From Maine, With Love - An Allagash Brewing Podcast

S4 Episode 2: Sports Talk

• Allagash Brewing Company • Season 4 • Episode 2

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Sports! Get your sports, here! We've got baseball. We've got soccer. We've got surfing and more!

Jokes aside, we're experiencing a sports revolution here at Allagash, with becoming an Official Partner of the New York Mets, a sponsor of the Portland Sea Dogs, as well as Beer Sponsor of the Hearts of Pine soccer team here in Portland.

If you want to hear all about these exciting, impactful partnerships, this is your podcast. Oh, and we break down some other fun things happening around the brewery, just because.

As always, thanks for listening!

SPEAKER_00:

All right, this is for Maine with Love, an Allagash Brewing podcast where we talk about beer, our community here in Maine, things that generally make us happy, and I'm happy to be back. I feel like that's how I always say it. It's things that make us happy, and this makes me happy. I enjoy doing this. So I'm here with Liz Wilson. Hello. Senior Marketing Manager. Hello, Liz.

UNKNOWN:

How are you, Brett? Hello.

SPEAKER_00:

I have a question so secret for you that I didn't even write it down.

SPEAKER_01:

Ooh, I always check, Brett.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

I

SPEAKER_00:

know you do. No heads up here. All right. What's your favorite childhood show?

SPEAKER_01:

Show?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, like TV show.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, God. It could even be most memorable. Just one that made an impact on you. Oh, I don't know, Brett. I remember watching Franklin as a kid.

SPEAKER_00:

What's Franklin?

SPEAKER_01:

Isn't he a little turtle? Wasn't it like PBS? We legit didn't have cable TV.

SPEAKER_00:

This is like the Mandela effect. Do you know the Mandela effect? No. It's where you have a memory of a thing and then you look back and it doesn't exist. It's like the, the one being like the fruit of the loom. Do you have fruit of the loom underwear? Like, do you remember a cornucopia? They were like the, the, the fruit is coming out of some sort of a cornucopia. I, for some reason do. And that never existed. Uh, and so that's the big thing where people like, it's like Berenstein bears is another one where it's like, it was always spelled steam, not stain, but like it's, it was not spelled steam. It's probably stain. I'm probably getting us a lot of like angry people saying that. Sorry. Delved into the conspiracies.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, I...

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, Franklin was a turtle. I remember that. Franklin

SPEAKER_01:

was a turtle and Little Bear. I guess I liked animals. That's good. That's good. I did like animals. I... You know, we watched a lot of... What was that Friday... What was it? TGIF?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. It

SPEAKER_01:

had the lineup of whatever that lineup

SPEAKER_00:

was. Oh, the Family Matters and... All

SPEAKER_01:

right. This is on theme because we're talking about sports today. What was your favorite sport that you played as a elementary school student?

SPEAKER_00:

Elementary school? I don't think I liked sports. I think I liked video games when I was in elementary school. No, I liked soccer. I think I always liked soccer the most, but I was not very good at it. I don't think I knew where to stand.

SPEAKER_01:

Your parents weren't the type of parents that just enrolled you in every park and rec league because they think they just were like– Get out of the house.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. I don't like, there were a lot of sports where I was like, I was fairly competent at them, but I didn't really enjoy the experience for some reason. Like, I remember a friend, like he got in trouble with his parents when he was like nine and they were like, you're not going to hockey. And he was like, started crying. And I remember thinking like, if I didn't have to go to hockey, I'd be like sick. Sweet. I don't have to go to hockey. All right. Honestly, my trampoline was probably the sport I was most into. Not like competitively, but yeah, there you go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

That's, I was like, Yeah, soccer was, I was probably like sitting somewhere in the field like picking buttercups.

SPEAKER_00:

I did some good buttercup picking in my day, yeah. That's good. And we have sports galore to talk about. That is the purpose of this episode, just to really bring everyone up to speed because we had a lot going on, which is I think the main reason for the gap between podcasts, which is slightly longer than usual because we've been doing a lot. So expect some more podcasts coming up because we did a little review and we were like, wow, we have a lot of cool stuff to talk about. So in this one, we're talking all about sports. And the first one is the Mets. The Mets. Amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. I looked this up recently because I had to, just to be sure, comfortably first in the NL East as of this point. So they're doing well this season, which has been very exciting for us.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah, we got a big partnership with the Mets this year, which is super exciting.

SPEAKER_00:

Official beer, official partner.

SPEAKER_01:

Proud partner

SPEAKER_00:

of the New York Mets. Proud partner of the New York Mets.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And yeah, so we got to do a whole build out of a bar, which is like maybe one of the largest like events experiential footprints we've been able to build out. So that was a really fun creative exercise for us here on the marketing team. And then you're going to go down and see it tomorrow. I am

SPEAKER_00:

about to go. So that's in Citi Field. If you want to know where the bar is, we're calling it the Allagash Alley Bar, and it's at the Excelsior level in section 311. So yeah, it's got an awesome view of the field as well. Well, like straight out the back of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. You can't miss it. It's, uh, branded on, you know, it's on both sides of this. The shape of it is sort of a horseshoe shape is how we sort of describe it. And then the whole thing branded Allagash, Allagash White, and you can get a few different beers, um, at the bar at Allagash Alley in particular. Um, we've got Allagash

SPEAKER_00:

White. Yep. Allagash White, of course. Got to have that.

SPEAKER_01:

Hazy.

SPEAKER_00:

Hazy IPA.

SPEAKER_01:

And then do we also have Surf House?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, Surf House. That's the one. Yeah. Surf House is on there, which we'll talk about a little bit later. But yeah. And then also Allagash White all around the stadium. 19.2 ounce cans. Got a lot of representation. It's awesome. Been exciting. And you and Matt got to go.

SPEAKER_01:

We got to go down and check it all out.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

About a month ago now, and we took a lot of photos. Yeah, we needed a lot of good footage. We got to meet, a shout out to Zach and David, our great partners. They've been a real blast to work with. And just showed us around the stadium. Then, of course, we had to try some food out. Oh, yeah. Because Citi Field has been recognized as one of the best, yeah. In the league? I think there's like an official... term of it, but it's got really good, yeah, really good food.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I mean, it was a USA Today Bowl. I think it was one of those like, you know, people vote and yeah, they got, Citi Field got best in the MLB for the concessions at their stadium. So, or at the field. So yeah, we're excited to be in good company there. It's pretty, it's been cool.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it is. And the stadium itself is just like, Really, it's amazing. But it's so fun because when you fly in, you, at least the route that I took, you just like go right over a city field and it's really fun to see it from above and then... You know, I love the New York subway. I do too. And so, and then you just take the seven train right up and walk with all the fans. And I was like, I kind of know where I'm going, but then everyone's just dressed in their gear and you're like, I'm just going to follow them. Follow the Mets. And they did not lead me astray.

SPEAKER_00:

That's awesome. Yeah. I want to add on the subject of baseball as well. Allagash White's also available in Fenway. Uh, because for those, those of us who are up in the Northeast, uh, it's, uh, that's been something that hasn't been available for ever.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. I don't think the opportunity had been there and, our sales crew worked away at that and yeah, it's big. It's a big deal.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. It's exciting. So yeah, if you're ever at city field, check out the Allagash Alley bar. We're super pumped about it. It's been awesome.

SPEAKER_01:

We pair, we taste great with a hot dog, uh, Some ballpark nachos. What else do we have?

SPEAKER_00:

We had those jackfruit vegan sloppy joes or something. Yeah, it was like a

SPEAKER_01:

vegan jackfruit barbecue sandwich, which was really delicious.

SPEAKER_00:

I've had one of those before, and I was like, I don't even know what jackfruit is, but I had it, and I was like, that tastes like a barbecue sandwich.

SPEAKER_01:

That's just great.

SPEAKER_00:

Like pulled pork kind

SPEAKER_01:

of. We came back with all of our Merch. We were too excited, so we are well outfitted now

SPEAKER_00:

with our Mets gear. Represent. All right. Our next one, hearts of pine.

SPEAKER_01:

Soccer. We're moving to soccer.

UNKNOWN:

Soccer.

SPEAKER_01:

Brett, you didn't try out on Open Main Day?

SPEAKER_00:

I would have pulled my hammy. I would have blown out my other Achilles. Yeah. No, I did not try out. I was not very good. I actually will say as a brief anecdote, I played club soccer in Portland when I first moved here. And I played in like a certain league. And it was very fun. And it was all of similar– uh, you know, skill levels. And then for some reason we got mashed up against a team or I like got pulled in as a sub to a team that was in the level above. And I was like, I didn't even know where to stand. Like I was just in the wrong place and everyone was always like, Oh, I've got the ball now. And I was like, this is not something I'm

SPEAKER_01:

familiar with. Yeah. Back out slowly.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. So they kicked it very hard too. It was, the ball was going fast. Too hard. Don't stop kicking it so hard. Yikes. Um, but yeah, hearts of pine. USL1. USL1, thank you. USL1 team that has been garnering tons of buzz for good reason. They've been doing it right. It's been really exciting.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so this is like, you know, we don't need to go into the entire history of it, but, you know, Gabe has literally been dreaming this team for what feels like us years. And so I'm sure for him even longer than that. And, you know, we've been working closely with them behind the scenes for a while now. And it's just like, you know, back in the day, it was like, Oh, 2025 is the season opener. Like that's a lifetime away. And that's literally Sunday. So here we are. And yeah, we're so excited. I think it's just going to be amazing for the community. They've done an incredible job at just getting people involved. we're just psyched to be part of it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. And building up, I think building up excitement before even the soccer starts. I think that's been the thing that's been so impressive to me where it's like the kit reveal at the state theater is one of those things where I was like, you packed theater for the show, the Jersey, but like they did. And it was awesome. Like it was totally beyond our, I think my expectations and also like our, so many people from our team went out there, like our entire leadership team went out there. And I think everyone left being like, this is something special. And so we're really excited to be a part of it. And so one of the big ways that we're a part of it and one of the big ways that you can enjoy this partnership is Kickabout Lager, which is our collaboration beer with the Hearts of Pine. I think the thing I'd note about this is like one of the reasons why our partnership works got off to such a great start was because in both of our organizations, community is such an important thing. I think Hearts of Pine has done an awesome job of building their brand around community and pulling in people from the community in really meaningful ways. I think in a similar way, we wanted to do that with this beer. To make the beer, we brought, obviously, Hearts of Pine folks in on the creation process, but also Durago Union, their supporters club, and then also our fans. We sent out an actual open invitation on our newsletter to say, hey, do you want to come try these four different beers and vote on them to see which one's going to be Kickabout Lager? And that sold out in 30 minutes. I

SPEAKER_01:

know. I tried to go. It was sold out. Yeah. You were on maternity, right? I was. I was like, something is wrong. Oh, no. This is exciting.

SPEAKER_00:

It just sold out super quick. Yeah. So that was awesome. So yeah, we held that. We picked, if you were a person who went to that, I didn't write down the other numbers, but the one number that we picked was number 851. We did not brew 851 versions. We just give them random numbers. So it's not like biased, like number one, two or three, you know, sort of thing. Yeah. But yeah, it's a refreshing 5% ABV hopped with a little bit of citrus. So it's not like hoppy lager per se, but it does have this sort of subtle tropicalness to it that just makes kind of sets it apart, but it's, it's tasting super good.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It was just packaged a couple days ago. And nothing like a deadline. But the branding of the can was also a really fun collaborative process that we don't embark on a ton of. And so I think when you see it, we've posted it on social a couple times now.

SPEAKER_00:

It's on the website.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep. It, you know, Definitely leans into the kit, has the sort of navy and darker green stripes, and then a really great sort of, I don't know, what do you call that? Crest? A crest, yeah, in the center. And so the Hearts of Pine team just had really thoughtful and creative feedback and worked alongside us, and we're really proud of that design. The

SPEAKER_00:

name, too. The name was basically Gabe. Yeah. Yeah. Hoffman Johnson. He just, he just talked about, I think he talked about it as like, I love the, a beer named kick about something because the kick about in soccer terminology is either like, you know, a pass or like you'd have a little impromptu game sort of a thing. So,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah. Yeah. Which for anyone who's, I feel like we've said this before, who's attempted to name a beer, it is a very challenging, just don't do

SPEAKER_00:

it.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, just don't do it. Yeah. But, um, we were lucky enough that that name was available and, uh, just, uh, fit and here we are

SPEAKER_00:

in seriousness though naming a beer like having a compound word like kickabout is actually kind of like one of the really great ways to go into it because if you're trying to use like a normal word that people normally say that's going to be taken but if you take some random two words and kind of put them together it's like a password

SPEAKER_01:

yeah right yeah yeah yeah

SPEAKER_00:

as many random words together as possible and you'll hit it

SPEAKER_01:

yeah so let's see that is Releasing on May 2nd, and that's going to be available in our tasting room at Fitzpatrick Stadium at Fitzy. During games. Yeah, during games. Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Not anytime. It's a multi-use

SPEAKER_01:

field. Not when high schoolers are using it. Yeah. And maybe some select accounts around the Portland area. I've heard some rumblings. I'd never roll it out. But definitely staying in state for now. So we've gotten a few questions about distribution. So this one's just going to be Maine only. Yeah. But we'll keep everyone updated on where you can find that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and this might come out after the actual event, but Deergo Union's going to be here for this release party, and probably some of the Hearts of Pine folks are going to be there too, to just kind of lead us in some chants. So they've got some great chants. I've been to a couple of games. Matt's been to a game or two. Ben does some games in Lewiston. And I, for my money, my favorite chant that Deergo Union has cooked up is when there's a free kick that's near the goal for the other team. They do this, you can't get there from here. It's good. Yeah. Good Maine. Very Maine. Very Maine. That's Maine. I like that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. And I guess I know a lot of their games are sold out. So if you've been thinking about trying to get tickets for a game, don't sleep on it because they're going to be hard to come by. Yeah. But.

SPEAKER_00:

We're excited. We're going to be there.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we've got some fun branding around the stadium. And so we're just psyched to be part of it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think you'll probably be able to get some Allagash White there, get some Kickabout Lager. It's going to be fun. Another sport we got going on here.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, the Portland Seadogs.

SPEAKER_00:

Portland Seadogs. We've been a partner of theirs for a long time. Yeah. It's been a good

SPEAKER_01:

partnership. Great. Another great group of folks there. We have... kind of zhuzhed up our partnership this year we have a fan of the game um activation and so um the folks at the field they go around looking for people who have you know alagash wearing an alagash merch or hat or shirt or drinking an alagash and um You know, they pick someone at random and they get their seats upgraded and get a little goodie bag from us here at the brewery. And so we thought that would be a really fun way to cheer on the Seadogs this season. But yeah, you can find... Allagash White at the concession stands while you're enjoying a... What's their... Seabiscuit? Seabiscuit! Is it right? Is it dog biscuit? Seabiscuit. It's a Seabiscuit. Seadog biscuit. That's my personal. That's my go-to there.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's really good. Also, putting a plug in for Slugger. being in the Mascot Hall of Fame. I mean, he really, especially if you have youngish kids, between every single inning, he's doing something very fun.

SPEAKER_01:

Hardest working mascot in the biz. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Awesome. So fun to go to those games. Speaking of sports, surfing's a sport.

SPEAKER_01:

That's a segue. That's a good segue. It is legit sport. I watched quite a bit of that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's good. Surf, the thing... Brief segue about– brief aside about surfing. It is like serious because I did it– like not that it's not serious physically but like I feel like you get this very laid back like, oh, just surfers out there surfing. But like when you're out there in the line and I'm not a very good surfer, you feel the like you better not do the wrong thing here, bro sort of tension.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That I did not expect. It's kind of like golf. Yeah. I feel like when you walk out on a golf course, you're like, I'm doing something wrong

SPEAKER_01:

here. Oh, I got yelled at immediately the

SPEAKER_00:

first time I tried.

SPEAKER_01:

I guess I was going too slow. I don't know. I was

SPEAKER_00:

doing something wrong. You could be going too fast. You could be playing too well.

SPEAKER_01:

But Surf House, that's why we're talking about surfing.

SPEAKER_00:

Sorry, yeah. It's out. It's out again. And it's going to be... For those who did not get a chance to try it last year, it's our summer lager brewed with a portion of flaked corn and also hopped with Ella, a very specific hop that gives it a really cool citrusy sort of hit to it. So it's just a very easy drinking summer beer, easy one to take to the beach, take for a barbecue, that sort of thing. So just, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so that one, that is going to a wider distribution. You can find that on our website. Um, the beer finder. Yeah. And, um, it's back.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Good taste. And the last thing, the last thing we want to mention, uh, which has nothing to do with sports whatsoever, but we're going to do a bigger podcast on this, but I just want to mention it because it's, I think we're really proud of it. It has a lot of cool stuff is our B Corp report for 2024. Yeah. We do it every year. I'm

SPEAKER_01:

trying to think of a sports analogy for the B Corp report. It's like running a marathon, writing the B Corp report. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it kind of is. There is a marathon aspect to it. It

SPEAKER_01:

can be dense.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it can be dense. We try to make it interesting. But yeah, this is just basically, it is a report that we put out every single year for transparency into all of our positive business practices so you can see what we're up to. And honestly, it's a lot of stuff in one place that we're very proud of. So it's pretty cool to see it all put together, all the positive stuff that we have going on here. So

SPEAKER_01:

check it out. We'll do a podcast on that. Yeah. Soon.

SPEAKER_00:

One of the things.

SPEAKER_01:

And then another, you know, we're celebrating our 30th anniversary all year long. We just launched, let's see, April 29th was the first, is the first, April 29th, 1995. Yeah. First day Allagash White was brewed.

UNKNOWN:

Woo.

SPEAKER_01:

And so we just launched a little sweepstakes that if you... Post on Instagram a story about sometime you enjoyed Allagash White or something, have a memory about Allagash. You can be entered to win$100. So that's going on from now until July. You've got plenty of time to think of your stories. Hit us up. We love reading them. We want to share them.

SPEAKER_00:

We do want to share them. There's some great ones out there. People have shared. This idea honestly came from, like, People just doing it apropos of nothing. Like just talking about, I proposed to my fiance in the Allagash Tasting Room, which has happened multiple times. And people have their weddings here. Other things are someone celebrated, wasn't it Stu who had the socks? And he celebrated, you remember him? He celebrated his hundredth with Allagash White. That was a bit. People have some pretty amazing stories about how Allagash White fit into their lives. And so it's pretty, pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01:

And then on that note, we've got our next drop of our limited edition Allagash White throwback cans. Yeah. Coming up May 9th. Wow. And we have our- Good memory. A t-shirt that has that logo on it. That's right. That's going to be- available in the tasting room. So a couple of fun things coming up 30th anniversary.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Along with that drop. If you've, if you've seen, you've seen the t-shirt, if you've seen us post about it, because it's the one that Rob is wearing literally on the can, but it's that, that original logo tee. So we did our best to kind of recreate it, make it feel nice and modern and cool. Yeah. Yeah. I have one myself.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh,

SPEAKER_00:

already. Oh yeah. Wow. Just got it. That's

SPEAKER_01:

great.

SPEAKER_00:

It's awesome.

SPEAKER_01:

I think

SPEAKER_00:

those are the updates. That's the roundup. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Great.

SPEAKER_00:

Stay tuned. We've got more coming soon. We've got a lot of stuff to talk about. So, yeah. Thanks, as always, for listening.

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks for tuning in.

SPEAKER_00:

We appreciate it. This has been an Allagash Marine production. And if you have something you want us to talk about on the show, shoot us a message at podcast at allagash.com.