Fresh Pint...Maine Beer Co. Peeper Ale

PORTLAND, MAINE. Home of Allagash, Shipyard, and several other larger craft breweries. Also, home of newly created Maine Beer Company. The operation was started by two brothers, David and Daniel Kelban, with a glorified home-brewing system in an unheated garage. They currently produce 4 beers - Peeper, Zoe, Mean Old Tom, Lunch IPA. We're determined to try them all. So far, we've only had the Peeper Ale (named for the chorus of small frogs all along eastern North America whose high-pitched calls between twilight and dawn herald the onset of spring/early summer), and we're singing praise.

The brothers describe Peeper as being between a pale ale and an IPA. "I figured let's build a beer that's not too off the wall and it would be approachable for a lot of people. It's a delicate beer, which makes it harder to make." 

The "delicate" part is one of the more interesting elements, especially for an ale near the IPA end of the spectrum. It's golden with hints of orange, and a little hazy too. This comes both from bottle conditioning and dry hopping (adding whole hops toward the end of the initial brewing process, in order to impart more aromatics and less bitter taste. The short time spent in heat keeps a lot of the volatile compounds from the hops - the aromatics - and doesn't impart too many flavors into the actual taste). Bottle conditioning, adding live yeast and a little fermentable sugar to the bottle, allows a beer to mature kind of  like wine, and always seems to add a living character to a beer. Dry hopping makes for intriguing, attractive aromatics that don't always match the flavor profiles. Again, a characteristic of many fine wines. 

But this is no beer-for-wine-lovers-only. 

• The aroma is an intense, quintessential hop fragrance (that can be experienced on any brewery tour), with grass blades, citrus, earth, and pine. 
• In your mouth it's light bodied, and mixes into the ale flavor some bitter grapefruit with sweet tangerine, finishing crisp and dry, with a slightly chalky texture. 

It's fresh, crisp, and light enough to drink a lot of, but also powerful both in the nose and mouth. This really exemplifies handcrafted ale from the north east USA, where hops make their mark but, more often than in other American regions, are part of a larger, integrated whole. Add on that the brothers use windpower, donate a percentage of profits to environmental groups worldwide, and donate all their used grain and brewing products to local farms, and you have a beer that for no reason whatsoever should be overlooked. 

Unless you're a teetotaler.

GO CRAFT BEER!