Sorry for the break in posts, I have been very, very busy, but I wanted to get back and finish up the Maine breweries.  As you may recall from my earlier posts, I was dismayed to learn that Shipyard is the brewer for many of the most popular Maine beers, including Sea Dog and Belfast.  Obviously from the size of their facility, Shipyard is the biggest brewery in the state and has a great location not far from downtown Portland.  However, the fact that they are the brewers of so many Maine beers really ruined the day for me.  If you are wondering how I found this out, I actually contacted Belfast to see if there was any way to tour their facility and Belfast told me just to go to Shipyard as the beers were brewed there anyway.  How disappointing!

The original Shipyard is a little place in Kennebunk, Maine, called Federal Jack’s.  If you can deal with the hordes of tourists in Kennebunk on a nice day, then I suggest a stop at Federal Jack’s. If you can get a seat next to the window overlooking the water, then it has some great charm. If you get seated toward the interior, expect to be crowded in with all the other tourists.  The beer here is a mixture of Shipyard and Sea Dog and the sampler is huge.

You have to stop before leaving Maine at Shipyard in Portland. Why? Because they brew all the beer.  You can also get all your beer goodies here since they make so many of the other brands.  However, you don’t actually get to tour the facility, though.  I would have thought they would have at least allowed you to look on the line through some glass windows. You have to watch a really awful 15 minute video before the sampling.  They have a sampling bar toward the back of the gift shop where you get about 4-5 samples depending on the number of people. It is all free, so you can’t really complain, but  they don’t really go out of their way to treat you special.  The videos run on the hour; however, we were there on a busy day so they started half hour showings. At least in this regard, they accommodated their customers.