Maine’s biggest brewer is building a new tasting room at the Downs mixed-use development in Scarborough and planning a bevy of new product releases this year.
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Allagash Brewing Co. is planning a bevy of new product releases in 2023 including Hop Reach IPA, the brewer’s first-ever year-round IPA that’s being rolled out this month.
“From a business perspective, the IPA style has about a 50% share of craft beer as a whole,” says the company’s founder, Rob Tod. “We didn’t have a year-round beer that was firmly in the IPA category, so Hop Reach is going to fill a big spot in our core beer portfolio.”
At the same time, Tod sees “quite a bit of room” for further growth of Allagash White, a brand that accounts for 80% of the Portland brewer’s sales.
“Our main focus is on deepening our relationships with wholesalers where we already distribute, and expanding thoughtfully,” he says. One example of that is how Allagash has expanded its distribution from the Chicagoland area to all of Illinois.
Back in Maine, Allagash produced 118,315 barrels of beer in 2021. The brewer has 150 employees on the payroll and does not envision any major staff increases this year.
“We imagine that we’ll continue to see openings in various areas of the brewery,” Tod says, “but don’t expect to significantly expand our team in the near future.”
The company is building a new tasting room at the Downs mixed-use development in Scarborough after opening a new experiential tasting space in Portland called the Cellars.
Despite high building costs, Rob says that Scarborough “is a big opportunity for us to construct a space, and tasting room, from the ground up.”
His outlook for Allagash and Maine’s craft brewing industry this year: “The craft brewing industry is maturing, quality is rising, and the number of breweries is still increasing, on top of pressure from other beverages like ready-to-drink canned cocktails and seltzer. So, I think it’s going to continue to be tough out there.”