USA: Maine breweries to increase production by 22% over last three years

The taste and the fact that the nation's beer drinkers are getting older and more sophisticated in their tastes - drove craft beer sales up 9 percent last year nationally, the biggest jump since 1996. During the same period, sales of mainstream domestic brands fell slightly, The Portland Press Herald posted June 16.

Breweries located in Maine produced last year nearly 3 million gallons of beer, a 22 percent increase over three years, according to the Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages.

Maine's two largest breweries are located in Portland. Both are expanding.

D.L. Geary Brewing Co. is adding new tanks and a bottling line that will increase production and bottling speed. The new equipment represents the first phase of a two-part, $1 million expansion that also will increase the work force from 25 to 35 people.

Shipyard Brewing Co. plans to invest $5 million in building improvements and brewing equipment that would triple beer production and create 18 full-time jobs. The brewery now has 34 full-time workers.

At the Allagash Brewing Co., which sells high-end Belgian-style beers in corked bottles, sales for the first five months of the year are up 45 percent over the same period last year. The company's brewery on Industrial Way can't keep up with demand. President Rob Tod said the company plans to put up a new building next spring that will allow it to double capacity.

In addition, Maine's third-largest brewery, Gritty McDuff's, which sells its beer in stores as well as pubs, opened its third brew pub last year in Auburn.

Maine brewers hope the growth will be more sustainable than it was in the early 1990s, when the microbrewing fad flooded retail stores with all kinds of funky new brands.

There were just too many microbreweries producing beer of dubious quality, said Ed Stebbins, president of the Maine Brewers Guild. In the late 1990s, sales slumped and many breweries closed.

"Everybody and their mother was making beer in their garage," said Bryan Smith, owner of the Casco Bay Brewing Co. "There was quick success, and you started getting bad beer. It put a stigma on the industry as whole."

Since then, the industry has consolidated. The survivors are now in a position to grow again, Stebbins said.

"They produce an excellent product and focus on local markets. Those are the two most important things," said Stebbins, who also is Gritty's brewmaster.

Craft beer is the industry term for specialty beers made by regional breweries and brew pubs. They use traditional methods and ingredients and emphasize quality over price. Unlike mainstream domestic breweries, which use rice and corn to produce a sugar liquid called wort, craft beer breweries use wheat or barley.

Maine has 31 breweries and brew pubs. Most produce traditional English-style ales.

Geary's, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, is the oldest. Founded by David and Karen Geary, it was the first microbrewery in New England. Today, Geary's is selling more than a half-million gallons of beer annually.

Because of the high cost of shipping beer and the premium customers put on freshness, most craft beers are sold locally. David Geary said 95 percent of his beer is sold in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Noting that Boston is closer to Portland than Bangor is, his growth strategy calls for selling more beer in the Bay State. He said he doesn't want to waste any money or energy creating a national brand.

"Rather than go a lot of places for a little bit," he said, "it's better to concentrate on a market that has nothing but opportunity for us."

In contrast, Shipyard has national ambitions. The largest brewery in Maine, Shipyard this year will produce 1.7 million gallons at its Portland plant.

The company wants the city to extend a property-tax break that expires June 30 to help it with an expansion that Shipyard President Fred Forsley has said will triple production and create 18 full-time jobs. City officials have expressed mixed opinions about extending the tax break, with some saying they prefer other forms of support.

Shipyard's brewmaster is Alan Pugsley, an Englishman who helped design and set up some of the best microbreweries in the United States, including Geary's.

Shipyard sells beer in 35 states. But much of the sales are in Maine. The problem with the Maine market, Forsley said, is that demand doubles during the summer while his brewery operates at less-than-full capacity the rest of the year.

Forsley wants to expand beer sales in other states, where the market is less seasonal. That will help even out production and make the brewery run more efficiently, he said.

"The summer's the killer," said Smith of Casco Bay. "You have to handle the summer peak, and then you get stuck with a lot of empty tanks in the winter. No state has the seasonal matrix that Maine does."

The Allagash Brewing Co., which sells its prize-winning barreled-aged beer for almost $20 a bottle, is in a different position than other Maine breweries. About 80 percent of its sales are out-of-state.

Casco Bay, which is Maine's fourth-largest brewery by volume, sells an Irish ale and a West Coast-style pale ale. Located on Industrial Way near Geary's and Allagash, Casco Bay also is growing. But rather than expanding physically, the company is reducing the amount of beer it makes for other companies by contract and making more of its own beer.

The aging of America helps explain the growing market for craft beers in Maine and around the country, said Ray Daniels, director of marketing for the Colorado-based Brewers Association. People's tastes become more sophisticated as they age, he said.

Daniels said Maine's breweries tend to be more traditional, more restrained and more in touch with the British brewing tradition than breweries in other parts of the country.

While other breweries produce "Americanized" versions of English ales, he said, most Maine brewers strive to imitate the real thing.

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