Craft Beer Adventures

Include Maine Beer Company Freeport when visiting L.L. Bean and the outlets.

We often visit Maine, and if it’s meal time we may seek out a brewery near our route. Some years ago we discovered craft beer. And we also discovered that many breweries offer good food or food trucks. Breweries and “Mom and Pop” places are fun and tasty alternatives to chains.

The Maine Brewers Guild guides you to breweries in Maine via its website and Maine Beer Trail brochure.

Freeport, Maine is home to the Maine Beer Company

When we first visited the Maine Beer Company in 2017, it’s outdoor seating seemed bigger than it’s indoor. Picnic tables with water bowls for dogs and an outdoor pizza oven dominated the front parking area. The tap room, entered by a small front porch, was simple, as were the restrooms. They had just eight beers on tap so decisions were simple, as we usually got flights so we had a sampler of each. Huge plate sized pretzels with mustard that were self-serve covered a corner of the bar.

Renovations give the Maine Beer Company a whole new feel

What a difference in 2019! The brewery added a two-story, 30,000-square-foot building to its original space with a new larger entrance. Now there’s a long bar with twenty beers on tap, an indoor food service, well-lit beer hall with a mezzanine, extensive beer cooler, gift shop, and a large roof-covered patio area. Dogs are still welcome in the patio and you can still pick out a large self-serve pretzel as you order your beer.

The outside entrance seems modest, but it’s deceptive, as the inside is extensive and well-lit. I wish I had taken more photos, but it was quite busy and I was trying not to include people.

The entrance, within a simple post and beam black barn-like structure, is now at the side of the building. A wide staircase leads down to the patio and tasting room/beer hall. Rather than have a handicap access ramp outside, which could be challenging in rain or snow, the ramp is immediately inside the wide door. There were a number of people with walkers and strollers who made use of it.

We were a little overwhelmed with the new larger setup that we stuck with the beers we knew. We like hoppy beer so we chose Lunch, which is one of their headliners, so to speak. Samplers of the Post Ride Snack – Session IPA , Dinner – Double IPA, and Wolfe’s Neck – IPA rounded out our flights. A pretzel said “pick me” and we added a pizza baked their new indoor wood-fired oven. All were very tasty.

Plenty of room to accommodate groups, strollers, wheelchairs and walkers, and pets

The two-story taproom accommodates about 500 people. It is open and airy and enhanced by plants, a fountain framed by stone benches and a bronze sculpture of a tree within a stone circle providing more casual seating. The mezzanine above the bar area overlooks the taproom and production area. It offers a variety of seating and a shuffleboard.

We sat in the new patio area, which is about two-thirds under an overhang, and one third in the sun. A rock wall and picnic tables with umbrellas are in the sun, and long tables in the shaded area. Several dogs were the patio area and enjoying the water bowls provided for them. The patio will have heat lamps in colder weather.

Maine Beer Company in Freeport attracts singles, couples, families of multi-generations

The day we stopped at the brewery it was quite busy. Customers ranged from couples with/without strollers and/or dogs, families of three generations, and retirees with and without walkers or canes. The brewery was doing a brisk business with bottled beer from the self-serve cooler. People, noticeably women as well as men, were leaving with cases, not just a couple of bottles of beer. In addition to beer to go, you can also buy gift certificates and merchandise in the gift shop area.

Experimental Black Barn Beer series

The sign to the left of the cooler explains their Black Barn Program: “Our Black Barn Program is about being creative, learning, and challenging our team to brew the highest quality beer. Our beer goes through extensive lab testing and our robust sensory program in order to comply with our belief in quality over quantity. Black Barn beers are brewed on our 15BBL brewhouse and will be available in bottles and on draft exclusively in our tap room.”

We look forward to trying some of the Black Barn series on future visits.

Independent and Proud of It.

The Maine Beer Company believes beer drinkers have the right to know when they are supporting an independent craft brewery and has adopted the Brewers Association Seal of Independence.

Doing what’s right

Maine Beer Company’s motto, printed on every bottle is: “Do what’s right.” And it does, beyond making good beer. There are solar panels on the roofs and the taproom is solar powered. Ingredients for the beer and food are from local Maine farmers. Maine Beer Company is a member of 1% for The Planet, agreeing to donate one percent of gross annual sales to environmental charities.  It has partnerships with several Maine and global environmental groups, including Maine Coast Heritage Trust, Friends of Katahdin Woods & Water, Maine Audubon, and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. Its highly regarded beer, Lunch, is named after “Lunch,” a finback whale tracked by Allied Whale, a local marine mammal laboratory and 1% of the Planet member. And, the brewery regularly holds events in the Tasting Room to support designated charities.

Visiting the Brewery

The Maine Beer Company is a short hop from L.L. Bean at 525 U.S. Route 1 Freeport, ME 04032. It’s easily found by taking Exit 20 off Interstate 295. As of this writing, Fall 2019, hours are Monday – Sunday, 11 am – 8 pm. excepting major holidays. Currently it doesn’t offer brewery tours. Food is served from open to close in the Tasting Room. In addition to large pretzels with mustard there’s a limited but delicious menu of pizza and salads, which is subject to seasonal changes.

Check the website: mainebeercompany.com or call (207) 221-5711 for current hours, beer and food availability, etc. Maine winters are traditionally tough, and Maine has been hit with even more severe weather the last couple of years which may affect power and road clearing.

See another of our stops on the Maine Beer Trail here.

Keeping track of your craft beer adventures

The Maine Brewers Guild distributes a free Maine Beer Trail brochure. Either download one from their website or pick up a hard copy at member breweries. You can get rewarded for visiting breweries if you have a brewery staff member checkoff, sign and date the brochure when you visit. If you visit 10 or more breweries you can earn a hat, t-shirt, or a prize pack.

If you want to keep more detailed records of where you went and what beer you enjoyed, you might like Keeping Up with Craft Beers: A Journal for Your Tasting Adventures. You can list up to 100 beers, as well as list breweries and brew pubs you liked as well as beer festivals.

I prefer writing in a journal to digital notes. I worked on the journal after I realized that the breweries often add to and change their beer offerings. It was becoming a challenge to remember which ones I like and those that I don’t. We just dropped into a brewery that we hadn’t visited in about a year and I pulled out my journal and consulted my notes before ordering. My notes helped me avoid ordering a beer I didn’t care for and getting one I hadn’t tried before that I enjoyed very much.