On August 16, 2007, Greg arrived at the Allagash Brewing Company in Portland, Maine for a tour of their facility. Allagash's founder, Rob Tod, fell in love with making beer while working at a brewery in Vermont. Founded in the mid 1990's, Allagash has been stunningly successful in achieving the mission of creating superb Belgian style ales. 

Above: The Mash Tank. This is where ingredients are put together to form what is known as "wort". Ingredients include water and malted barley, also known as grist at this point in the process because it has been prepared for the brew process by being run through a machine that chops it into very fine pieces. Unpictured is the area of the brewery where the malted barley is chopped into finer pieces.

Above: The Kettle. This is where the wort is brought to a higher temperature and steeped. This serves to sterilize the water and to convert starches into sugar. This sugar is used later in the brewing process by the yeast as an energy source, whose byproducts include alcohol and carbonation. This is where hops are often added to give it that classic taste.

Above: The Whirlpool. Hops can also be added at this stage in the process. This is where the the ingredients are separated and the sugar rich wort drawn out from the various solids for placement into the fermenting tanks (seen below).

Above: The Fermenting Tanks. The yeast works its magic here. Hops can be added to this process as well, all at the discretion of the head brewer at Allagash. Notice the height of these tanks. Allagash can increase capacity by adding larger tanks as seen in the back of this picture. They also have a fair amount of floor space that can be used to add tanks as needed.

Above: Allagash's Barrel Room. Most breweries do not use barrels for fermentation and/or aging. Many types of Allagash beer are oak aged enabling Allagash's beers to take on their distinctive flavors.. Many of the barrels here come from Bourbon producers (Jim Beam for one). Other beers are aged in new French Oak or American Oak barrels. After the necessary time in barrels the beer moves onto the bottling line.

Above: The keg cleaning/filling station. There is a set of hoses that both clean and fill the kegs. In the background you can see the fermenting tanks.

Above: The bottling line. All of Allagash's production is hand packed not only because the machine doesn't box it for them BUT as a quality control measure. Some of Allagash's beers are given a bit of yeast and Candi sugar to enable bottle fermentation.

Above: The label line. Bottled product is labeled here before being boxed for shipment. In the case of their 750ml bottles the metallic caps are added at the station in the right of the picture.

After being labeled and capped, some beers are placed in a room which is kept at an ideal temperature for bottle fermentation before being released.

It was indeed a very interesting afternoon spent at the Allagash Brewery. If you're ever in Portland, Maine, tours are generally held every afternoon at 3pm. Check the Allagash website for details and be sure to tell them who sent you!

Should you have any questions about these pictures or this particular brewery (or any other) please email!

Greg@Gregs-Wines.Com

This page was last updated August 22, 2007.