Under the Gas

The first time I came to Portland, I wanted to move there.

Portland, Maine, is a great little city. Casco Bay and the Back Cove are all around it, you're rarely far from water, and even when you are you're reminded of it by the sandy soil. I first visited Portland in 1986. I was 25, it was July, I was on my first paid vacation, and I loved it. Even though the best beer I could get with my lobster was Molson Export, I loved it.

Alan Pugsley loved it, too. Pugsley is the man who spread Ringwood yeast and the Peter Austin brewing system all over eastern North America. After setting up other people's breweries, Pugsley decided it was time to start his own. He chose Portland, and founded The Shipyard Brewing Company in 1994 with Fred Forsley, who had originally hired Pugsley to consult on his Kennebunkport brewpub, Federal Jack's.

One of the beers Pugsley brews is Blue Fin Stout. I've always been interested in why American brewers bang their heads against the wall of Guinness. Not many people drink stout to begin with, and of those that do almost all of them drink Guinness. Why buck a headwind like that? I asked Pugsley just that question.

He told me that they had first brewed it at the brewpub. (Indeed, I drank it there in 1993!) You have to have all the styles at a brewpub, you don't want to bring in guest beers, it looks like you can't handle it yourself. It developed a following, and when they opened the Shipyard, it was the third beer they brewed. "It isn't the highest selling beer," Pugsley told me, "but it's got a solid niche. And it is a niche, no question. We don't have the marketing power of Guinness. Guinness has a dominant role in Irish pubs and that territory. But people don't always like the same thing."

Amen to that. And that's why Pugsley continues to brew this very complex beer. "The defining character is the complexity of the grist [the malts and grains that make the beer]," Alan said, "with pale malt for the base, crystal malt and roasted barley, probably between 10 and 15%, some black and patent malts for color and flavor, and some wheat for head retention." That last is a classic Pugsley trick; using a little high-protein wheat to build solid foam on the head of the beer.

What's it like? Let's crack it open and see! It pours very dark, no surprise, but it gets a nice dark head as well. There's an appealing graham/cookie backing to the aroma, a mouth-watering tease of mild sweetness in there with the roasted notes of coffee and bitter chocolate. I'm even getting a little spiciness of hop here.

Now a sip. Wow, a lot of roast in the flavor, and just a touch of chalky dryness. This is a beer that rewards large swallows, almost begs for them. The roastiness tries but doesn't successfully hide the hops in here. Mmmm, the sweetness comes through in front, the finish is bitter...till you take another mouthful.

Unlike some stouts, you can definitely tell this is an ale, there are fruity notes flicking around the edges. But it's largely a story about dark malts, an unrelenting roasted character, like coffee, a good complex coffee or espresso. It's almost too bitter and roasty; the roasted, unmalted barley is really coming through with its dry bitterness. But it certainly does beg for consumption; I'm over halfway through the bottle in about three minutes, piggish for me.

Hmmm... Is it good? It's dry, that's for sure, and there are nuances there that are quite interesting. Oh, God, it's tremendous with leftover Valentine's chocolate, I got a tube of Droste bittersweet pastilles and this just blends so well with them. If you don't know about beer and chocolate, this is one of the best places to start, with stout and bittersweet, and this is a heavenly match. I vote yes.

Is it Guinness? No, of course not. It's a carbonated, American-brewed dry stout. I did rip through it rather quickly, and I admit to wishing I had another. As for the non-nitro (and don't even joke about pub-draught cans; that packaging technology isn't coming to American breweries anytime soon!), Pugsley says he doesn't really care for it: "By doing a beer on nitro you tend to suppress the flavor of the beer, the hoppiness and malts get smothered. When you open a Blue Fin you don't get that foaming creamy head. You get a very tasty product, roasty tones and hop notes."

Indeed. Try one of these, and see what you've been missing under the gas.



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