip. There are no digital or analog temperature control units on the 7-barrel open-topped fermenters. The brewer draws a sample of beer, takes it's temperature and if the beer is four degrees over target, the brewer cracks open the ball valve on the glycol line and "trickles" in glycol for 60 minutes or until the correct temperature is reached. This process is repeated for each fermenter and conditioning tank. A similar manual check and correction is used for every procedure in the brewing process at Gritty's. You definitely have to stay on your toes in a Peter Austin brewery!

Ed's partner Richard Pfeffer joined us for lunch. In the photo at the top of this page, we are standing in front of Gritty's brick-clad copper brew kettle. Photo, L to R: Ed, Teri, Jon and Richard. Local retired bricklayer Lance Brown popped in looking for Andy during the day. Lance did the brickwork on all the Peter Austin brew kettles installed in New England. The bricks are curved, not straight, so they look very nice encircling the kettle.

Gritty's is losing Jon Shaw in three weeks. He's going back to school for his college degree in business. Jon might rejoin the brewing community after graduation, or he might open a brewpub of his own somewhere. Best wishes, Jon!

After the Original Pub Style ale was tucked safely in its open fermenter, Ed took me to The Great Lost Bear, an institution in Portland since 1979. Mike Dickson is also an institution. Ed told me Mike's been a bartender and cellarmaster at the "Great Lost" for about 25 years. Photo above left shows Mike and me in front of one of Great Lost Bear's banks of tap handles.

While Ed and I sat there enjoying a wide variety of Maine beers, in walked Alan Pugsley of Shipyard Brewing and Peter Austin brewing equipment fame. Alan invited me to see Shipyard, the largest Peter Austin installation in the U.S. When he told me he had 300-barrel open-topped fermenters, I scheduled a visit for the next day. (Photo at right, L to R: Ed, Alan and Teri.)

On the way out the door I almost smacked into Kevin Watson, Brewmaster at Stone Coast Brewing Co. Kevin used to work at Hales Ales in Seattle, and he looked very familiar. I had just tried Kevin's Imperial IPA 840 at the bar, and I thought it tasted like a Pacific Northwest imperial IPA because of it's big malt backbone. We quickly reintroduced ourselves. The Great Lost Bear appears to be a great place for finding lost comrades in good beer!

Drive: Manchester, NH to Falmouth, ME

"Words are like sheepdogs herding ideas.” ~Daniel Dennett

August 22: Spent most of the day in the lobby of the Super 8 Motel in Manchester, New Hampshire using their free wireless Internet connection and updating my blog.

Then drove to Falmouth, Maine, where former brewer Pete Leavitt lives with his family. I arrived in time for a late grilled chicken dinner with Pete, his wife Marie and their two boys. I stayed with the Leavitts for three nights while I visited breweries in nearby Portland.

The above photo is from Friday night, August 24. The Leavitts were visited by their Rhode Island friends, Geoff Greene, Christy Chase and their two boys. (That makes four young boys in the house. Yikes!) As you can see the grown-ups are enjoying a feast of Lobsters that were steamed in ocean water. Pete and Marie know a thing or two about good food! (Photo above, L to R: Geoff, Christy, Pete and Marie.)

Pete was my Assistant Brewer at Triple Rock Brewing Co. way back in 1989-90. After brewing at Triple Rock and its sister brewery Twenty Tank, Pete attended the Siebel Institute. Then he went on to consult and later opened three locations for Sunday River Brewing / Stone Coast Brewing Co in Maine and New Hampshire. He left brewing about ten years ago, spending time in semi-conductors and wholesale gourmet foods.

Now Pete's smack dab in the middle of an exciting new project: He will open a gourmet foods retail store in early October called Leavitt & Sons Specialty Grocery. Pete plans to sell anything delicious that is smoked, cured, fermented, or aged. That includes all my favorite foods like good beers, wines, cheeses, sausages, and imported yummies like truffle paste. I even got to taste some of the samples Pete and Marie are deciding upon. Yum!

After dinner Pete showed me his business plan. On Friday morning he took me to see the building. De-construction of the interior is currently underway, with reconstruction occuring in September.

Pete located Leavitt & Sons in a stand-alone white building at the corner of Route 1 and Depot Road in Falmouth, an upscale neighborhood of Portland. It looks like a great location with lots of drive-by traffic.

The photo at right shows Pete with the "& Sons" part of Leavitt & Sons. Jake (far right) starts First Grade next week and he's very excited to learn math so he can run the cash register. Jake tells me he can't wait to get his new business cards. He's only six years old. I wonder what his title will be? Jimi (in front) is three. Jimi smiles a lot and isn't too concerned about his business cards just yet.

Pete's got great plans for the store including a show kitchen that will prepare take-home gourmet lunches and dinners. If you like high quality food and beverages, get yourself to 37 Depot Road in Falmouth, just outside of Portland, Maine starting in October.

Drive: Bar Harbor, ME to Manchester, NH

"Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy." ~Jim Hightower

August 21: Blogged and worked on photos at Jon's brother's house in the morning while Jon took the van to get the oil and transmission fluid changed and checked the air in the tires. The trip has been a bit fast-paced for me to do that while driving between breweries. Jon picked up big chunky lobster salad sandwiches for lunch on his way home.

After lunch we headed south toward Highway 1 down the Maine coast. The photo at left above shows the new (left) and old (right) bridges over the Penobscot River in Bucksport, Maine. We didn't stop at the observatory because we had a long drive ahead of us.

Drove across bridges in many small Maine towns. Our view often looked like photo below right.
Then we determined we had enough time to stop for a nice dinner at a brewpub, so we pulled off the highway at Portsmouth, New Hampshire and looked for the Portsmouth Brewing Company.

At the beginning of this drive I'd finally set up my laptop facing the driver (Jon), running my DeLorme GPS software that I haven't had much luck running. We used that to find the Portsmouth Brewing Co. That sure helped as we arrived just as it was getting dark.

Portsmouth is a super cute old historic-looking town, so there were not a lot of parking places available. Luckily it was Tuesday and not a weekend, and we finally found two metered parking spots on the street where we could park our van-trailer combo.

At the pub Jon ordered the vegetable salad sandwich and I ordered the beef and chorizo chili, both good. We shared a nine-beer sampler set (photo left) and agreed that our favorite was the IPA. I will be spending a day here with brewer Tod Mott next Tuesday. Tod is a friend of mine and it is no surprise to me that he would make a well-balanced Pacific Northwest-style IPA.

Jon and I wished we could spend more time exploring quaint, cute Portsmouth, but it was dark and we still had to get to the Super 8 Motel in Manchester, New Hampshire. The photo below right was taken with no flash. The church's white tower was all lit up.

We used the GPS software to navigate our way out of town. It's not perfect, but it works OK. Mostly Jon used it to look at where our GPS location was on the plotted line to our destination. We parked the van-trailer in the Super 8 parking lot and brought a bottle of Ommegeddon up to the room to share. This motel is five minutes from Manchester Airport and they have a free airport shuttle, which Jon will take tomorrow morning.

Coastal Maine Cruise on the Andromeda

"There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way." ~Christopher Morley

August 20: During this entire trip, I've been corresponding with lots of folks via email. Some are friends, some are strangers to me but will become friends. Lots of people have helped me out with ideas of what to do and where to go. For most of my trip I have had to forgo the scenic route in favor of the quickest route. I've also had to forgo the sight-seeing and touristy things that most travelers enjoy in favor of sticking to business and visiting only brewers and breweries. Since I am with Jon for a few days visiting his family, we did a little sight-seeing with help from our family and friends.

One of those friends is fellow brewer, Bill Jenkins, Brewmaster at Big Time Brewing Co. in Seattle. You may have noticed a photo of Bill on my post about the Washington Cask Festival last March. Bill grew up in Maine and got me in touch with his parents, Julie and Bill Sr. who live in Southwest Harbor in another part of Mount Desert Island. Jon and I headed to their house on this clear and sunny morning.

The Jenkins took us to Bass Harbor where they dock their 32 foot powerboat. The Andromeda is no ordinary waterski-type powerboat. It is a pleasure cruiser built on a lobster boat hull with sleeping quarters and a "head" below deck. Jon took the photo at the top of this post of Julie, me and Bill.

Bill got out his navigational chart books and his laptop-powered GPS navigational charts. We motored slowly over to Swans Island. Jon is really into boats and powerboats so he kept Bill company in the cabin.

Bill let Jon steer the boat for awhile (photo above right). He even let me steer for awhile. I tried to avoid running over any lobsterpot bouys, but the tide dragged me off course a bit and I ran one over but it wasn't harmed.

Mostly, Julie and I sat in the back of the boat enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. The wind was low and the waves were small. It was the most beautiful day for a pleasure cruise. We saw thousands of lobster bouys and several working lobster boats hauling up their catch. We watched the eider ducks dipping into the waves and one lost butterfly flying in no particular direction. Bill and Julie showed us two lighthouses and we all had a marvelous time.

Jon and I wanted to be back at his brother's house by 2:00 pm, and Bill timed the ride perfectly to be docked back in Bass Harbor by 11:45 am.

Then the Jenkins took us to Bass Harbor's Thurston Lobster Pound for a lobster lunch. (Photo above left.) The lobsters we ate there were probably the freshest either Jon or I had ever eaten. The whole time we were there, we watched the lobster boats arrive to unload their morning's catch. There seemed to be one boat waiting while the previous one unloaded at the dock. We watched five boats unload. How fresh can you get?

On the way back to Bill and Julie's house, we stopped at Southwest Harbor's little liquor store. In Maine they sell beer as well as wine at the liquor stores. Just to the right of the front door was a huge selection of New England, local, and imported beer. Who would have guessed that a seemingly small provincial town like Southwest Harbor would have such an excellent selection of beer? Photo of one of the shelves above right.

Jon and I got lost and found an all-organic market in a tiny old fashioned roadside store and picked up a pint of Maine's famous tiny wild blueberries. They have a much more intense blueberry flavor than Oregon's beautiful but less flavorful giant cultivated blueberries.

My buddy Carolyn came home from YMCA camp and we spent several hours playing games from Aunt Teri's game bin. Joel and Carolyn picked fresh chives and garlic from their garden and Joel cooked up chive-garlic hamburgers for dinner. It was a pretty full day.

Visiting Family in Bar Harbor, Maine

"We don't know who we are until we see what we can do." ~Martha Grimes

August 18-19: We had a fabulous time visiting Jon's brother and his family on Mount Desert Island. On Saturday they took us to the top of Caddilac Mountain, the highest point on the island. It was super windy. My hair flew in my face and I could hardly see where I was walking. Afterwards "Uncle" Jon and Joel went to the Lobster Pound to pick up five softshell lobsters for dinner. Out west we would call it a seafood market or store. In Maine they call it a Lobster Pound. Sounds like you buy your pet lobster there, like the Dog Pound. We had a fabulous dinner with fresh lettuce and tomatoes from the garden.

On Sunday we went to the company picnic for Jackson Laboratories, which is where Joel and Lindsay are genetic research scientists. It was raining, so the picnic was inside the new cafeteria. Some researchers had booths set up demonstrating the part they play in genetic and medical research. We looked at some of the booths and saw lots of specially bred mice: some obese, some naked with no fur, most of them cute, and all of them genetically very unique and special. Then Joel and Lindsay showed us their offices and gave us a tour of the new exercise center and some of the buildings.

After the picnic we changed clothes into something more casual and drove to the mainland and around the bay to Acadia National Park, to Schoodic Scenic Byway and Schoodic Point Park. We spent a good bit of time watching the waves crash as the tide slowly returned. Carolyn, the six year old had a great time digging in puddles and enjoyed the wave spray. It was a lovely sunny day.

Below is a photo of me at the farthest eastern point on my trip. It is interesting to note that only eight days ago I was on the beach in Oregon at one of the farthest points in the continential USA. We can be such jet-setters today without even trying.

On our way home from Schoodic we stopped in at a restaurant facing a quiet little harbor. coastal Maine is full of hardworking seafolk and the boats in the harbor were a picturesque assortment of working lobster boats. In fact there must be one million or more lobster pots attached to bouys along Maine's rugged coast. We saw hundreds of them everywhere we looked.

After a long drive home to Bar Harbor area in the dark, us "grown ups" stayed up to watch "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," a great fantasy film by Monty Python's Terry Gilliam. I'm a big fan of Terry Gilliam's work, and "The Time Bandits" is one of my top three alltime favorite movies.