The OTHER Portland.

We entered Portland, Maine after a 5 hour drive from our campsite in Vermont.  We traveled through beautiful countryside as we passed through the hills of Vermont, and New Hamphire countryside. Our drives have become more and more enjoyable with the East Coast proclivity for turnpikes and tolls, since our navigation avoids them and thus has us take the more “scenic” routes.

We stayed in a pay campsite just outside of Portland, in the town of Freeport.  The plan was to stay 2 nights, giving us a day to fully explore our West coast home’s namesake, and run some errands, such as laundry.  It was a beautiful campsite, and we had a modest view of the water.  It was nice to smell salt in the air again!

Portland, Maine is much smaller than it’s West Coast younger sibling, but reminds us of our home city in many ways.  Driving through the Maine city felt like Portland, Oregon maybe 15 years ago. It was a little run down in places, but had lots of potential, and an overall nice vibe.  The people seemed friendly, and many had an appreciation for things we can relate to: delicious beverages and outdoor adventure.

Our exploration of Portland ended up being solely focused on beer.  Portland must be a name synonymous with brews since both cities hold their own record.  Portland, Oregon has more breweries than any other US city (63 if I am not mistaken), while Portland, Maine holds the current record for most breweries per capita (13 breweries with a population of only 70,000).

There was one Brewery in particular that ended up dominating most of our available in the port city: Allagash Brewing Company.  It had many unique characteristics that earns it a place of fond memories amongst many during this trip.

Perhaps the most unique trait was that Allagash was surrounded by 5 other breweries.  It turns out Allagash has turned into a defacto beer-startup incubator, with small nano and micro breweries turning up on the nearby block to draw in visitors from the larger Allagash, especially since Allagash closes by 6pm every day.

The other thing we loved about Allagash and the surrounding breweries were that they were all incredibly dog friendly, a trait that we have heard permeates throughout Portland, Maine.  One nearby brewery actually let us take the dogs inside as the evening air cooled down.   We have decided that all of our favorite breweries are actually dog friendly.  We stand by this so much that we immediately walked out of a brewery and winery in Vermont when we found out that they wouldn’t even allow dogs on the property! (most venues at least let them outside).

Finally, what stood out most at Allagash was the delicious flavor.   Most of their beers are Belgians, or Belgian variants, and each one carried a unique flavor very different from standard brewery offerings.  Their beers trend towards wine-like alcohol content, with our favorite varieties being 10-12% ABV.  This is the reason it now holds the number one spot in Leah’s list of favorite breweries.  It’s in the top 5 for Andy, but his number 1 spot is reserved for a better selection of IPAs.

The only thing we didn’t like about Allagash was they didn’t allow for Growler fills (probably since Maine has a weird growler law:  by state Law they cannot fill growlers not labeled by the brewery supplying the beer).  So we now have an assortment of 4 pack specialty beers floating around in the truck .

All told, we tasted beers from 4 breweries in Portland.  I also munched on a Lobster roll for breakfast and dinner in the same day!  We enjoyed many great conversations with locals and fellow tourists, and received recommendations for nearby hikes.  It’s a city we will remember fondly!