We got up before the sun and quickly headed out of the hotel to find a spot along the water for sunrise. When the first place was unaccessible I headed a short distance away and found a great spot with a view of an offshore lighthouse that was just in front of the glowing sky. The sun rose perfectly behind the lighthouse and I got some great shots. It was incredibly cold out there and I couldn't feel my fingers for a good while after shooting. But it was worth it.
As the feeling slowly returned to my hands we drove into Maine and headed to Woodland Valley DGC. We went into the office and paid to play, where several other groups had already started out. Disc golf is amazingly popular on the day after Christmas at a snowy course in Maine. The course itself was pretty nice, with the snow packed down it didn't feel too different than regular play. I did, however, lose a disc after shooting a second shot and somehow it disappeared in the snow. After a long search we accepted defeat and moved on.
We had to cut the course just a little early to make the 40 minute drive to Portland in time for our Allagash tour. When we arrived we got our badges that all had punny phrases using the word "tour." Mine was TOURture. They gave us our first sample of House Beer and we milled around for a short time until the tour began. Disclaimer: The rest of this post will be very beer heavy, so if you're under 21, please look away.
Our tour guide was hilarious and good at describing the processes of brewing without being overly verbose. It was a big crowd and he handled it well. It was fun little tour starting in the brewhouse with a sample of Allagash White, moving on through the old facility, and ending in the barrel room where they age everything. This is also where we got our last three samples of the day and got to wander around. We took some photos for people, people took some photos of us, and we just had a good time. All the beers were good, with the Little Brett and Sixteen Counties being my favorites.
Maine is nice enough to have great breweries right across the street from each other so we walked over to Foundation where we did some flights of really good beer. Everything was great. The Zuurzing sour was the standout. The Ember IPA was incredible as well. Overall just a great little brewery with a nice vibe.
Around the corner was Austin Street so we walked over there and sampled the three beers they had on. Both pale ales were very good and the stout was also tasty. This is a pretty great place to spend a whole day drinking.
We were heading for the coffee shop and I forgot that rising tide is directly across the street so we stopped there on the way. We got one flight that was decent and then moved on. It wasn't as good as I remember and it was a little crowded.
We walked over to the Portland Coffee Roasters and I got a delicious cold brew and saw this coffee bean on the trash sign. Things I did.
We headed up the street to the HoneyMaker Meadery and when we walked in everyone turned around like we were in a movie and the bartender asked us if we were in the right place. It was an awkward start. There may as well have been a record scratch as the music went off. Anyway, misunderstanding diffused, we did our tasting. The lavender mead was quite good, but the lavender mead lemonade was even better. He saved the best for last as there was a Chai mead that Becca and I both immediately agreed we need to get a couple bottles of. The bartender told us about a barrel aged sour at Oxbow right behind their bar so we went back there and did a quick sampling of two beers. Not bad.
We got to Pleasant Hills DGC maybe 45 minutes before sunset and it was already cloudy so it made it even more dark. We played 8 holes on the icy snow before it was too dark to find our way, but this is a course I'd definitely like to come back to sometime. It was mostly open, yet they made most of the holes pretty interesting in some way.
After stopping at a brewery called Earth Eagle and finding the beer list and the atmosphere to be not at all appealing, we headed to Stoneface Brewing for another quick flight. There it is. The beer was pretty good, but I'm starting to think the amount of things we tried over the day possibly skewed my reactions.
We got to our hotel outside of Boston and got an Uber to Night Shift Brewing. The guy drove us in silence the whole way and I used my "first ride" credit to pay for it. Nice. The place was packed because they were doing Geeks Who Drink trivia night. We jumped right into the game and eventually went up to get some flights.
It was a very strange night, and Becca went and made the executive decision to take chair that people were using just for the jackets and purses so we could also sit down. Pretty awesome. The game was hectic and hard to hear the host over the crappy speakers or microphone. It was a bit stressful, and we only got to taste our beers once in a while during a break. The beer was good though.
After the game we breathed a heavy sigh of relief, finished our last beers, and then got an Uber back to the hotel.
