It’s with a heavy heart that we bring you this week’s edition of Beer This Week. As many of you may have already heard, Dylan Webber, the co-founder and director of brewing operations at Definitive Brewing Co., died last week. All of us at Beer This Week are sending our love and condolences to Dylan’s friends, family, and colleagues.
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A Tribute to Dylan Webber
Here is the post Definitive Brewing Company shared regarding Dylan’s passing and we wanted to share it with you, our readers:
We are deeply saddened to share the news that our co-founder, creative mastermind, and friend Dylan Webber has passed away suddenly. We join his girlfriend Laura, his mother Katie, father Chuck, and the rest of his family in mourning his loss, and celebrating his remarkable life.
Dylan coined our name in 2017 as what he called “a reminder that no beer we make will ever be perfect, but we will always strive for perfection.” Dylan was passionate about Cobbosseecontee Lake, and Kolsch. Having traveled to Cologne, he dreamed of brewing a beer that reminded him of sunshine, bottomless kranz trays, and bier gartens. When we set out to create an opening day line-up, there was never a question that a Kolsch would be one of our specialties, and that Contee would be its name.
Dylan embraced the daily challenges of being a brewer and a business owner. He was passionate about the beers he brewed. He was incredibly innovative; he would never settle for “damn good,” and was always seeking perfection. The guys he had by his side day in and day out on the production team meant the world to him. He loved every minute of it, and it showed.
The team at Definitive will continue to be inspired by Dylan’s passion for brewing and the enthusiasm and joy his creativity provided our many amazing customers. The business will honor his name and his legacy by continuing operations and providing high quality beer to our customers across the nation.
If you’d like to read more about Dylan’s passion for beer, please check out this article in the Portland Press Herald, “Dylan Webber, ‘creative mastermind’ behind popular Portland brewery, dies at 31.”
If you’d like to contribute to the medical expenses incurred from his passing, you can donate at Dylan’s family’s GoFundMe page.
If you’d like to honor Dylan by supporting the brewery he co-founded, Definitive Brewing is releasing the beers originally scheduled for release last weekend on Friday in Portland and Saturday in Kittery.
Definitive Brewing Company
35 Industrial Way, Portland and 318 US Route 1, Kittery
DDH Sensitive Ears, Pale Ale (5.6%) & Everything But the 90s, Double IPA (8.3%)
DDH Sensitive Ears is a Double Dry Hopped version of Definitive’s bright and refreshing Pale Ale. They doubled the dry hop with even more Citra, Amarillo, and Mosaic. This beer tastes and smells like pineapple flesh, ruby red grapefruit, and kiwis.
Everything But the 90s is a retro banger brewed with Citra hop oil and then double dry hopped with a blend of cryo pellets and a touch of Sabro. The end result is a deeply layered, resinous, and fruit-forward DIPA. It tastes and smells like pineapple Capri Sun, tropical Gushers, and sipping Slush Puppies on a hot summer day.
Upcoming Releases & Events
Thursday, September 9
Banded Brewing Co.
32 Main St., Ste. 102, Biddeford and 82 Hanover St., Ste. 6, Portland
Noctvar Release Party, Nocturnem Draft Haus, 56 Main St., Bangor, 5 p.m.
Banded Brewing Co. and Nocturnem Draft Haus have “banded” together to bring you a delicious Czech Dark Lager. Noctvar is a medium-bodied beer bursting with decadent chocolate and vanilla notes. It’s the perfect treat as the nights start to get a little cooler. Seems like reason enough to celebrate to us.
Blank Canvas Brewing
46 Betton St., Brewer
Sweet Potato Dunkel (4.5%)
A dunkelweizen as a base provides caramel undertones while the sweet potato adds earthy caramelized sweetness to Sweet Potato Dunkel. This year’s batch will be a touch different. The mad geniuses at Blank Canvas added lactose to the beginning of the boil to add a marshmallow effect to the beer. The hops used are Perle, grown in Brunswick by Woodside Hop House. They also used Maine-grown malts to the extent possible for this beer, including Maine Malt House wheat malt and Blue Ox Malthouse light and dark Munich malts, and caramel malts.
Blaze Brewing Company
28 Pearl St., Biddeford
Blinded By The Colors, Double IPA (8%) & Toasted, Porter (5.5%)
Blinded By The Colors is brewed with Citra, Mosaic, and El Dorado hops. At Blaze, they normally try to be balanced and mindful with their hoppy beers to try and provide drinkability with a gentle and soft hop punch. Welp, they threw the rule book out of the window on this one and turned it into a full-on juice bomb. Blinded By The Colors smells and tastes like orange juice, mango juice, and passionfruit juice.
Toasted is a s’mores Porter brewed with a plethora of dark malts to create a beer full of cocoa flavor. Then, those kooks at Blaze went and added marshmallows! This created a liquid desert at a modest ABV. Toasted smells and tastes like s’mores you eat by a crackling fire while looking at the stars above. A truly fantastic campfire beer.
Friday, September 10
Bigelow Brewing Company
473 Bigelow Hill Rd., Skowhegan
Witch’s Tit Pumpkin Ale (4.8%)
Witch’s Tit Pumpkin Ale harkens back to early colonial times when brewers turned to pumpkins (to be clear, they didn’t turn INTO pumpkins) as a commonly used beer ingredient to extend costly imported malt. In that spirit, Bigelow Brewing Company brought back that tradition with a slight spin. Hundreds of pounds of locally grown, fire-roasted, organic pumpkins from Moodytown Gardens were incorporated into the mash along with two row barley from both Maine Malt House and Blue Ox Malthouse. The delicious result is an all-Maine brew with an orange amber color, warm pumpkin aroma, a rich biscuit malt flavor, and crisp finish.
Saturday, September 11
Baxter Brewing Co.
130 Mill St., Lewiston
Limb-it-less, Blonde Ale (5.3%)
Limb-it-less is the brewery’s fourth collaboration with recalibrated veteran and former U.S Army Staff Sergeant, Travis Mills. Inspired by a chance meeting at the 2017 Great Falls Brewfest, the production and release of Limb-it-less has traditionally been anchored by Mills’ annual visit to the brewery on 9/11. This year, however, Mills will be hosting the Building Strength Gala, a groundbreaking ceremony for the Travis Mills Foundation’s new Health and Wellness Center, on September 11. Based in Rome, Maine, the Foundation’s retreat motivated Baxter to create a Blonde Ale—Mills’ favorite style—using only Maine ingredients. Limb-it-less boasts a lot of floral and citrus flavor from the hops, which pairs well with the sweet and smooth bready character from the locally grown and malted barley.
Sunday, September 12
Island Dog Brewing
125 John Roberts Rd. Unit 15, South Portland
Unit 15, Saison (6%)
Unit 15 is a Belgian-style Saison, golden in color with refreshing citrus, spice, and fruity hop notes.
Monday, September 13
Maine Beer Company
525 US-1, Freeport
Second Dinner, Double IPA (8%)
From their original “whale” Lunch, to their DIPA Dinner, Maine Beer Company’s hoppy beers keep us wanting more. Naturally, we want seconds, and fortunately for us, MBC obliged with Second Dinner.
New Releases
Allagash Brewing Co.
50 Industrial Way, Portland
Haunted House, Dark Ale (6.66%!!!)
Cursed by a love of roasty porters, the brewers at Allagash summoned the recipe for Haunted House from we don’t want to know where. Roasted barley and Blackprinz malt cloak this ale in a gravely dark hue. Hopped with Crystal, Nugget, Cascade, and Northern Brewer, its flavor is filled with hauntingly balanced notes of coffee, malt, and a devilish hint of hops.
This perennial favorite returns with a brand-new look and the same delicious flavor that you (and we) know and love. It’s creeping out across Allagash’s distribution footprint as you are reading this!!! It’s available on draft now in Allagash’s tasting room, and available in cans starting September 16.
Barreled Souls Brewing
743 Portland Rd., Saco
Speakeasy Cherry Lemonade, Sour (8.7%)
Barreled Souls took their base Gose and aged it in bourbon barrels, then added cherries, lemon, and a hint of ginger to create Speakeasy Cherry Lemonade.
Foundation Brewing Company
1 Industrial Way #5, Portland
Coffee Burnside, Brown Ale (5.1%)
Coffee Burnside begins with Burnside, Foundation’s traditional Brown Ale. The brewers then added locally roasted coffee, which amped up the rich, roasted notes of coffee, burnt sugar, and chocolate already present in the base beer. Each batch of Coffee Burnside uses a different variety of coffee from Foundation’s friends at Wicked Joe. At 5.1% ABV, Coffee Burnside has the perfect balance of richness and crushability that we crave going into fall.
Geary Brewing Company
35 Evergreen Dr., Portland
Off Trail Brown Ale, English Brown Ale (5.5%)
Off Trail Brown Ale blends a traditional English style with an American flair. It possesses chocolate and caramel flavors with enough citrus hop flavor and bite to balance and complement the malty base.
Nonesuch River Brewing Co.
201 Gorham Rd., Scarborough
Ikawa Coffee Porter (5.7%)
A mild Porter was married to bourbon barrel coffee from the Rwanda Bean Coffee. The resulting marriage created a roasty smooth dark beer destined to warm and energize your soul.
Side By Each Brewing
1110 Minot Ave., Auburn
Flannel Pajamas, Märzen (6.2%)
A perfect balance of malt and hops define Flannel Pajamas, a traditionally brewed Bavarian lager. Malty but not sweet, with a hint of warmth for comfort as the seasons change.
Maine Beer in the News
Brewing new niches, beer makers and distilleries are targeting more specialized markets
New Maine craft beverage makers are getting creative as they find new ways to stand out from the crowd.
Maine’s first brewery dedicated to making only non-alcoholic beer
KITna Brewing, founded by Will Fisher and Rob Barret, is Maine’s first craft beer brewery dedicated to only making non-alcoholic beer.
Tap Lines: For gluten-intolerant beer lovers, luck has turned with Lucky Pigeon
The new Biddeford brewery makes gluten-free beers exclusively and in several styles.
One final round: Maine restaurants, breweries and pubs pay tribute to the fallen
Empty tables set with 13 beers honor the military servicemen and women who lost their lives in Kabul last week.
We hope you enjoyed this edition of Maine Beer This Week! If you own a brewery or other beer business and would like to be featured in upcoming issues, please email or call us to learn more at [email protected] (207) 209-2094
