Allagash Brewery Tour

Allagash Brewery Tour!!!

October 11th, 2013

I love brewing, and by association I love beer. So when I started my site visits the first thing that came to mind was to go to Allagash. Allagash was a truly Maine brewery before Maine had an explosion in breweries. Their founder Rob Todd started in 1995 and stuck through all the hard times in order to see his brewery explode into what it is today.

Allagash wasn't always so popular, (obviously). In face first a good chunk of the first few years they barely saw any sales at all. People didn't like it, it was to cloudy and foreign. Rob kept at it and kept brewing Allagash White on his 13 barrel system. Allagash White is currently their most popular flavor, totaling 80% of their production. Allagash White was also the first beer Rob brewed when he started the company. In his travels to Europe he fell in love with Belgian style beers and realized we didn't have very many of them in the states, so he brought some with him and began brewing!

Of course Allagash White isn't the only beer they have in production. Look at that beautiful picture above and you'll see their 6 full year production beers... Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm... They also have MANY one of beers that they only release at the brewery once every few years. If you ever go on a tour they might take you into the old and original brewery. In the back of that building they have a large freezer stocked full of barrels of delicious beer! Almost all of the barrels have a unique brew in them. In fact there is something interesting about this, Allagash is one of the only breweries in the US to successfully brew using wild yeast on a production scale. What this means is they take the brew into a special shed outside and allow natural yeast from the air to float in and help in the fermentation process. A true taste of Maine!

Surprisingly enough Maine isn't their largest consumer! It's actually California! Although I feel like that's entirely due to the population difference. Every beer drinker who respects their palette in Maine has at least had one Allagash beer. They output roughly 45,000 Barrels a year, a huge amount considering that docent count the new 40 barrel brewing system they just installed less then a year ago. The picture above is their automated bottling system, unfortunately I didn't get a picture of their kegging system, that's pretty neat too.

I could write about beer and brewing all day... But instead I think I'm gonna end this post and go enjoy one! Oh and this last picture is some of their barrels stored in a freezer, those are actually barrels from the Jim Beam factory out west. Cool stuff! Go take the tour!