by Carla Jean Lauter

Brews of Future Past

When I moved to the Brunswick area in 2014, I didn’t think I’d ever write a piece about its craft beer scene. While a few passionate restaurateurs at spots like Scarlet Begonias and Frontier were going out of their way to offer great craft beer, few other businesses saw the need to do so. Wine was the predominant option at the fancier restaurants, and the sports bars and pubs seemed content to offer revelers mass-market lagers and pints of Guinness stout. When the area’s only brewpub, Ebenezer’s (formerly Lion’s Pride), began to struggle a few years later, I began to wonder if there just wasn’t enough local demand to keep a beer-centric bar or brewery afloat.

Fast forward to today, and I barely recognize Brunswick’s relationship to beer.

The first sign that things were changing came in early 2017. After transforming a concrete-walled small-arms range at the Brunswick Naval Air Station into a brewery and tasting room, Flight Deck Brewing had a soft opening in March. Owners Jared Entwistle and Nate Wildes expected a handful of patrons to show up. Instead, hundreds of people arrived, all thirsting for the same thing: a local place to enjoy local beer. Once a dark fortress, the Air Station building now has ample light streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows on both sides. A pair of bay doors can be opened in warmer weather, and the concrete knocked down to make way for the windows is now the foundation for patio seating. Photographs of the air base and Navy planes, hung on the bullet-riddled walls, provide a connection to the past.

This spring, Flight Deck has begun offering four of its flagship beers in cans. The four-packs of P3 Pale Ale, 44^th Parallel IPA, Tea-56 Hibiscus beer and Subhunter (a 9.1% ABV “big-daddy IPA”) are available at the tasting room and will eventually be sold at retail outlets if the brewery can keep up with the considerable demand.

Flight Deck also recently brewed its first kettle sour beer, called Breaking The Sour Barrier. They took the local-beer ethos to another level with this one, having all the base malts processed by Lisbon’s Blue Ox Malthouse, and working with Mainiacal Yeast, in Pittsfield, to harvest the wild yeast and bacteria found on those malts (and in the local air) to inoculate the beer. The result is both tart and refreshing, with a slightly higher ABV than a typical sour (7.5%).

While Flight Deck plans its first-anniversary party, another brewery in Brunswick is getting ready for its grand opening this month. Moderation Brewing Company, which opened its doors to the public last month, is located in a historic downtown building on Maine Street last occupied by a hair salon. The space is small, but Moderation has managed to make it cozy — it feels more like a café than a brewery or bar.

Opened by Mattie Daughtry (who also represents part of Brunswick in the Maine House) and her friend and fellow Brunswick native Philip Welsh, the brewery aims to play with some unconventional beer styles, as well as to pay homage to the town’s history and heritage. For example, their breakfast stout, Box Shop Girls, is named in tribute to the mostly female workforce that toiled at Brunswick’s Dennison Manufacturing Company. Founded in the 1840s, Dennison was the country’s first cardboard-box company. The workers were referred to as “Box Shop Girls” or “Dennison Girls.” The label, which features a photo of some of the ladies (procured with the help of the Pejepscot Historical Society) quips that they were “The Original Flappers.”

Moderation and Flight Deck will soon be joined in the midcoast region by Bath Brewing Company, which opened its restaurant and bar in March but, as of this writing, had yet to start the craft taps flowing. They plan to focus on English-style ales and “hop-forward” IPAs. To support their neighbors, Flight Deck collaborated with Bath Brewing to brew their first beer (as yet unnamed), which will be available this month at the Front Street brewery.

These breweries, tucked into small and quirky spaces, are unlikely to become huge production operations, but they’re providing valuable space for friends to meet while enjoying a locally made pint. The local pubs are getting in on the action, too — a Byrnes’ Irish Pub, which celebrated its 10^th anniversary in Bath last month and also has a location in Brunswick, Maine craft beers from Baxter Brewing Co. and Dirigo are sharing tap space next to the Guinness handles. Cheers to that!