How many of Maine’s Top 25 Beers of 2018 can be found on our tours?
Our friends at the website Beer This Week recently ran an end-of-year survey for what people think were the Top 25 Beers in Maine for 2018. The results show how many you can learn about and taste on our various tours.
This annual survey is certainly a popularity contest. It is not supposed to Maine’s best beers, but it is a list of favorite beers as voted on by thousands of Maine beer drinkers.
Here is the list:
Congratulations to the team at Bissell Brothers, who topped the list this year with Swish!
Bissell Brothers Brewing has been welcoming our Brew Bus tour guests since the very day they opened their original One Industrial Way brewery to the public.
- 578 different Maine beers received at least one vote.
- 19 out of the 25 are hoppy beers such as a Pale Ale, an IPA, or a DIPA.
- Only 1 stout made the list this year.
- Allagash and Bissell Brothers together represent almost 40% of the beers on the list.
An early behind-the-scenes tour at Lone Pine Brewing from founders John Paul and Tom Madden.
In reviewing the list, we found our own interesting facts about the breweries and the beers:
- 12 different breweries are represented with beers on this list, many with more than one beer voted for.
- The Maine Brew Bus visits 9 of these 12 breweries every week year-round with specially arranged insider tours and tastes.
- 16 of the beers on the list came from breweries currently or formerly located at Industrial Way in Portland. Over the 6 years of our Maine Brew Bus operations, thousands of our guests have been able to try many of these beers on our tours.
Fresh cans of Swish rolling down the line during one of our behind-the-scenes tours at Bissell Brothers Brewing.
Now some breweries have more than one beer on the list, so potentially 19 of Maine’s Top 25 beers are available to taste on our tours.
This includes the top 6 beers on the list and 8 of the top 10!
Now we certainly know that not every beer is available every day, many are only available during certain times of the year. But we are love to see so many of our brewery partners with featured beers appear on this list generated by the beer-loving public.
Often our guests are visiting a brewery before they open for the day and are among the first to try a new beer or perhaps a popular beer that is being released later that day.
Many of our tours visit these breweries before they open to the public for the day. This includes Bissell Brothers, Foundation, Maine Beer Company, and Lone Pine. So guests that are lucky enough to be at these spots on release day are able to taste (and often buy cans of) these top beers before the general public has a chance to.
We are always impressed with the beers selected, and we work our tour design to visit as many of the great Maine breweries as we possibly can.
You should come to see (and taste) for yourself, make plans to hop on a tour soon!
Sign up for weekly brewery beer release and events at the website for Beer This Week. And then make sure to check out Maine’s great beers on The Maine Brew Bus tours.