Portland recommendations

driving to portland from boston end of june. Any beer worthy stops en route?

Is there a comprehensive must to do list for portland (beer wise- assuming many will be open by end of June) I could refer to?

 

Not to be that guy, but ...

You posted this question on the third page of a thread entitled "Portland recommendations" and there are many, many other threads offering the same advice.

 

Thanks for the fun write up. Made me feel even more like we need to plan a quick trip up there sometime soon before the summer busy season really starts.

To give the benefit of the doubt on the "hey fellas" interaction, I could see someone using that in the same gender neutral sense that "hey guys" occupies around here. It really is kind of annoying to not have a proper plural gender neutral pronoun. I can't bring myself to say "y'all", and not enough people understand the awesome "yinz" from Pittsburgh. I've mostly taken to saying "folks" myself.

 

She didn’t want gender neutral if you know her. She wanted a “hi how are you doing or both doing”. Not be called a dude.

Definitely get up there and enjoy it. I think the point was Rising Tide is really just a bar with some beer they happen to make. Everywhere else fits more in line with a brewery experience. RT is more for millennial IG photos. The other breweries might fall in line more for what many of the folks on here are looking for. Regardless of what happened we just were polite and went about our business quickly after.

 

Things must really have changed / devolved at Rising Tide. I've never had such an experience there. I always found it like any other garage door brewery. Their beer is a notch below most places in Portland but still good. I've played cornhole there with my kids. I've hung out just adults. Haven't been since fall of '19 because of the pandemic and all so maybe it's different now.

 

A shame to hear about Rising Tide. Back when they were the only game in town over there, I really enjoyed their beers. (Calcutta) Cutter was always a little malty for me, but fresh Zephyr was excellent. Hesperus was an enjoyable barleywine/strong ale. But even early on their vibe was a bit on the business casual side (with the beer kind of secondary) and I never felt the desire to hang out at the taproom for a long period of time.

 

Had a Zephy on Sunday and still tasty. Just an odd experience.

 

It’s in Seabrook, right off the highway, and would recommend. A wide variety of Maine/NH breweries to try.

 

Any recommendation on reasonable places to do an overnight? Would like to plan a visit soon.

 

We stayed at the holiday inn downtown. Walked home from Novare Res. Easy walk to downtown etc. $179

 

I prefer the Hampton (Sebago Brewing as the "hotel bar") which is super close to Oxbow/Standard Baking/Duckfat/Eventide...etc. Or the Westin due to its stellar roof top bar (though you can go to it even if you don't stay there).

But The Holiday Inn is also a great location and isn't too shabby on price. The bonus is it's right across The Little Tap House which always has a sick local tap list and will let you do flights.

 

There hasn't been any signs of life at Little Tap house in over a year. No website and social media has been quiet. Looks like a possible covid casualty.

 

I don’t even want to think about the little tap house. It makes me so sad that they aren’t an option. Was almost always a must for me. That blt....and the burger. They always threw us complimentary drinks to try or some boozy hot chocolate free. Love that place.

Also, I know this is sort of useless information but being a parent and having our daughter there when she was young. They have a very clean and nicely set up bathroom, especially for little ones you need to change. We always really appreciated that. Was just a small thing but compared to other hell hole bathrooms it was huge.

 

Man that’s such a bummer. I live here and somehow didn’t even notice this one, but it certainly seems like everything is dark and it doesn’t appear they’ve made any announcements at all. Which is sort of odd in itself—every other place that has closed I’ve read some kind of announcement in the local press when they’ve closed up shop.

 

I liked your post but I didn’t like your post.

 

Little Tap House belongs to BA Jeff's sister. He's on here occasionally. Maybe he will chime in...or may refrain.

 

June reopening is planned but could be pending distancing restrictions being lifted. New chef hired. Drink like a local!

 

AWESOME NEWS!

Piggy backing on this, question for the locals.

I’m heading up in June for a long weekend. We’re definitely going to make dinner reservations for each night far ahead of time, and we also may do it for lunch. This isn’t something we normally do, but it obviously may be the busiest it’s ever been.

Do you think we need to do this for breweries too? I like to hit up multiple (like a lot of them), so this could get ridiculous.

Is Maine like MA, do you have to order food with a drink?

 

Given your previous Portland posts, you might be the only living human for whom this restriction doesn't actually matter. From what I could tell you and your siblings essentially had an entire slice of SLAB pizza, some fried seafood and a potato donut with every beer even before COVID.

 

I wouldn’t bother with brewery reservations, and to my knowledge only Rising Tide and Mast Landing even take them. No food requirement.