Ranking Portland's Top Craft Breweries
Your prioritization guide to 13 of southern Maine's destination taprooms
Maximizing my opportunities to try good breweries is one of my greatest talents. Give me a few minutes with Untappd and Google Maps while I’m planning a trip and I’ll pinpoint the most-special brews that fit into the itinerary. Traveling for work? I’ll find the best taproom near my hotel.1 Out of town for a wedding with time to kill before the ceremony? I’ll research where to grab an IPA the afternoon of. Bachelor party brewery crawl? It’s a constrained-optimization problem to maximize the quality and quantity of tastings while minimizing the distance between stops, and I can solve it.
Yet when my wife and I — along with our dog, Asiago — spent a few days in the Portland area a couple weeks ago, I had an uncharacteristically hard time plotting out brewery stops. It’s a strange complaint to have about a region with so much great beer. But therein lay the problem: there were so many highly rated and enthusiastically recommended breweries in southern Maine that it was hard to sort through them all.
The list you are about to read is the resource I wish we had had before our trip. It is my answer to the question of: if you want to do a brewery crawl but you have limited time and liver capacity, how should you prioritize them?
Before we get to the list, some context that informed and caveats about my rankings:
My favorite beers are hazy IPAs and imperial stouts. I am okay with lighter beers. I am not a fan of most sours.
My main criterion for a taproom is the specialness of the beers, meaning both quality and exclusivity. Could I find something like this closer to home? While this was not my intent of the rankings, you can think of this as the order of how interested I was in buying cans or bottles to go.
I understand and respect why some breweries do not offer flights.2 However, I enjoy sampling lots of things, so I prefer taprooms that facilitate that.
We brought Asiago with us to most of the breweries (and therefore usually sat outside), and the few things we ate at them were just snacks. So the rankings are generally based on our experience of simply sitting outside with a drink at the specified location. My apologies to any taprooms that would be listed higher if I had eaten the food, taken a tour, visited a different outpost, or experienced a different draught list.
I would recommend and happily return to every single taproom on this list. Even the lowest-ranked breweries were still perfectly pleasant places to spend an afternoon.
If your favorite Portland brewery is not listed, that doesn’t mean we didn’t like it — just that we didn’t have time to stop there. (Please comment with any glaring omissions, and I’ll make a note to try them next time we’re in the area!)
We squeezed 13 taproom stops into our Maine itinerary. (This was less debaucherous than it sounds: splitting a flight translates to half a beer per person, spread out over almost a week.) Which means we tried a lot of beer, most of it really good, at almost every brewery that I’ve heard considered among the best in and around Portland. Here they are, in ascending order of how strongly I would prioritize visiting them.
13. Belleflower Brewing Company (Portland — East Bayside)
To reiterate, we didn’t have a single bad experience anywhere we went, so being at the bottom of this list means it was cromulent, not unpleasant. Having said that, Belleflower was the least-exciting brewery we visited, and the one where I had the least interest in lingering. Belleflower’s Untappd rating is on par with luminaries like Finback and Kane. (Of the breweries we went to in Maine, only Bissell Brothers has a higher one.) Yet neither the Meadows IPA I had at the taproom (their best-reputed offering available in small pours that day) nor the Ranunculus IPA I had at dinner elsewhere was particularly memorable.
Allows dogs? Outside only
Offers flights? No, though half-pours of some beers are available
12. Goodfire Brewing Company (Freeport)
When you picture a modern microbrewery, what you see in your mind’s eye probably looks a lot like Goodfire: small pours of a nice variety of styles, served in either a sleek indoor taproom or outdoors on barrel tables by the cornhole set. The Ack Ack Ack! pale ale, VHS milk stout, and flagship Prime IPA were enjoyable yet not distinctive. I was most impressed with the Raspberry Lutro, which was pretty smooth for a sour.
Allows dogs? Outside only
Offers flights? No, though small pours are available
Raspberry Lutro sour, Ack Ack Ack! pale ale, and VHS stout at Goodfire
11. Oxbow Brewing Company (Portland — East Bayside)
Oxbow was the hardest brewery for me to rank. On the one hand, it was among my favorite actual places we went to: the vast, segmented yet cohesive campus reminded me of Delirium in Brussels, and serving Duckfat fries and milkshakes is a huge plus. I also recognize that someone who likes sours have a better time than I did. (My wife does, and did.) But of the more-than-a-dozen beers Oxbow had on tap the day we stopped in, I counted only two that didn’t make me pucker just from reading the descriptions, and as a result it was my least-favorite drinking experience of the trip (with apologies to the solid Nightfall dark lager).
Allows dogs? Unclear (we did not try and the website does not say)
Offers flights? Yes
10. Austin Street Brewery (Portland — East Bayside)
Austin Street was the highlight of our East Bayside brewery crawl. The space itself is fantastic: the open-air greenhouse vibes on a warm summer evening transported us somewhere far away from a New England industrial park. The Offset double IPA and Six Grain milk stout weren’t half-bad, either.
Allows dogs? Outside only
Offers flights? No, though half-pours are available
9. Foundation Brewing Company (Portland — Riverton)
In South Philadelphia, the presence of two famous (though not very good) steak shops is enough for the intersection of 9th and Passyunk to be called “Cheesesteak Corner.” By that logic, the otherwise-unassuming street in northern Portland where four taprooms are clustered so close they could share a parking lot ought to be called “Brewery Boulevard.” Foundation is the lowest priority of the quartet, but it’s worth a stop if you have time. I enjoyed the Let’s Do Brunch pastry stout that legitimately tasted like French toast, a raft of solid IPAs, and a delicious red-snapper hot dog.
Allows dogs? Outside only
Offers flights? Yes
8. Allagash Brewing Company (Portland — Riverton)
If you care enough about beer to be reading this far into a ranking of craft breweries, you know about Allagash and are likely already planning your visit. Like Oxbow, the draught list hewed almost exclusively to the sour end of the spectrum, though their offerings were subtler and more approachable. My surprise favorite of my flight was the refreshing Clementine Kölsch, followed by the fascinating fusion of the Bandit Falls hopped Tripel. Their non-alcoholic hop seltzer (my go-to weeknight drink of late) was also among my favorites I’ve tried.
Allows dogs? Outside only (including tarped patio)
Offers flights? Yes
7. Definitive Brewing Company (Portland — Riverton)
As much as I enjoyed Allagash, by the end of my flight I was craving beer that didn’t make me pucker. Luckily our next stop was across the street at Definitive, where they offered a broad range of styles in a millennial-garage-bar setting. I liked the Particles and Spirals IPAs, and the Late Night: Blueberry Waffles (which tasted just like it sounds) was one of the best sours I’ve ever tried.
Allows dogs? Yes
Offers flights? Yes
6. Maine Beer Company (Freeport)
Our visit to Maine was somewhat anticlimactic. Even a few years ago, finding Maine out in the world felt like a rarity; since then I’ve found it at a mid-range grocery store five states away. They had only six beers on draught the day we visited, and I’d seen all but one of them in bottle shops before. Yet Maine’s actual taproom was my favorite of the trip, the signature black barn giving way to brewery-of-the-future architecture that also featured a quiet patio and the cleanest bathrooms of any taproom we visited. And even if its modern ubiquity makes it feel less special, their flagship Lunch IPA is a classic for a reason, and it’s worth the trip to try some fresh from the source.
Allows dogs? Outside only
Offers flights? Yes
5. Tributary Brewing Company (Kittery)
I am too young to have been part of the crowds who lined up for releases of Kate the Great, let alone its initial incarnation as Boston Strangler. But it blows my mind that a beer that was revered as the best in the world lives on inside an unassuming strip mall. Mott the Lesser (as it is now known) is a shining example of a stout that tastes like a stout, and in an incredible stroke of luck they still had some of their latest vintage on tap two months after its release day. The intimate taproom and patio make it feel like you’ve stumbled into someone’s secret spot — complete with a tasty array of locally sourced dips for snacking.
Allows dogs? Outside only (will let them walk through the taproom)
Offers flights? Yes
4. Bissell Brothers Brewing Company (Portland — Libbytown)
This was the stop I was most excited for on our brewery tour, and it didn’t disappoint. Bissell Brothers is known for their IPAs — when I find them on tap outside of Maine, it’s usually their flagship The Substance — and the imperial Swish lived up to its reputation. But I think their best offerings are their darker ales. The Barrel Aged New Old Stock is the boldest Baltic porter I’ve ever had, and the Double Barrel Angels with Filthy Souls was absurdly drinkable for its 15.1% ABV.
Allows dogs? No
Offers flights? No, though small pours are available
3. Mast Landing Brewing Company (Westbrook)
To me, Mast Landing had been synonymous with their flagship Gunner’s Daughter milk stout. Which is a cool accomplishment: how many craft breweries have developed national followings with a low-ABV stout?3 In retrospect, I had inferred that meant their other offerings were nothing to write home about. How wrong I was! Their A Beer Named Duck pale ale was another achievement in packing great flavor into a low-alcohol brew. On the bolder side, I really liked the citrusy Sea People and the experimental Matching Jet Skis IPAs. When in Rome, you can also try Gunner’s Daughter on nitro. And if you’re lucky, they may still have cans of the phenomenal imperial variant in the back.
Allows dogs? Outside only (will let them walk through the taproom)
Offers flights? Yes
2. Battery Steele Brewery (Portland — Riverton)
Allagash is the big name in this part of town, and it has surely earned its reputation. Yet I feel for the countless visitors who make the pilgrimage to Riverton without also stopping across the street at what for my money is the best brewery in Portland. Battery Steele feels like you wandered into someone’s garage bar. Our dog fell asleep on the couch; a couple assembled their wedding invitations at the next table over. We liked the nitro-kegged Flume IPA and the mocha-y Looking for Owls stout so much that we bought cans of them, the OPUS Russian imperial stout was worthy of its pretentious name, and uncharaI even went back for more sips of the smooth Endless Ride fruited sour. It was an idyllic place to spend a rainy vacation afternoon.
Allows dogs? Yes
Offers flights? Yes
1. Barreled Souls Brewing Company (Saco)
This was the only taproom in Maine we had been to before this summer, and there’s a reason we went back. Barreled Souls isn’t just my favorite brewery in the state. It’s one of the most creative, versatile, and memorable breweries I have visited anywhere. The breadth of their offerings stacks up against anyone, from funky sours to punchy IPAs to meticulously crafted variants of barleywines and stouts. I’m particularly keen on the bourbon-barrel vintages of their Dark Matter imperial stout and Big Bang barleywine. I also like their bolder fare, like the Stay Puft marshmallow fluff stout and their triple IPA that clocks in at nearly 12%, aptly named Diesel. Make it a point to stop by!
Allows dogs? Outside only
Offers flights? Yes
For more-regular beer and food reviews, you can also follow my Foodstagram. Cheers!
A friend texted me to ask for advice on this exact situation as I wrote this paragraph.
Interestingly, the linked article includes quotes from Allagash about why tasters were not logistically feasible. A year later, they were one of the most flight-oriented breweries we visited in Maine.
Gunner’s Daughter has more Untappd ratings than the brewery’s next five most-popular beers combined. Not even Guinness Draught has such relative dominance over the rest of the company’s offerings.
When Bunker Brewing has a good DJ or other music, I think it has the best brewery vibe in the area.
If you want to go to the best bar in Portland, you can stop up the street at Pizza Villa, which is a true cross section of the town. Plus awesome (not fancy) pizza and TVs for the Sox game.
The other tip is to drink some beers at the Sea Dogs game (also walking distance from Bunker Brewing). They have a great selection and Hadlock Field is terrific.
Bunker->Sea Dogs->Pizza Villa is a fantastic afternoon/evening and way off the tourist trail.