Last weekend marked the fourth annual Beer & Cheese party at Vignola restaurant here in Portland’s Old Port. As I mentioned before, this has quickly become one of my favorite annual Maine beer events. You can literally pig out on some of the best cheeses and beers in the world until you feel like you’re going to burst — in the best possible way — for a mere $25.

It’s great, too, because there are two very different sessions to this event. The first, which runs from 12 noon to 2:00pm is very relaxed. This is the session we always choose to attend and this year my party of four made up quite literally about 1/3 of the entire crowd (you do the math). It’s a great intimate setting where you can really take your time with each beer and each cheese, have good conversations with the distributors and chefs and generally just feel relaxed and not rushed or pressured. However, the evening session (which runs from 3-5pm) had nearly 70 reservations before the session started and I’m sure there were plenty of walk-ins. So I’m guessing that session is much more of a party atmosphere (if any readers out there can attest to this, that’d be appreciated, since I’ve never been to the later session). Point being, whichever style of “festival” you like better, you’re sure to find it at the Vignola event.

The setup of this year’s festival differed slightly from the last three years, and definitely for the better. Last year each distributor had their own table with their own beers (so no table had any rhyme or reason as far as beer style was concerned) and all 25+ cheeses where just laid out on the bar. Granted they were in order from lightest/creamiest to darkest/bluest/funkiest, but that was about it. It was very much a “here, drink some beers. okay, now eat some cheeses” sort of setup.

This year, much more effort was made toward actual “pairing” of the two. There were 4 tables set up throughout the restaurant (which had been cleared of most chairs to provide enough room for everyone to move about); the first featured a handful of IPAs and Pales to match with 4 or 5 different cheddars. Next you moved to a table of soft, creamy cheeses and meads (another new and welcome addition), which is pictured above. From there, to belgians and hard, aged cheeses and lastly to porters & stouts and the blues and really funky cheeses (my personal favorite of the stations). I definitely preferred this set up to the way the event was run in previous years and from the few other attendees (and employees) who had been to previous years, I think that sentament was universal.

The only downside, I felt, to this year’s event was that the selection of both beers and cheeses, although better arranged, paled in comparison to last year’s. The cheeses certainly never fail to impress — although I’d say at least 10 or 12 of them this year came from the same farm in Vermont; not bad, just not much variety –  and, as I mentioned, the meads were a nice touch, but other than that, the beer selection was pretty unimpressive.

I will absolutely attend the event again next year (and every year Vignola continues to put it on), and I appreciate the improvement in set up. I just hope next year they can find the right balance between improved presentation and the better selection of years past. See you next year!

Happy New Year one and all. With each new year, comes January. And with each January comes what has, in recent years, become one of my single most-favorite, most-undiscovered Better Beer events in the state of Maine. I am referring, of course, to The Belgian Beer & Cheese festival at Vignola restaurant in downtown Portland.

The 4th annual Vignola Beer & Cheese Dinner (they call it a dinner, I call it a festival because it starts at Noon), which is an opportunity to sample a “wide array of American, Belgian and German beers and artisinal cheeses”, will take place on Saturday January 23rd at the restaurant on the corner of Dana and Wharf streets in Portland’s Old Port. Tickets are $25 a piece (non-inclusive of tax or gratuity) but that’s truly a steal for the absolutely glutenous amount of beer and cheese you consume at this event, after even just one pass through the line! Reservations are required and are available for either session (12pm-2pm and 3pm-5pm) by calling 207.772.1330 or visiting the restaurant (although last year, we bought tickets at the door without a problem but do so at your own risk).

If you’re still on the fence about whether or not to shell out, check out my full recap of 2008’s event (and last year’s was even better, I just forgot my camera). Seriously, can you think of a better way to shake some mid-winter cabin fever than artisan cheese & beer on a Saturday afternoon in January? I thought so.

I will absolutely be in attendance, so be sure and say hi if you see me.

It’s always fun to see examples of craft beer-related stories popping up in less-than-traditional mainstream media outlets. The most recent example of this was a story which appeared this month in The Atlantic Monthly of all places (or at least their website; I’m not sure if it made the print edition of the magazine or not) on Maine’s favorite boundaries-pushing brewery Allagash. The article, which describes Allagash as “The future of American craft brewing”, details their recent use of a “koelschip” and the incredible, intricate beers its producing. Says The Atlantic,

The future of American craft beer sits in a shed on the industrial outskirts of Portland, Maine. Built by the Allagash Brewing Company in 2007, the shed holds the country’s first commercial “koelschip,” a shallow, 15-barrel steel pan used to cool down beer wort–and expose the beer to naturally occurring yeasts that float in through the shed’s open stained-glass windows. The results, which are still aging in the brewery’s warehouse and could be ready for drinking early next year, will be the first American lambic produced according to the traditional methods used in Belgium, where wild-yeast fermentation is considered a national treasure.

Congratulations, of course, to Allagash for their continued varied and hugely successful media coverage and I for one cannot wait to taste what comes out of the koelschip first! Read the rest of the Atlantic piece here.

Editors Note: This is a guest post by Matt ‘Hokie’ Hokanson, co-editor of Incessant Rambling.  As an avid beer drinker and occasional home brewer, he’s very happy to be contributing to this beer blog.  Feel free to follow him on Twitter, @mhokie or send him an e-mail. If you would like to contribute a story or article to BlogAboutBeer.com, please feel free to contact me.

This adventure starts where most good ones do, seated at a bar with a beer in hand.

“Should I do this?” I say aloud. To which my co-worker replies, “Sure, why not?” Why not!? Well, at first glance, it seemed like an insurmountable task!

Wait. Sorry. Before I get too far ahead, let me give you a little background information. The bar I was bellied up to belonged to none other than Novare Res, a now popular bier garden located in the heart of Portland’s Old Port. At the time, however, the bar was only several weeks old, and at that very moment, the patrons were heavily outnumbered by the staff. One had to wonder, was this the type of establishment that could survive among bars flaunting fifty-cent draft specials with dance floors adorned by drunken co-eds? Would giving a twenty-dollar deposit to join a beer revolution be foolhardy?

And what of this revolution? Well, as I mentioned above, this particular area, Portland’s Old Port, had been over run by either like minded local breweries or very cheap domestic beer dive bars. Novare Res was planning to lead a charge. A revolution of sorts, involving great beer and higher standards of fermentation. And man, have they ever revolted.

Once you joined the revolution, you were given a list. It was covered, front and back, with the names of two hundred beers. Each name had a small box to the right for a staff member’s signature, granted upon completion of the respective beer. In short, your task, if you chose to accept it, was to drink two-hundred beers. Keep in mind, however, these weren’t your normal, every day, run of the draught type beers. They ranged from domestic IPAs to authentic Belgian lambics, from ABVs of 4% to 18+% and priced anywhere from a $4 draught to a $29 bottle. This journey was going to tax your palate, liver and wallet alike, and you were going to love it.

You might be asking yourself, “What on earth could make a person take on such a charge?” After making your way through this well manicured list of beers, you would be granted a key to the hallowed enclosure that is the Chalice Room. In addition, you’d be given a 20 oz. chalice engraved with the date you finished and a phrase of your choice. It also denotes your ‘placement’ in the Chalice Club (e.g. 1st or 17th). Did I mention you can fill up your chalice for the price of a 16 oz. pour? Well, you can.

With this essential background information dispensed, I continue to sit at the bar, pondering. After thinking for several moments, I decide I’ll undoubtedly be drinking here regularly anyway, and that is a good enough reason for me. I hand over a crisp twenty and receive my list. It’s dated June 13th, 2008. From this day, I slowly make my way to the Chalice Room, beer by beer. I watch as my roommate and his girlfriend finish in the top ten. I attend a Rogue tasting, an Oktoberfest and an Allagash tasting. I experience several menu
changes and see staff come and go. I’m even lucky enough to stumble upon an amazing NERAX cask event.

Finally, after 468 days, being surpassed by forty fellow beer revolutionaries and being jeered enough by friends, I decide to drink my final beer. It all comes down to the Italian sour brown, Panil Barriquee. The owner is gracious enough to share a limited edition bottle of the beer from his personal collection. On October 26th, 2009, I am surrounded by friends, new and old, slowly sipping this magnificent beer. I can think of no better way to end this extraordinarily amazing beer experience.

It really hadn’t hit me that the end of a decade, the first decade of the twenty-first century — one in which I graduated from high school (early in the decade) and college (late in the decade); one in which I turned twenty-one and one in which my love of Better Beer blossomed — is only a few weeks away. It’s really hard to believe.

Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. What’s more important is what made me realize that thought in the first place: the Paste Magazine 25 Best American Breweries of the Decade (2000-2009) list, which was released just a few days ago. I’ll let you read the entire list for yourself — which includes the location, incorporation date, editorial comments and staff favorite brew of each brewery — but I do have to say that I agree with just about the entire list. One which includes such important nods as Brooklyn (No. 23), Ommegang (No. 22), Stone Brewing (No. 20), Oskar Blues (No. 16), Rogue (No. 14), Bell’s (No. 11), Russian River (No. 7), and Victory (No. 4).

I’m sure that if I thought about it long enough, I would think of some breweries who deserve to be on the list and aren’t. And I might re-arrange the list a bit (of course it’s nothing more than a subjective list by the editorial staff at a mid-level Indie Mag, but still…), but the fact is that all of the breweries on the Paste list definitely deserve the nods they got.

Of course I must give great props to local favorite Allagash Brewing Co., who received the designation of the 2nd best American craft brewery of the decade (and the only Maine brewery on the list)! And naturally, to Dogfish Head Brewing Co. for their not surprising what-so-ever number one bid. Congratulations to all the breweries on the list, and keep up the great work as we enter the 2010’s. Cheers.