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For those who have heard that something very special is going on in Belfast, Maine, we can decisively confirm the rumors. Marshall Wharf Brewing is certainly a force to be reckoned with in Maine brewing. With beers available at Novare Res and The Bear, and a cask at NERAX North last month, the cat is already out of the bag. Having said all that, it still takes a visit to the Three Tides Inn in Belfast, the brewery tap for Marshall Wharf, to understand the magnitude of what these guys have accomplished since they began brewing just one year ago.

David Carlson has said that there is no sane way to drink through all of his beers in one session, and that’s probably true. They typically have twelve of their beers on tap at all times. There is however a safe way, and that is to get a room in Belfast and leave the car keys in your room. That’s what  I did the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving.

Three Tides is above all else a local watering hole, with the ambience of old friends enjoying being together. It’s a cozy place, with perhaps a dozen seats at the serpentine bar and half a dozen booths. We witnessed a steady stream of regulars dropping by to pick up growlers for the holiday, and the room had a welcoming and convivial feeling to it.

David and his wife opened Three Tides ten years ago as a martini bar, and the lineage shows a bit in the decor and the ambiance. Fancy mixed drinks remain popular with the regulars. Swaying palms and a Caribbean beach would not be out of place here. Instead one gazes out at the working harbor of Belfast, and that’s pretty neat in its own way.

A sign of greatness in any endeavor is that one shifts the rules of the game a bit, and David and his brewers are doing that. Their range of beers is enormous, encompassing session ales, a hefeweizen, stouts, porters, a scotch ale, a dopplebock, and a couple of massive IPAs.These are all robust, flavorful beers, each with a unique personality.

In a sense David reminds me of Will Myers at Cambridge Brewing: across a wide range of beers you don’t find one badly made beer; a given style may not be your favorite, but it’s still a well made beer.

These are big beers – the Cant Dog is 10%, and at the other end of the scale the Tug Pale Ale offers a hop experience as dramatic as any I’ve had at any gravity. There is a stunning consistency across the entire line of beers. Every beer is balanced, and feels “right”. One suspects that even Old 55, a dark, challenging beer with strong flavors and sharp elbows at 7.7%, fun now, will age in a month or so into something much more civilized. Across the board the higher gravity beers drink well below their alcohol content; the high alcohol content never feels forced and rarely is obvious.

Having had the Cant Dog at NERAX North I’ll verify that Davids beers can be terrific in cask. I particularly enjoyed tasting Cant Dog side by side with the British Ridgeway Criminally Bad Elf at 10.5%. They were both beautifully balanced and completely different, the Dog an exercise in hop tones and the Elf an exercise in fruit tones.

On top of all this there are rumors of Marshall Wharf beers soon turning up in cask in Portland. Can we possibly be so lucky?