From Maine, With Love - An Allagash Brewing Podcast

S2 Episode 5: Explore The Cellars

• Allagash Brewing Company

Share episode

What will you find inside The Cellars at Allagash? In this episode, we're joined once again by Certified Cicerone and Hospitality Specialist Lindsay Bohanske to dive into everything involved in a Cellars experience. The types of beers you'll taste. The things you'll learn. And the fact that every visit is built to be enjoyed by beer novices, beer experts, and anyone in between.

Brett Willis:

This is From Maine with Love, an Allagash Brewing podcast, where we talk about beer, our community here in Maine, and things that generally make us happy. And we're here again. If you, if you don't want to drink beer right now, listen to this episode and it's gonna make you want to drink beer<laugh>.

Liz Wilson:

Yes. I know.

Brett Willis:

It's, that's really the best thing I could say. I

Liz Wilson:

Know. Uh, yeah. We, uh, chatted with Lindsay Bohanske, hospitality specialist. She is running the show over in our new tasting space here. Experience, tasting experience Yes. Here at the brewery called the Cellars. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, we're about six months in when we talk about the experience that she walks you through as a guest of the Cellars mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, and just chatted through some of the really cool beers that we have going on, uh, in the space.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. If you had an interest in like, well, what does that even mean, a beer experience at the Cellars? This will let you know everything you need to know about it. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, how accessible it is. How really interesting these beers are that like, there are beers that you'll try, that you literally cannot get anywhere else. You can't even get them in the tasting room. You have to come to the Cellars to try these beers, and they're all so interesting, so complex, just really tasty. Um, and yeah, I mean, it's just, it's always a pleasure talking with Lindsay. Yeah. Super knowledgeable, super great. And just is such an, uh, excellent person at taking people through beers. And so yeah. If you have any interest in having a, your experience that goes beyond what you're gonna find in a, in an average bar. Yes. Come on by a great place to be. And we're here again, I'm very happy to say with Lindsay Bohansky, our hospitality and education specialist.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Hello Friends.

Brett Willis:

Hello. And then we're also joined by Liz Wilson. Hey, manager. Hi, Liz. Hi, uh, bef and the, the topic of the day is the, the Cellars at Allagash. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, uh, which I, we have mentioned I think, more than a couple times, but we have not actually delved into it. So I'm excited to be able to talk all about it, explore it, uh, just kind of all the amazing things that we're doing over there. But before that, Lindsay, I need to know what is your least favorite children's book?

Lindsay Bohanske:

My least favorite children's book.

Brett Willis:

I know you have a child and I know there are some books you have to read a lot.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Oh Boy.<laugh> This like, you know, recently my daughter has been really into the Cat in the Hat. Oh. And it's actually a joy to read. Yeah. But it's one of the longer of her books. And so she's gotten to the, to the age where she knows like, the longer the book is, the longer she can delay Yeah. At times<laugh>. Yep.

Brett Willis:

Yep.

Lindsay Bohanske:

So that one is giving me ire, um, cuz she's obsessed and I'm, I'm just ready for her to go to bed.<laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. That's a good one.

Liz Wilson:

She's old enough to know if you have skipped.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Oh yeah. Oh

Brett Willis:

Yeah.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Oh yeah.

Brett Willis:

Oh yeah. Yeah. You missed that word. Yeah. That single word. Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Bohanske:

<affirmative>. Yeah, I know. And the rhymes are all off if you skip things, you know, it's crazy. Um, but then there's also this terrible book of like, old nursery rhymes that makes no sense. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

Those old ones

Lindsay Bohanske:

She loves it. And I'm like, you don't even know half these words, like mire and, you know what I mean? I'm like, like, you're three, like, you don't understand this, but she's like obsessed. I don't understand it. I don't, I don't know. Maybe it's cuz it's weird sounding that she likes it. I don't know. Yeah. But there's, I can't even remember the name of it, but there's this whole book that we have that we got gifted and I'm just gonna throw it in the recycling bin.<laugh>

Brett Willis:

Things can disappear. It's a good, it's a good fact of adulthood. Uh, yeah. I think any, any um, alphabet related book for me tends to become little grading cuz I'm just like, I'm only at f my God got so much to go. So many more.

Lindsay Bohanske:

20 more of these things.<laugh>.

Brett Willis:

So many more letters. Uh, all right. Liz, what's your favorite street to walk on in Portland?

Liz Wilson:

Brett<laugh>. I never know. I'm not a street name person. I'm like the one where the tree and the, the house with the things. That's fine. I can, I can, I can figure this out. I, uh, live over in the west end of Portland and I can most often be found in the western prom.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. Western prom's. Beautiful. It's beautiful.

Liz Wilson:

It's so awesome over there. And it is, uh, a very nice, uh, it was like a 20 minute walk that I take the dog on. Yeah. Pretty much every day. Uh, habit that was real helpful in the pandemic to get outta the house and just wander around the neighborhood. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

The western prom is, is like the sleeper, because eastern prom is so out there, it's so obviously water. Oh, it's right here. But like western prom, you're like, I'm in a neighborhood and oh, suddenly here's this gorgeous, you know, view opens up

Liz Wilson:

And there's oftentimes it'll come home from work depends on the time of year. And the sun is setting, it sun's right over the sunset's, right over the western prom, and it is some really beautiful sunsets to be viewed there. And you can actually on a nice day, see Mount Washington. Ooh. And so if the lighting and the the weather is right, you can, it's just sometimes a, a magical moment to dream get taken.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Even just some of the houses over there. I Oh my gosh. Just wanna Yeah. I can like gawk forever.

Liz Wilson:

I like make up stories in my head. I'm like, oh, I wonder who lived there. And the ghosts that are roaming around the seven stories.<laugh>. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. So...

Liz Wilson:

You get a question. We workshopped this one.

Brett Willis:

I'm excited.

Liz Wilson:

What is your go-to move in a game of beer pong? And I ask you this because I have witnessed you

Brett Willis:

Ah,

Liz Wilson:

Win a tournament.

Brett Willis:

That's true.

Liz Wilson:

A beer pong tournament.

Lindsay Bohanske:

What's secret? Secret? What's the coming out people?

Brett Willis:

Uh, you know what, I actually do have a, a quirk.

Liz Wilson:

We knew it.

Brett Willis:

I, uh, I employ that helps me throw the ball and it's that I dip it in water before I throw what, there's a little weight something. There's something about the weight that a little extra water on the ball adds to it that in my mind gives me the confidence to throw the ball. Okay. So I, I always do that. I always, it's

Liz Wilson:

A little, it's like a little superstition in your little,

Brett Willis:

I don't know if it's regulation. I don't know if it's even allowed. I just do it. I do it every time. Wow. Yeah. There you go. That's a good one. I like that. That was a good, that was a good question. And I, I, yeah, that tournament, I was not like trying to win that tournament. I was actually trying to, I feel like I was trying to lose, and that's why we, I won<laugh> because I didn't care. I was like, I really don't wanna win this next game. And then we kept winning and I was like, all right, then I got it. You know, it, it's fun to win. Uh, so I thought about first, like, let's get into the details of it, but I think first, actually before we get into the details, I would love to hear what is the feeling that you and the team are trying to cultivate in the Cellars? Like, what, what do you hope people come away with?

Lindsay Bohanske:

Yeah. Um, I think primarily, you know, first of all, we, we are so excited to finally welcome people back into Yeah. An actual production space. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's kind of the beauty of the Cellars is not only is it this visually beautiful tasting space mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but it's in the heart of the actual Cellars Right. Of our wild and sour, um, kind of aging area. And it's just so charming mm-hmm.<affirmative> and, but also so accessible. And I think that that's the thing that, that's the kind of beauty of that space is we want people to feel really welcome in there. I feel like they can, you know, have a white, but also try this incredible curated menu of, you know, handpicked beers that we love. And, you know, I think my favorite part about my job is I get to actually pick what people taste. Yeah. Um, and then we also have these vintage beers that people can try while they're there that are amazing and, um, you know, are totally different than what you can get in the tasting room. So it's kind of, um, become this really wonderful, curated experience that mm-hmm.<affirmative> kind of, every single one has been a little bit different. And, um, that's cool. You know, depending on the guests and what the interests are and, um, it's just a cool way to give people the allagash experience.

Brett Willis:

So follow up question is, do you need to know anything about beer to enjoy an experience?

Lindsay Bohanske:

Oh my God, absolutely not. No. No. And I think that that's what I love about it Yeah. Is that you could be like an uber beer nerd that like, wants to get into the weeds mm-hmm.<affirmative> and ask us a billion questions. Yep. Or you could be somebody that just wants to try some cool stuff. Yeah. And, you know, maybe you don't even really love beer, but you know, you'd wanna hang out with your friends in a cool space and try something, you know? Yeah. It's, it's kind of, there's something for everybody, which is really wonderful.

Brett Willis:

Awesome.

Liz Wilson:

And sensorially, there's just so much to take in over there. Like the smells are super unique from all the barrels and the fruit that we use in some of these. Like, you can really sort of better understand what's happening with the beer that's right in front of you because you're in this space. Yep. And you know, I think it is for anybody who has visited the brewery prior to the pandemic, you know, you may have gone into this area, it looks very different to a different degree. Totally different. Yeah. Um, you know, that the space now went under a beautiful sort of renovation Yeah. Um, but still preserves the original, um, space that Rob started out in.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Yeah, I think what we were trying to achieve with this new tasting experience and barrel room kind of tour is to give people an experience of being in the production space, you know, to kind of get that kind of peak behind the scenes mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you feel like you're really a part of what we're doing. Um, before when we had, we did have a pretty elaborate tour that we used to give that went through all the way through the production space. Yep. And so many changes. There's so many reasons why we decided after the pandemic, not to bring that back. Um, but it kind of is the best of that experience because Yeah. The favorite part for everybody was at the very end of the experience, you go into the barrel room and you see the barrels and you're like, whoa. And you smell the smells and it's like this very evocative, like, you know, it's, it's a vibe, right. It's totally a mood. Yeah. Yeah. And you, that's where you got to taste the beers as part of the tour experience. Yes. And so it's basically like in an elongated version of that where, you know, we sort of tie in a lot of the experiences that people had on our old public tour mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but then it's so much more, but it also allows people some time to just enjoy the beer. Yeah. Which, you know, that's always the most fun part is like, when we're in the break mode, you know, we're not talking at you the whole time. It's not meant to be like a seminar about beer. Right. You're there to taste some things. You know, we go over some, some highlights, but, uh, it's just a really wonderful curated experience.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. That it just like, just as like another thought that I had coming from that is I, I feel like one of that, when we're talking about people who are beginners coming into it, like beer is such a kind of impenetrable subject. If you are a beginner, but I feel like the thing that we're able to achieve with the Cellars that's super like, just makes me really happy is it's like it's accessible, it is friendly, it is exactly like, it'll meet you where you are, but also, like, if you are a super beer nerd mm-hmm.<affirmative>, we can talk about fermentation profile, we can talk about like, you know, all these sorts of different aspects, aging time, like a pounds of fruit. We're putting like, you know, you can go as as high or, as low as you want, or high or as deep as you want. And it's just like, yeah. It just makes it really special.

Lindsay Bohanske:

A hundred percent agree. And I think too, you know, speaking about, you know, people's interest in beer because there's like these gaps of time where people can just, you know, there's kind of free wandering around the space, you can check out the footers. Um, it just makes people, gives people what they want, you know, as far as, you know, we're not, I, we just love how flexible it's become. It's really kind of come into its own. And that I should say is the beer and barrels experience we do. Yeah. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, we have kind of been playing around with different types of experiences in the Cellars. Yeah. And so, you know, what I'm referring to as far as experience goes is kind of become like our classic mm-hmm.<affirmative>, um, classic experience called Beer and Barrels mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And, uh, we also have been playing around with an open tasting experience and some pairing experiences. Yeah. Which we hope to continue. Um, but the classic one, the beer and barrels experience is, um, kind of what I'm talking about. It's

Liz Wilson:

Only in, it's like six, I think we've just hit our six month mark. Yeah. Yeah. We started right after Thanksgiving.<laugh> we

Lindsay Bohanske:

After Thanksgiving. That's right. That's weird. We were, we were supposed to open in June<laugh> Oh. During busy season. And then we decided, no, no, no, no, no. Let's wait till the holidays.

Brett Willis:

I don't, I don't think we decided anything. I think it was decided by...larger forces,

Lindsay Bohanske:

Believe me. I know. Yeah. No, this has been in the planning phases for so long. Yeah. And it's just such a joy to finally see it. Yeah. Um, kind of coming to fruition the way I imagined.

Liz Wilson:

Yeah. And it feels like for anyone planning trips in this summer, like it's such a fun, uh, you know, like guided experience. Yeah. And it doesn't take up a whole afternoon. It's a great, you know Yeah. 90 minutes. Is it around the Yeah. The,

Lindsay Bohanske:

The time that is like, um, content I guess is about an hour. Yeah. Um, but then there's 30 minutes after the experience that people can, if they're like, really vibing a beer, they can buy one of the beers we tried. Right. They can try something else that they can only get in the Cellars. Um, they can just hang out and chat with us. Yeah. Um, and there's space for that, which is really lovely. So it, it's, like I said, it's become really flexible as far as like what groups are interested in. We've had a lot of, you know, bigger, we've had bigger groups, we've had smaller groups and kind of everywhere in between, but even if it's just a group of two Yeah. You know, honestly, like they're on Mondays and stuff, when we're kind of quiet, it's become like, kind of our industry day. We get people in from restaurants and, um, that's like the best time to come because it's nice and quiet. There's usually, you know, just a handful of people on each experience and it's been so, so fun. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. So, I mean, yeah. Like let, take us through a beer and barrels experience, like kind of a, a higher level. You don't have to go through everything, every single thing you'd go through, but like, what is the, what are the details?

Lindsay Bohanske:

Do you have an hour? Yeah,

Brett Willis:

Exactly. Yeah.<laugh>

Liz Wilson:

Surprise.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Um, yeah, so great question. So what happens is, um, people who book the Experience, um, they come in, they, we check them in, we give them right off the bat, we give them a sample of AllagashWhite, just as a little welcome pour. That'd be nice. Um, something to wet their whistle while they're waiting for other guests to arrive. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, it's really special because White was actually born in that building. So it's just really important for us to always have white at the center of what we're doing, even if we're talking about these really cool limited edition specialty beers. Totally. Um, so we, you know, we, we give white its moment, um, cuz it's so important to us as a brand. And then we, um, once everybody's arrived, um, folks sit down, we dive right into our first sample mm-hmm.<affirmative>, which is usually a barrel aged beer where the flavor of the barrel was really the showcase. Yeah. So whether it's like a bourbon barrel, aged stout or, um, right now we're showcasing Barrel and Bean, which is our Curieux blended with cold brew coffee, which is so unique. Yeah. Um, so we kind of do, uh, tame, for lack of a better word, a tame barrel aged beer mm-hmm. Where like the flavor of the barrel really comes through. Yeah. Um, after a short break we come back and then we try another two beers back to back. Um, usually there's a beer that's sort of, um, a flavor profile is coming from a strain of yeast called Brettanomyces. Oh. So it kind of showcases kind of like a little bit of funkiness. Yeah, yeah. A little bit of fruitiness in a way that is just kind of fun to talk about. Um, and then we always tie in that to our coolship beers mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So we almost always taste a coolship beer. And then after another short break, we give guests the space to walk around if they want, if they want to go, you know, get up and walk around the barrels space. Um, then we try the last beer and we take that on a tour of the barrel room. So the, and then almost always the way that this is kind of lined up as we do with the Cellars beer mm-hmm.<affirmative> cause we have this whole series of Cellars-specific beers Yeah. That, um, you can only get in the space. So we always wanna try at least one of those. Yeah, yeah. Give the people what they want.<laugh> Yeah. And those beers we bring into the barrel room. Yeah. Walk around the barrel when we do kind of a tour of the space and point out some of the cool things we've got going on. Every experience is different cuz the space is constantly changing. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Um, and every month we're doing a new menu, so it's like really fun. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

That's awesome.

Lindsay Bohanske:

And then last thing we do is go over to the original floor plan where Rob(founder of Allagash) started the business, talk a little bit about the history and come back and there's always a little surprise and delight. We'll, something, there's always a little something<laugh>,

Brett Willis:

Maybe you're guessing

Lindsay Bohanske:

<laugh>. I don't wanna promise too much, but Yeah. There's always a surprise and delight. That's what I'll say. That's good.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. That's

Lindsay Bohanske:

Good.

Liz Wilson:

Yeah. That sounds amazing. I, and I feel like there's, you know, even if you've came to visit us around the holidays, the menu and the experience is probably pretty different. Absolutely. Um, so worth checking out or bringing,

Lindsay Bohanske:

And there's five, four of us who are leading experiences over there. Um, and everybody has their own take on it. Yeah. It's not really scripted. I mean, they're sort of like a flow, but everybody has like their own special way of doing things. And so like, even if you came on the same experience like a weekend later, you'd probably have somebody Totally, you'd probably have a totally different experience. Right.

Brett Willis:

That feels like a holdover of our original tour program as well. Very much so. We had, you know, we had things we would like to convey, but we also let people do it in totally their own ways and that made the tour so much better.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Yeah. And you know, I tell people when I'm trading them, you know, if you, if you're not having fun, like people won't have fun to like, make it your own, like, have fun with it.

Liz Wilson:

And everybody has their own favorite beer. Yeah. And so, you know, it's really fun to sort of get into Absolutely. What about that beer they enjoy or that style of beer in particular. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Um,

Brett Willis:

And backing up, but just because you threw out two terms, brettanomyces and coolship beers. Mm-hmm. Sure. We, we've mentioned those in previous episodes, but I think it's sort of thing where it's like, if you are listening and you're like, what the heck does that mean? Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, that's like more reason for you to come out<laugh> because these are, these are flavors and they'll be fully explained and also they provide a flavor where if you've never tried it, you're never gonna have had this before. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, this is gonna be something completely new. And so like, just interesting, complex, like fun to sip on and think about. And especially in that space with the, that ambience, like it's, I think it is the perfect place to try those sorts of beers.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And

Liz Wilson:

You hear those words, you're like, well that's weird. I don't know what that is. Yeah. So I feel like without having that experience, it's intimidating to be like, I'm, I'm, I'm not sure if I want that. Yeah. But

Lindsay Bohanske:

Yeah.

Liz Wilson:

You know, I, I think it is a very cool thing to be able to like talk through.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Definitely. I think it is. Definitely. And I will say too, I think my favorite experiences of the Cellars having led a lot of them already, um, have been the moments where people are like, I didn't even think I liked this type of beer. Right.

Liz Wilson:

Ah,

Lindsay Bohanske:

Like, whoa, this is beer. Like, I've had, I've had a lot of that like yeah. Like, I don't really like beer. And then, you know, at, at the end, three out of the four beers they love so much they lot to take home. You know what I mean? Yeah. That has been, you know, my, my favorite moments of that experience. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. You actually wrote a really great blog that we have on our site that's like, like red wine, you might like this mm-hmm.<affirmative> like, you know, like, I don't know, there were a couple different ones that were just really like, do you like Sour Thing? It was, it was like for very specific types of drinks. Yeah.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Are you talking about the um,"so you think you don't like beer" one?

Brett Willis:

Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Um, yeah, that was fun.

Brett Willis:

That up. Yeah. I feel like that's just Yeah, it is, it is so true. Where beer has so many different flavors that it can achieve. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's, uh, uh, very, very fun.

Lindsay Bohanske:

And I will say, um, for those of you, if you are not drinking for whatever reason, we do offer a designated driver ticket mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So, um, or if you have somebody that's in your party that you know isn't drinking and Yeah. It's, so anyway, just a, you know, it's really meant to be a super welcoming space for people who are really interested in the beer and tasting it and just people who just want to see something cool.

Liz Wilson:

That's a good, a good reminder.

Brett Willis:

So thinking of like, beyond beer, I know we, we did a beer and food pairing. We did a couple beer and food pairing ones like, I guess what's a little, like, what are we trying to accomplish there? What are we trying to showcase there?

Lindsay Bohanske:

Yeah. Uh, so the, we've done one cheese and chocolate pairing with beer that was, we ran it in February and March and a little bit in April. And uh, basically the point was, you know, you can pair beer so well with food. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I think people sort of think, well, isn't wine like, isn't that like the thing you should go to go Yeah. Go to for pairing things. Yep. Yep. Um, and there's so many reasons and we kind of cover this in the experience, but like, there's so many reasons that beer is such a great thing to pair with food. Totally. Um, and so we kind of go into a little bit about that and then we get to actually demonstrate it by sharing two, uh, cheeses. Yeah. And two chocolates, um, that we did that were from local, um, vendors that we are in love with. Winter Hill Farm. Yep. Um, and then Ragged Coast chocolates. Mm. And so I know we'll probably do that experience again in the future. It was awesome.

Brett Willis:

And what was, what was the crowd favorite? Did, did one of those pairings stand out?

Lindsay Bohanske:

Yeah, there was two I think that were pretty amazing. I mean they were all so good. It's hard to say. Yeah. Yeah. So triple is, um, you know, one of our beers that just pairs well cheese, like almost any cheese that pairs well was so that was a no-brainer. Yep. But then the first release in the Cellars series, Cellars number one mm-hmm. Yeah. Is this insane golden raspberry beer aged on, on a golden sour. Like, so we take a beer that's aged into this big beautiful oak foudre mm-hmm.<affirmative>, which you can see when you're in the space.

Brett Willis:

It's a big barrel.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Yeah. Huge, huge barrel. Huge barrel. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and it ages in the barrel for about a year and then it gets blended on fresh golden raspberries from a local farm, from Goss Berry farms, for a few months. And it pulls all this beautiful raspberry character out. It's like drinking a golden raspberry. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

I had that beer and it kind of messes with you cuz you look at it and it's golden and you're like, this is golden. And you taste and you're like, that's raspberry.

Lindsay Bohanske:

What's happening? Yeah. It's not when so many of our fruited, um, beers like that are super colorful. Yeah. Right. Totally. So it really is like a mind mess. Yeah. And so we paired that with the Frost Gully cheese from Winter Hill. Frost Gully is like their kind of camembert-inspired cheese, kind of like a funky brie. Yeah. And that flavor profile of like the funky and like the super creamy against this like tart raspberry. Just like, oh man, it was my mouth is watering<laugh>. I know it's lunchtime.

Liz Wilson:

I'm like, I'm so sorry.

Lindsay Bohanske:

I'm so sorry for everybody listening. Right. So Sarah and Steve from Winter Hill came on one of the experiences. Nice. And Sarah in particular was just obsessed with the combination of like taking a bite of the cheese Yeah. And having it in your mouth while you took a sip of the beer and the combination of those flavors together even she was like, this is insane. That's awesome. Um, that's really cool. So, and then the chocolate pairing, we, we did a chocolate pairing with Barrel& Bean actually. Oh yeah. That was the rye whiskey caramel made from Ragged Coast. And it sounds like an obvious pairing because Barrel& Bean has, um, you know, a little bit of a, this bourbon character, a little bit of the whiskey character. Yep. But the beer made the chocolate taste better. The chocolate made the beer taste better. Coffee,

Brett Willis:

Coffee and chocolate, that's the Ina Garten tip. You add coffee to your chocolate stuff. Yes. Boost the chocolate flavors. Yes. So that does make more sense.

Lindsay Bohanske:

It was insane. It was like additive. It was nuts. Yeah. People were like, this is crazy.<laugh>.

Brett Willis:

Barrel& Bean is one of those really cool beers where like, I love Tripel because you get that sort of feeling of sweetness even though it's a super dry beer. But Barrel& Bean for some reason, like accentuates that sweetness mm-hmm.<affirmative> like this, the coffee, it tastes like it's sweet, but it's not, obviously it's not cloying, it's not sticking on your palate. It's just like super dry. I don't know that beer's awesome.

Lindsay Bohanske:

It's great with chocolate<laugh>. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

Yes. Yeah. With chocolate.

Liz Wilson:

Yeah. What, what uh, what do we have coming up for this summer? I feel like, you know,

Lindsay Bohanske:

We have been in such a fun experimental phase of this, so really we're not, um, holding ourselves to any particular like 1000% plan. Sure. I'll say that. Sure. Um, so take everything I say with a grain of salt, but we have lots of cool plans to do more food pairings. Yeah. Um, we might even work with some local, um, food purveyors, like re like, um, we might do a restaurant, which could be really fun. That'd be awesome. We're definitely planning on doing an oyster weekend.

Brett Willis:

Yes. Yes. A hundred percent.

Lindsay Bohanske:

And that is like, I am so excited about that. Yeah. So we're planning to do like an oyster, um, weekend where at least one of the experiences every day for a whole weekend is really focused on oyster pairing. Oyster pairing. Yep. Love it. And then we also have plans to possibly do some ice cream pairings,

Brett Willis:

Ice cream pairings.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Yeah. That's awesome. That's very summery. Um, so, but there's so much more that we have in our brains. Yeah. Um, so

Brett Willis:

That's awesome.

Lindsay Bohanske:

I was even imagining like maybe we could do like an oyster shucking kind of, um, demo. Demo. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. With part of the, as part of the experience. So we'll see. It's very satisfying. See what we can see what we can do. Very much so.

Brett Willis:

Uh, so I know we kind of talked about the, I want to talk about a couple more of the Cellars beers just because these beers are so interesting. Yeah. And like, we don't have to go super deep on any of them, but I feel like it'll just give you a feeling for the variety that these Cellars beers are bringing. Like both from a production standpoint mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but also just from how different each one is from the next. Yeah, totally. Um, so that, like, so let's start. Cellars Number one, the Golden Sour Blonde ale aged on Golden Raspberries. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> number two. Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Yeah. Number two is a cuvee Yes. Of a whole, um, litany of different beers. Our brewmaster Jason, um, one of his joys is to taste barrels in the space. And, um, he occasionally will come up with these incredible blends of different barrels that he thinks that are basically more than the sum of their parts. Yeah. And so with this blend, it was some coolship beer aged on, um, that was cooled on apples and then aged in, um, some barrels. There's a portion of it that's some wild saison that, um, from I think Mike Billon Saison recipe. Oh really? That's awesome. And a whole bunch of, and a couple of other different barrels in there. So it's just like this incredible combination of flavors. It's almost inexplicable. Like it's hard to even explain. It's like, but it's good art<laugh>. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. But it's real good. Yeah. Um, and you get a little bit of that kind of fruitiness that comes through a little bit of that barrel character, but, and it's, it's, it's tart but not braly sour at all. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Yeah. Um, it's just a really lovely blend of flavors and, you know, we do these beers on such a small scale Yeah. That, you know, they're here, they're gone. And we might have'em for a couple months at a time and then Right. Yeah. You know, they disappear. So, but

Brett Willis:

We should define what a cuvee is. What is a cuvee?

Lindsay Bohanske:

Yeah. Cuvee is just a big fancy old word for blend. Mix. Mix. Combination. A combination.

Brett Willis:

It's a smashup of things. It's French For Smash up

Lindsay Bohanske:

Is it Smash Up or Mashup?

Brett Willis:

It's mash Up, but I just thought Smash Up in Funnier this It's a Smash Burger mashup.

Liz Wilson:

It's a, yeah, it's a smash. I thought Smash Burger. That was the first thing I thought.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. We Smash burger, we a smash pit of beers. Um, uh,

Lindsay Bohanske:

It doesn't taste like fried grease. Sorry. No.

Brett Willis:

Nope. Nope. But, uh, we actually, we've made a couple cuvees in the past. There was a cuvee, there was Cuvee 2015, Cuvee 2017: Cuvee 2015 being one of my all-time favorite beers here at Allagash as a snob.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Um, shout out to Cuvee 2017. So one of the cool things about the Cellars is that we always bring in vintage beers that you can also in addition to the Cellars beers. That's right. We always bring in other beers too, that you can only get in the Cellars that we just think are special things that we've had in our deep stash. Yeah. Um, and Cellars number, so sorry, Cuvee 2017 Yeah. Is one beer that we have available right now, which is, there's taste a lot of real nice for that taste. Yeah. That beer is tasting real good. Okay.

Brett Willis:

And that's, that's the thing, I think we kind of talked about it in the last episode of Wild Beer, but it's like, when you think about an older beer and aged beer, like I think there are a lot of people who know beer very well who know the beer age as well, but like for a lot of people it's like these beers hold up so nicely. Yeah. Like this beer, it's, it's, yeah. 2017, what is that? Six years old almost at this point. And it just drinks like, you know, beautiful carbonation, really nice flavor. Ah, it's crazy.

Liz Wilson:

It's another one of these like very, uh, you a lot of misconceptions around aging beer, I think. And there are certainly styles that, you know, lose their freshness quicker than others. Yes. But it, I think when we, and we get a lot of questions mm-hmm.<affirmative>, um, online about aging beer and it is really, I think, fun to be able to tell people like, actually this will age well if stored properly for years

Lindsay Bohanske:

Stored properly is the key. Yeah. You don't wanna let it sit and, you know, but Totally. Yeah. I mean it's incredible how these beers can age and anytime you introduce these sort of natural wild yeas and bacteria, they sort of blanket the beer. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, they actually eat up oxygen molecules. So that's what protects it from going stale. Oh, it's very poetic. I know. Isn't that so cool?<laugh>? And so we talk, we get into this a little bit and then the seller's experience because it is like, you don't wanna enur, I don't wanna encourage like don't age white. White. You need to drink fresh, fresh, fresh<laugh>. Yeah. But there are these interesting styles and it's a very small subset of beer overall. Yeah. But there are these really interesting set subsets of styles with these wild use and bacteria that really help prevent it from tasting scale. Yeah. Sta ugh, tasting stale. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and we're actually showcasing in the current beer and barrels experience right now, uh, interlude from 2014. Whoa. And it is in incredible, I believe Almost nine years old. Yeah. And it was brewed in 2013. So it's it was that brood 10 years ago. Yeah. Wow.

Brett Willis:

Good. We could do a whole episode on Interlude.

Lindsay Bohanske:

I know. Can We?<Laugh>. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

I mean Jason, Jason would love to Yeah. Yeah.<laugh>. Can we try some too? I know.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Yeah.<laugh>. It's so good. It's insane. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

I feel like it, it it like The Cellars is the perfect outlet for a lot of our brewers. Like the passion there. Cause I just feel like you hear about these things where it's like, well we were doing this, but then we decided, ah, let's just add this to this barrel mm-hmm.<affirmative> and see what happens and let's just, uh, throw some of these like, oh. And the, the berry farmer happened to have some extra random berries and so we put'em on like Yeah. There are so many of those little things. And now like we get to share those, those don't just, there aren't, are no longer just experiments for us internally to figure out what these things do. It's like No, they taste really freaking good. Yeah. So can

Lindsay Bohanske:

We try? Yeah. Like in the Clay pot beers, the next Cellars, Cellars number three, the

Brett Willis:

Longest beer name we've ever created.

Liz Wilson:

I saw this on the label and I was like, who, who approved this<laugh>? I was like, I can't even pronounce like 50% of the words here. Yeah, yeah,

Lindsay Bohanske:

Exactly. I didn't even know what Viognet was. I don't know why.

Brett Willis:

I still don't.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Uh, it's a type of wine. Yeah. I learned that. Good. Um, and well you

Brett Willis:

Gotta read it out. Read it out. Oh, I'll read it out outside. Read it out.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Read out. You have, you have the specific

Brett Willis:

I do Cellars number three, A spontaneously fermented ale with viognet grape must aged in amphora wine vessels.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Yes sir.<laugh>, everybody's like, what? Yes. Um, yeah. So let me explain a little bit about the flavor. Okay. And that I think will help people understand about the beer a little bit better and have it not just be a big, um, question mark. So yes, it has these incredible wine characteristics. Viognet has this really interesting honeysuckle kind of flavor and that really comes through in the beer. It's like this really interesting, like sweet perceiving, um, aroma and flavor. Wow. Lane, who's the Trader Joe's wine buyer. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> Okay. In Portland. Sure. Um, shout out to him cuz he's the one who explained Viognet to me. Oh wow. Nice. And he popped by one day and he was like blown away about how much the Viognet actually comes through. Oh. So if you're a Viognet lover,<laugh><laugh>, um, like the wine character really is there and it's, it's wonderful in the aroma. It's just really interesting. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, it's kind of like a beer, wine, hybrid style. Yeah. And the clay pots really do impart like a little bit of a minerality. Much like a white, you know, a nice white wine. Yeah. Might have some of that kind of minerality. Yeah. And it's really cool. Yeah. And it's a great food beer. It would be great with cheese too. I could see that. Um, so yeah, it's just really interesting. Kind of peachy. Really nice. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

One point I think to make here is because Lindsay, there's so much different stuff going on and we have all these different plans like come to our website to see what we're doing. Right. That, that is the best way to look. You know, if you come to our website, you go to visit page, you go to the Cellars page, we have a booking area and you can look pretty far out, like how far out can people book?

Lindsay Bohanske:

We're booking. So the way that people can book now is it's, it's kind of um, every 30 days it's now rolling, opening up. So it used to be I would, or I would, I would manually open it up halfway through the month, the whole next month. Okay. Now it's 30 days out. You should be able to book at any of those experiences. Great. Um, so I think through May 22nd we have availability. And then starting tomorrow the 20, it's like the 26th will open up, which is a Friday

Liz Wilson:

Memorial Day weekend for anybody traveling.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Saturdays have been like selling out, selling out. Oh, awesome. Already, which is nuts. Amazing. I know for like slow season February, I think like every Saturday almost. We were sold out. Whoa. Which is crazy.

Liz Wilson:

I got some family coming in town. Yeah.

Brett Willis:

I gotta get some tickets too. Uh, so it's Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Yeah. That's when we're running experiences.

Lindsay Bohanske:

That's correct. That's cool. Yeah. And always check, I mean, always check for availability. But, um, right now for beer and barrels we're doing 11:30, 2 o'clock and then, uh, 4:30 are sort of like our, the times we've been opening them. Yep. And then, uh, on Sundays and Mondays just 11:30 and 2:00.

Brett Willis:

Cool. So,

Liz Wilson:

And I think one thing like logistical thing mm-hmm.<affirmative>, the Cellars is physically here.

Lindsay Bohanske:

This is a really good point. Yeah. So, um, hot tip about the Cellars. So the space is actually located in the original building that Rob started, which is right next door to our tasting room. So it's Right, it's the same, it's on our campus. Yep. But there is a little bit of a walk, um, for folks who have a guest with a, a handicap mm-hmm.<affirmative> mm-hmm.<affirmative>, um, pass, there's two handicapped parking spots right outside of the cellars. Oh cool. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Okay. Um, and so people can park there if they need to or they can just park in the tasting lot and walk. But it is a little bit of a journey, so mm-hmm.<affirmative> always give yourself like five or 10 minutes to walk over. It's not like, it's not far by any stretch. Yeah. Yeah. But it's um, you know, just wanna make sure to give yourself some time to screw on over.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. So I mean, if you have any questions, just park in our normal tasting room, room parking lot and then ask a tasting room person. Totally. If who works at Allagash and they will be able to tell you.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Yeah. And that's all in the confirmation email and stuff. So it's real clear.

Brett Willis:

Good one, Liz. Thanks.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Good point. Good. Very good.

Brett Willis:

Well thank you Lindsay.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Always a pleasure. That was awesome. Come visit me at the Cellars, you guys, let's

Liz Wilson:

Go get a beer.

Brett Willis:

<laugh>. Let's go to the Cellars.

Lindsay Bohanske:

Oh, and we should say, so basically we're planning on monthly mm-hmm.<affirmative> having this open t asting experience on Fridays. U hhuh< affirmative>. So you don't have to buy a ticket, it's free mm-hmm.<affirmative>. U m, but you, i t, it's nice to know if people are coming. So reserve a s pot online. It's literally, it's free. Just go in and go. D o, d o, d o. Y ep. U m, and you can come between 4:30 and 6:30 to taste some cool beers with us. We kind of feature six beers. Mm-hmm.< affirmative>. And then, uh, if you wanna try something else while you're there, you can. Awesome. And you just pay for what you, what you drink. And it's just a really cool way to see t he space without doing the experience. So if you've actually already done the experience Y eah, y eah. And you just w anna try some cool beers, you can come back and see us. Or if you, you know, just w anna see the space and see what you're getting yourself into. It's right. Y eah. Really great way to just try some cool things. Awesome.

Brett Willis:

Awesome.

Liz Wilson:

Well thanks Lindsay. Yeah. Appreciate

Lindsay Bohanske:

It. Thanks help.

Brett Willis:

Again, great

Lindsay Bohanske:

Chat. Great chat. Chat.

Brett Willis:

Great chat. Great chat. That was awesome. Thank you

Lindsay Bohanske:

Good. I'm glad. Thank you. You um, of course. Thanks for having me. You guys.

Speaker 4:

This has been an Allagash Brewing production and if you have something you want us to talk about on the show, shoot us a message at podcastallagash.com.