For our May MBWG meeting, we met at Downeast Beverage to pick up “boat sodas” and headed over to the pier to buy tickets to Peaks Island. We were bound for the Inn on Peaks and some Shipyard brews. It was nearly a year ago that I first ventured out to Peaks with my wife and had what is still one of my favorite beer experiences, Old Thumper on cask.
The topic of conversation for the evening was “when was your ‘ah-ha’ moment for beer?” Answers ranged from “my first time home brewing and seeing just what went into making a beer” to “a Sam Adam’s brewery tour on my 21st birthday.” Everyone was quite impressed with my “ah-ha” moment—drinking Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse in Dessau, Germany during a winter break trip in college. In and of itself, that was reasonably impressive to the group. But the fact that my buddy and I were out drinking with a priest and his son, and that the priest got up to argue one drink on a bar tab of well over 40 drinks at the end of the night, sealed the deal as best “ah-ha” moment of the bunch.
Mid-May is not exactly prime season on Peaks, but there were a handful of other diners at the Inn and plenty of beer for us. Unfortunately, the Old Thumper was not available on cask yet. The casked beer was Casco Bay’s Riptide Red Ale and several were ordered. While not as good as I remember the Old Thumper being, cask conditioning this beer improved it a great deal over my previous sampling from the bottle. I would say it rates at least a half-mug, if not a whole mug, better on cask.
As Shipyard was generous enough to host and sponsor our meeting, we all ordered several of their beers as well. I had the Chamberlain Pale Ale. I know that a few Bluefin Stouts and Old Thumpers were also ordered (yes, I tried the O.T. on draft and found it good, but not as good as casked). Several appetizers were ordered too. Having eaten dinner at Peaks several times I was looking forward to ordering a lobster but decided that it would be better to eat ahead of time and concentrate on the beer instead. The artichoke dip with grilled pita wedges was excellent. Chicken fingers with a choice of barbecue or buffalo sauce also made a nice complement to the evening’s festivities.
The night’s biggest disappointment was not being able to see the brewing “facilities” on-site. We are lucky to have the Gritty’s own brewer Ben Low as a member, so a tour was a foregone conclusion last month. We tried to arrange a tour for May, but alas, Wednesday nights are a tough night to get a brewer to take the ferry out to the island. Aside from not getting to see where the beer is finished, good beer, good food, and a good time was had by all. If you’ve not yet had the chance to make your way out to Peaks, wait a week or two for things to pick up after Memorial Day and then go grab your ferry ticket ($7.75). You can rent a bicycle to tour the island and then catch some beautiful vistas of sunset over Portland from the outdoor seating at the Inn on Peaks while enjoying a traditional Maine lobster and a few Shipyard beers. There’s even live reggae down by the landing on Sunday afternoons in the summer.
For more information about the Maine Beer Writers’ Guild, its members, and other impressions of past meetings, please visit www.MaineBeerWriters.org. If you are a brewery or pub interested in hosting a future MBWG meeting, please use the Contact Form to get in touch with us. We’d love to visit your establishment and get the word out about another piece of Maine beer culture.