Sacred Profane Brewing Launching Summer 2022

One more thing we agree on.

 

Star Wars I assume? (And hope)

Oh for sure, and Battery Steele makes a decent lager or two if I recall as well.

You can find good lagers in Portland, but I’m referring to a lager-focused brewery. Like Notch, Schilling, and Silvaticus.

While the breweries in Portland like Bissell, Goodfire…etc. can make a good lager, they’re New England IPA-focused first and foremost.

When I was there last fall they had Resilience IPAs on tap alongside their lagers and other styles.

And what you said was “If Schilling can consistently make fabulous lagers with nary an IPA in sight and do a lot of business, so can the former head brewers of Notch & Oxbow.”

I assume Resilience is just a brand name for that portfolio, and it is part of their business plan. So they make money from that as well. Meaning they’re not solely depending on the more lager-centric Schilling brand.

Same with Jack’s Abby and Springdale.

And Notch and Voll Projekt…although this is more for brewing higher ABV traditional styles…but even they still brewed New England IPAs at some point.

 

Because that is what the bulk of their customer base want?

If Portland beer consumers (and visitors) demand more lagers I am confident the existing Portland breweries can produce beers to meet that demand.

Cheers!

 

Yes, but that's not my point.

Most new breweries in Portland are IPA-focused.

I think a good business plan would be to carve out a niche there and do something different (and you can still offer other styles like IPAs).

For example, Oxbow and Allagash have a niche carved out and do great business. Schilling and Notch fill the lager-centric niche (and they also do New England IPAs, but that's not their focus). People travel to Notch and Schilling for the niche they offer.

Portland doesn't have a more lager-centric brewery like Notch or Schilling. Lagers are on the uptick, there's no denying that. In order to compete you can't just open up another New England IPA factory.

 

How about the short lived Extrava? They came in and offered something other than ipa's and it seemed to get some chatter on here but they were quickly gone. Yes, not lagers and pilsners but not an ipa factory. In comes Belleflower, in that same location, and they seem to be doing well. Heavy on the ipas and sours. It's unfortunately what people want. It would be great to have a Notch North so as consumers we don't have to chase around looking for lagers at breweries. I guess that's where we come full circle and go back to drinking at bars, that would hopefully have a variety of beers on draft, like the old days.

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cbfbd1tLGvQ/?utm_medium=copy_link

 

Sensitive lot. Nothing wrong with having a discussion, but I guess if you’re not in the inner circle you can’t talk about them, whether that be with excitement or skepticism.

I reread the thread and no one said they flat out wouldn’t survive. Hell, they’re not even open yet. I love lager and I love the vision so I’ll happily support them. I hope to be able to visit if I make it up that way when they are open.

 

I understood your point previously.

Now, permit me to re-enforce my point: if there is a strong local demand for a variety of lagers the existing breweries in Portland are capable of fulfilling that demand. There is no absolute need for another brewery (i.e., a lager centric brewery) to open up in Portland to serve the Portland customer demands for a lagers.

Cheers!

 

Only time will tell if you are right or you are wrong!

 

The IG to BA beef is real

Vitamin Sea thread circa 2017 all over again

 

Where’s the beef? A condescending ig post about no one saying they are going to fail in this thread and limiting comments on the post so the cool kids can make the same (lager) jokes. Everyone started somewhere. Odd post imo.

 

So based on what they posted in their Instagram "story", looks like they are taking the McSorley's approach. "Pale" and "Dark":

 

Some folks might be interested in knowing that McSorley's Old Ale House is a bar not a brewery/brewpub and their beers are made by Pabst:

“In early 1990’s Stroh Brewery purchased the McSorley’s brand and brewed it until being bought by those seminal suds-makers-Pabst Brewing Company. McSorley’s Ale is available to consumers in both kegs and bottles throughout the East and of course at McSorley’s Old Ale House.”

https://mcsorleysoldalehouse.nyc/mcsorleys-ale/

Cheers!

 

I disagree. They have posted a few times pointing to the thread. I do feel there is some hostility or annoyance felt at least. Time will tell. Not my place to open so really doesn’t apply to me anyways. Im going to try it regardless. Plus it’s a forum.

 

You had a two paragraph post about how you were perplexed by the plan on page 1. So, you had an opinion.

Please provide these other posts or direct me to where I can read them. I didn’t see anything on the Sacred Profane IG. I don’t follow any of the accounts so I’m not sure where to find them other than what hops for thought shared above.

Again, I support the idea, but to feel hostility and or annoyance because people are discussing your brewery on a forum seems a bit thin skinned.

 

I understood what you meant. I will actually have a better shot of getting my buddies to come up to Portland from Kennebunkport for a few hours on our next guy trip with a place like this.

 

Well, for the post-WWII period up until the craft era, those two styles - a hoppy American golden ale and a dark ale were two styles one seldom saw in most any other bar.

As that website notes, it was originally brewed in NYC by Fidelio and then sold to Liebmann/Rheingold in the 1940s and they eventually re-introduced the ale in bottles in the 1970s, a couple of years before going out of business. At some point the draft "dark" was supposedly brewed by Stegmaier, rumored to be their porter.

Rheingold sold their brands to Schmidt's, which sold the McSorley's label to nearby Ortlieb (which canned the ale, too), and then re-acquired it along with the other Ortlieb brands around 1980. After that it went the familiar Heileman > Stroh > Pabst route (and the ale in particular was dumbed down to the point of being unrecognizable under macro ownership).

Under Pabst, in the 21st century the brand was primarily brewed by The Lion and then by F X Matt. Pabst at some point reformulated the ale, using a recipe created by Phil Markowski (at the time, there was business connection between Pabst and Southampton) - but it was nothing at all like the original. (Seems to me a LI craft brewer has also brewed McSorley's.)

 

This is a fair point, and I figured someone would bring this up.

It’s not a perfect analogy though, because I don’t think the types of Belgian beers they brewed are particularly “hot” styles at the moment. They leaned on Quads and Dubbels…rather than Gueuze. So if you’re going the Belgian route, you’d need to be more like an Oxbow to be successful.

The other thing is, I think their beers were good, but not on the level of a Notch or Schilling.

For example, if you’re going to do lagers in today’s market, you can’t just brew decent ones. They need to be excellent. You can get away with just “good” New England IPAs and be successful. There’s probably thousands of breweries you can point to in the US that are like that.

Fair enough. I don’t disagree with your point now that I think about it more. Portland doesn’t necessarily NEED a lager-centric brewery, but I think they could use one.

I suppose we may disagree here because I go to Portland so much (multiple times per year), and I love lagers (as do you though!). So I’m a bit biased.

I’ve seen firsthand people make special trips to Notch for certain releases. Their pitch lined 12th anniversary lager was emptied in 45 minutes two weeks ago. Those of us there were waiting in our cars for them to open at noon.

People make special trips up to Littleton, NH just to have Schilling’s beer. But also to get the experience. Both them and Notch really lean into the “lager” culture.

Same with Silvaticus in Amesbury, MA, people will trek up there just for their incredible beers.

This is all different than having 1-2 lagers on tap. I think if the beers Sacred and Profane brews are excellent (and I’m sure they will), and they offer an experience few others are offering, people will make a special trip to go there.