It was early evening as we turned homeward, but not early enough to catch the brewers at Atlantic Brewing Company, which we missed by minutes! After the success we had with The Magnificent Seven craft brewers of the Pioneer Valley, I wanted to do The Downeast Seven, if I could find seven good brewers in this beautiful but sparsely populated region.

I am a fan of Atlantic's Manly Men series, so I got two of them and was off to a good start. Bar Harbor is also home to Bar Harbor Brewing Company, so a Cadillac Mountain stout made two, a good start.

Not far beyond Ellsworth in Winterport is Penobscot Bay Brewery; I got their Meadow Road Wheat Beer and a few other Downeast brews at the very helpful and well-stocked Global Beverage Warehouse just off Rte 3 in Ellsworth. 

I knew there was a new nanobrewer in Blue Hill, on the other side of Ellsworth heading down toward Stonington. Evening was rapidly approaching and it was no time to go looking for a nanobrewer without even an address, but we did, and we found it with a little help from the good folk at the Blue Hill Coop. That visit is written up in A Flight at Deepwater Brewing.

By the time we got out of there, it was getting dark. We made it back out to Route 1 and down to Belfast, not really hungry, but aware that soon all the restaurants would be closing and I still had hours to drive. We stopped (not reluctantly) at the excellent Three Tides Restaurant, attached to the legendary Marshall Wharf Brewery. Those details are at A Tug at Marshall Wharf.

Did I get seven downeast craft brews? Well, it depends how liberally you define "Downeast" and "Craft Brew". I consider Belfast, at the head of Penobscot Bay, the end of Midcoast Maine and the start of Downeast Maine. As for craft brewing, well the growth of the craft brew movement and interest in it has been so great that even tired old regional brewers are suddenly getting crafty so I will give any small brewer the name craft brewer, but they might be a pretty poor one!

What I got is in The Downeast Seven. You are free to agree or not as you like. Comments are welcome!