S4 Episode 9: Great Big Wins

Allagash Tripel and Allagash Lager both won Gold Medals in their respective categories at the Great American Beer Festival 2025. Because of those wins, our  brewery also secured "Brewery of the Year" accolades in our size category. All of which is to say "WOooooooOOoooo!"

So, to celebrate and talk a little more about both of those beers, Brett is joined on the podcast by Jason Perkins, Allagash Brewmaster, and Ryah Lempert, our Social Media and Content Intern.

It's a fun conversation that bops from the beers themselves, to how awards ceremonies work, to some fun chatting about what winning awards like these is actually like for the people that created them!

To be clear: we never take any of these wins for granted, and our entire team works incredibly hard to make them possible. So cheers to the whole team here at the brewery, and cheers to you for giving this podcast a listen!

Transcript

Ryah Lempert 0:00

I in fact heard him.

Brett Willis 0:01

I heard him too. I heard that. Um to open the episode, I'm gonna do this. Sounds good. Nice. All right. This is from Maine with Love and Allegash Bring Podcast where we talk about beer, our community here in Maine, things that generally make us happy. We got some very happy, joyous stuff to talk about on this podcast. I am Brett, joined here by Raya Lempert, social media and content creation intern. Thank you, Raya. Hello. Second time on the show. You did an awesome job. Yeah. Glad to bring you back. We asked you the highest form of flattery.

Ryah Lempert 0:32

Yay!

Brett Willis 0:32

And Jason Perkins, our brewmaster. What's up? Thank you for joining us. Uh and we're here, we're here to talk about some cool great American Beer Festival stuff, but prior to that, we gotta start with the old secret question. Uh and this one might be, I don't know, Jason. I'm interested to see your take on this one. This is not as uh frivolous as uh many of the secret questions I've asked you before. Can you pinpoint the moment when you realize brewing was more than just an interest for you that this might be something bigger? He is thinking. I'm thinking. Sorry, there's not like a problem with your podcast. He did not just get super angry.

Jason Perkins 1:24

Oh man. You know, it was pretty early on. I don't know if I remember like a like a light bulb moment, but you know, I was uh like so many craft brewers, especially of the generation that I came from, like I was a home brewer first, and so I already kind of loved the idea of making beer. And then I um got a job at a a uh small, really small brewery at the time. They've uh grown a bunch since, um, called Kettle House Brewing Company in Missoula, Montana. I was living out there and I just I was like literally buying my homebrew ingredients from this brewery, and they were hiring and I got a job. And I would say it was sometime in the first like few weeks of working there where it was like, wow, like I can actually get paid, granted, not a lot, but get paid to to make beer. So that's cool. Somewhere it was very early on, uh, for sure.

Brett Willis 2:15

That mirror is, I think Rob uh Rob Todd, our founder, Dev Mires his story where he's kind of like he like walked into the brewery and he was like saw the pipes and everything. He was like, Oh yeah, yeah.

Jason Perkins 2:24

His is a little he he was a little more fo like he was like wash kegs for one day at Otter Creek and the next day. I was like, I'm opening a brewer. It wasn't quite that fast. Yeah.

Brett Willis 2:34

Yeah. More definitive. Yeah. All right, Ray, are you ready for yours?

Ryah Lempert 2:38

I guess.

Brett Willis 2:39

Uh I think you're gonna like it. Uh, have do you have you had an esoteric pet that I don't know about? Because right now I know about the horse and I know about the hedgehog. Is there anything more sort of like interesting pet-wise? Oh, you're nodding your head. All right, hell yeah. All right.

Ryah Lempert 2:55

I have two birds.

Brett Willis 2:56

Two birds, okay.

Ryah Lempert 2:57

Um, Ozzie and Marvin.

Brett Willis 2:59

Um what type of bird?

Ryah Lempert 3:01

Marvin is a cockatiel, and Ozzie is a green, green something.

Brett Willis 3:06

I hope Ozzie's not a podcast listener. She's a little offended.

Ryah Lempert 3:09

She might be singing to it. Um yeah, green something. It always I never remember her, but um nice. Green bird. Yeah, she is a green bird. She's very pretty. She's like green and red and orange. Yep. Um, my family got we went to Canada um and went to an aviary.

Brett Willis 3:29

Okay.

Ryah Lempert 3:30

My whole family fell in love with birds, and we decided there we needed to get birds. Wow. Um, we came home and there's a local aviary in Cumberland, and we went and we adopted these two birds, and they are so fun.

Jason Perkins 3:44

Um is that recent?

Ryah Lempert 3:47

Um, like two, three years ago.

Brett Willis 3:49

Okay, nice.

Ryah Lempert 3:50

Our two birds.

Brett Willis 3:51

There you go.

Jason Perkins 3:52

I was really hoping that story was gonna turn into a how you got two birds across the across the border from Canada.

Brett Willis 3:59

We hid them in a big tub of poutine.

Ryah Lempert 4:02

Yeah, just uh no. But yeah, the birds, the hedgehog, I had hamsters growing up. Yeah, horse, dogs. I think that about sums it up. Good for you.

Brett Willis 4:15

Very pet-friendly family.

Ryah Lempert 4:16

Very pet-friendly.

Brett Willis 4:17

It's awesome.

Ryah Lempert 4:18

Yep.

Brett Willis 4:19

Awesome. All right, here we go. Talking about the GABF, the Great American Beer Festival. We had a pretty awesome year. We've had honestly been lucky to have a couple pretty awesome years. This one was definitely no different. This was a standout. But I think before we even talk about what we won, I just want to kind of like set the stage, Jason, for like, what is the Great American Beer Festival, I guess, in your words.

Jason Perkins 4:43

So yeah, the Great American Beer Festival is just just an unbelievable festival and competition that's been going on for 30 plus years. I shouldn't know the exact number of years, but I don't. But it's been going on for quite some time. Um, started very small, of course, uh, back in the early days of craft beer. Um, was originally started in Boulder, Colorado, and it's been in Denver for a very long time.

Brett Willis 5:04

Has it always been the Brewers Association?

Jason Perkins 5:06

Um, yes and no. It was the Brewers Association was called the different name back in the day. But effectively, yes. Proto-brewers association. You know, the infamous Charlie Papasian, or at least infamous if you're in uh into the craft beer world, uh, who wrote a complete show of homebrewing and was involved with the the beginning of the Brewers Association was also involved with the beginning of the Great American Beer Festival. Um, and just a way to highlight um craft beer and beer in general in the US, and um it grew in size dramatically, both as a festival and a competition. So every year in Denver, um, there's a couple day big, huge brew fest. As far as I understand it, it's still the biggest um brew fest in the United States. It has to be. Uh, and kind of leading up to it uh is a competition as well, where uh brewers uh can submit um their beers to the competition. They're judged in a blind fashion by expert judges, and then um kind of the culmination of the of the beer festival is the awards ceremony that happens on uh Saturday of the beer festival where they give they actually give their medals out uh kind of at the festival. Gotcha.

Brett Willis 6:15

And this would be like this is definitely the biggest beer competition in the U.S. And like the most prestigious that the US alone puts on.

Jason Perkins 6:23

Without a doubt, um the most prestigious beer competition in the United States. Um there is kind of its its you know, it's you know, it's sister competition called the World Beer Cup that is just like the name would suggest, includes beers from all over the world. Gotcha. Um the Great American Beer Fest is just American beer.

Brett Willis 6:41

Okay. All right, that makes sense. Um, so then to go even a little bit further, we're talking about the awards ceremony. Like, what is that actually like? What is what is the room in which, like, how does it is it a big ballroom and everyone's it's it's actually been uh it's been a whole bunch of different types of places.

Jason Perkins 6:58

Uh it had, you know, it was very when it was very small, it was a very small venue, and then it grew into a ballroom, and then at times it's been on the festival floor. Uh this year it returned to the festival floor for the first time in a little while, which I actually kind of like.

Brett Willis 7:11

Yeah.

Jason Perkins 7:11

Um, but it's it's uh it's awesome. The kind of the ambiance at it is, you know, all the brewers are there. You know, not every brewer submits beers can travel to Denver. So not every single brewery who's submitted beers is there, but many are. Uh and you know, if you've been in the industry for a long time, like I have, you you know a lot of these people and they're they've become very good friends. And yeah, to sit there and watch a brewery you know and you love win an award and watch their reaction and jump up and down, it's it's fun. I mean, um, so and then you get brewers who maybe have won their first award. Uh that happens all the time. Yeah. And they're they're really excited, you know, jumping up and down and slapping each other on the back. It's just really fun atmosphere for sure.

Brett Willis 7:53

Yeah. Super celebratory. Yeah. That's awesome. And there's like, I mean, I don't, I I should have looked it up, but like there's a lot of categories. There are like a hundred-ish. Yeah, over a hundred, yeah. Over a hundred. So that's for all different types of beers. So for um, you enter your beer under a particular style that is clearly defined, and you want your beer to be like the pinnacle of that defined style.

Jason Perkins 8:16

Correct. And the number of beers categories has grown. I mean, I'm in the early years it was just a just a handful. Yeah. But as basically more or less, they've added categories as a singular category has gotten bigger and bigger, and then they can uh create a new category. Like, for example, there used to be one category for all the Belgian beer.

Brett 8:35

Wow.

Jason Perkins 8:35

Uh Belgian style beer was all one category. Now there's a category for triple, there's a category for white, category for double, category for Saisons. So it just um lets it be judged more specifically on the style itself. Nice.

Brett Willis 8:49

All right. Then what did we win? We won a gold medal for Alagash Triple. That was the first. Was that the first one literally announced of the two? Or was it? Oh, okay, cool.

Jason Perkins 8:58

No, uh, sorry, no, it was the second. Sorry, I just I just I just let that out.

Brett Willis 9:04

It's gonna be like in the header of this podcast. You didn't know. I know. Um, no, but I mean this this is cool. So, like, um we get into the description of the beer a little bit in in a little bit, Rai, because I kind of want to hear your take on this beer. Uh because I like I like you bring a different perspective to this. Uh, but like, so for people who who are not aware, our Belgian, our triple has won this is its sixth gold medal at a major beer competition. So we kind of in our estimation it include Great American Beer Festival in that. There's a Euro Beer Star Awards or European beer star, which is a big festival in Europe, and then there's also the World Beer Cup. So it's won four GABFs, one Euro Beer Star and one World Beer Cup. And then I think it's I wrote I wrote it on it was a different piece of paper. I think it's like 18 awards in all. So triple's like awarded at this point. Um, and I think the question here was like uh what do you think? And we kind of talked about this in a previous podcast when triple won this award, I think like last year. But I think like you mentioned you mentioned effervescence, I think, as a thing that sets our triple apart. Do you still feel like that kind of captures it, or is it like what makes our triple Alagashy and like able to win this many awards?

Jason Perkins 10:16

Yeah, I mean, I love that word. I think that does that does still uh accurately describe it. But I mean, uh triple um as a style is a very nuanced style in that it has, you know, it needs to be, in my opinion, needs to still, for even though it's strong beer, it needs to be nice and drinkable, needs to be dry, um, needs to be palatable, but has to have some layers of complexity to it. And so to do that right is is challenging. So I think ours does a good job of one being, you know, very approachable and drinkable to all people, but also um, you know, still very complex aromatic profile from you know the fermentation from the yeast esters. So it's kind of a mix of um, you know, easy, easy to drink for a 9% beer. Yeah, and uh uh complex.

Brett Willis 11:07

Yeah. Raya, would do you remember the first time you had triple?

Ryah Lempert 11:10

I do. Ah it was so when I started working here, everyone else who started working at the same time did a beer tasting. And it was triple, I think it was the variety pack. Yeah um and we had it in the tall glass.

Brett Willis 11:24

Oh 750. Yeah. Jason's preferred. Yes.

Ryah Lempert 11:26

Jason Jason. Um and at the time, I like when I started working here, I hadn't really drank beer. Like I would take sips of my dad's and pretend I like it. Um and then working here just gave me like a totally different perspective. And now I find myself going towards beers. That's very nice. Um and yeah, I think it's a wonderful beer. I mean, I think like the variety packet, like the Alligash White, triple, and lager for me is very approachable and easy to drink. And I don't I like how it's like simple and not like you know.

Brett Willis 12:04

I it's funny that you would like I think you're right though. Like the word simple, I think denotes for me, just like it's not difficult to enjoy this. You don't need a big preamble of like, well, you're gonna find this, you're gonna like you just give this beer to somebody with no whatever like reference whatsoever. And they're gonna just be like, oh wow, I like that. And like that, I feel like is what defines it for me is this you can just suggest it, someone's gonna try it, and they're gonna be like, Whoa, dang, I wasn't expecting that. And it's they invariably, like in my nine years here at Alagash, it is a beer that when people try it, they go like, Oh, that's good.

Ryah Lempert 12:36

Great beer.

Jason Perkins 12:37

Yeah, they're the you know, it's in the variety pack, as you as you mentioned, Raya. And uh, there's a the guy, this is a guy I play hockey with, and he was telling me he bought the variety pack, and he's not a he's not like a craft beer guy at all. And he but he was just like, Oh man, that green one, that green one's great. So, like that kind of explains it. Like that guy, he doesn't give a crap that it's a you know, Trappist monastery tradition that's close behind the brewery and it's a Belgian style beer. He's like, Oh, that green one, man, that was great.

Ryah Lempert 13:04

That green one slaps. Yeah. I think the other thing for me too is that like a lot of higher percentage beers are very beery. Yeah. Yeah. Um, which I don't tend to love, but this one isn't.

Brett Willis 13:19

No.

Ryah Lempert 13:20

That makes sense. Like it's it's just like very approachable. 100% easy drinking.

Brett Willis 13:25

What do you do, like what do you attribute that to? How do we how do we achieve that from a technical perspective of not having this beer? This is a 9% beer for reference to your average, like, you know, lager sort of a thing is gonna be like four per five, four point five percent. So it's like you know, double the ABV in the beer, but it does not taste like hot or intense or whatever. Like, how do you kind of how would you say that happens?

Jason Perkins 13:44

Yeah, I mean, I think I already mentioned dryness earlier. I think that's an important component of it. And we do use um, you know, uh basically like uh uh uh like a hundred percent sugar source um as a portion of it. So there's a bunch of grain in there, of course, but there's also um you know basically granulated sugar in it as well. Yeah and what that does is gives gives you some fermentable sugars that are 100% fermentable. So the yeast does its thing during fermentation and the beer is dry. You don't you don't want too much of that, you do too much of that, and it starts to taste, you know, uh really out of balance. So it's a balance between the malt character and the dryness. Uh and then there's a bunch of things you can do around fermentation and and uh making sure that the fermentation doesn't kick off, you know, something that's called fusel alcohols, which tend to be a little bit more like intense and volatile in the way that they um the way they smell, and they tend to the what people would more describe as like boozy smelling. Right. Boozy is the way that comes through. Yeah.

Brett Willis 14:40

Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. I this is kind of a random question, but I'm just kind of interested to get your take on it, Jason. It's like where what is triple in the Belgian beer scene right now? Like, what does that beer represent to like if you're in Belgium, is it an everyday beer? Is it a celebratory beer? Is it like a revered historic style? Like, what is it?

Jason Perkins 15:02

Uh it's kind of all those things, honestly. In in Belgium, it's pretty, it's a br it's pretty common. Like not necessarily to be not to be jerky, but not necessarily always good triples. But if you go to uh a cafe in Belgium, I guaranteed there's a triple on the menu, if not a couple. Yeah. Um it's pretty much uh, you know, it's obviously even in Belgium, beer revered beer country, easy drinking, you know, light lagers still owns the day, right? Just different brands over there, not not necessarily Bud Coors Miller like we see here, but that still owns the craft beer scene just like it does here. Yeah. Or not craft beer, beer scene, just like it does here. Um so yeah, but triple is kind of uh in the more craft type is the kind of probably the most common uh beer you'll find over there. I mean, blonde is another one that's pretty similar in Belgium, which in a lot of ways is like triple with a few less uh uh ABV points to it, so like six or seven percent, but in a lot of other ways similar. But yeah, triples are very commonly found over there. But I I still think it represents like a you know, very um kind of historical tradition for Belgian brewing as well.

Brett Willis 16:19

All right, the next one that's been hinted at slash already spoiled, but at the same time, there's a lot of awesome stuff to talk about with this. Our other gold medal we won at this Great American Beer Festival 2025 is Alagash Lager. And so that's a new beer we added last year, 2024, but in like a limited footprint. And then this past year, we've had it as like slightly larger, kind of more of a northeast thing, uh classic lager. But like what was that like, I think for you, Jason, and also just kind of like for the folks there from Alagash who were at the the GABF, like at the festival, what was it like when that beer got picked for gold?

Jason Perkins 16:54

We it was a huge reaction from us, honestly. I mean, I I don't know. I mean, I guess I would say we were more surprised at that one than triple. I mean, triple, like you mentioned earlier, has been fortunate enough to win a bunch of medals, and so um, you know, we never expect that for sure. It still was very celebratory when triple won. But yeah, um, yeah, I mean, Lager was like it's a it's a brewery favorite here. Like our our staff loves drinking it. It's a it was a real it's a new beer, like you mentioned. So it just felt a lot different. Like triple, we've been making since 1999. White, which is one of ton of metals we've been making since 1995. This is brand new beer for us, and uh, you know, it it was it was pretty special to win for it in a in a pretty competitive category and in a style that you know maybe people wouldn't expect from Alagash to to be um something that would be we'd we'd be making. And so yeah, we were we were super psyched.

Brett 17:48

Yeah.

Brett Willis 17:49

Have you what what was your first time trying this beer, Ryan? Do you remember that? Was that the same thing? It was obviously the variety pack. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um yeah, we got right yeah.

Ryah Lempert 17:57

Check it out.

Jason Perkins 17:58

Sorry, pause for opening up a can of lugger.

Brett Willis 18:03

Perfect. Sounds great. Taste we actually we were tasting the triple a little earlier. It's tasting delicious as always. Ryan. Thank you. Yeah, pull right over the right over the soundboard. Why not pull it right over the soundboard? That's smart. Uh but yes, Raya, your reaction to this beer. Because I feel like this is like this is like a beer beer. This is a beer flavored beer.

Ryah Lempert 18:24

Definitely yeah, okay. I will I will say I haven't had lager since that one time because I'm more prone to like going for the new releases because I want to try everything. Oh, totally. Um definitely more beery. Yes. Um like I don't know how to describe beer. I'm like, yep.

Jason Perkins 18:43

I I think it's like does your dad like it?

Brett Willis 18:49

Oh, okay. Oh, we gotta change that.

Ryah Lempert 18:51

I think I cut off in there.

Brett Willis 18:53

Um you said you don't know if he's had it.

Ryah Lempert 18:55

I don't know. Um I know he's had triple because I brought that home. He loves Alagash White. He's more of an IPA guy. Both my parents are. Um and so I they're just like reluctant to trying things because they're like, I like IPAs. Yeah, I mean if you know what you like. But I guarantee my dad would like this.

Brett Willis 19:14

Yeah. I think from my experience in this industry, is people do kind of like a uh a craft beer journey. They go, they start at a at a place where they feel like they don't know a lot and they try beer that's like exciting and different. Like honestly, triple kind of would be like one of those beers where it's like, whoa, there's so much flavor here, it's so amazing. You go on to your hazy IPAs and in your big like bourbon barrel-aged whatever, and then you kind of start you see this arc where they start coming back. And I feel like this lager is like where so many brewers, at least or people in the beer industry, end up coming back to the classics. It's like it's a classic. It's also, I think for me, when I visit other breweries, it's the style I want to try because it shows that breweries like uh basically skill set because there's nowhere to hide. It's it has to all be there, and you can't, you know, you every process has to be pretty much uh dialed in, and also the recipe has to be really good to make like a really tasty lager. All right. So uh for this lager, uh this was a really cool i this is one of four recipes that we kind of like trialed internally. We actually did, I was part of the external testing where we went and got tasting room feedback where we had these four different ones and we just asked people in our tasting room, like, try them, what do you think? And we got this sort of like quality or yes, qualitative uh feedback or anecdotal feedback almost. Um, but it was a really close call. It was it was there were some really, really good log recipes. And the fun fact is, one of those four lager recipes actually ended up becoming kickabout lager, our collaboration with the Hearts of Pine, which is another beer I'm a big fan of.

Ryah Lempert 20:43

That is one of my favorite beers.

Brett Willis 20:44

Yeah.

Ryah Lempert 20:45

It's really really yeah.

Brett Willis 20:47

I I mean, it is legit one of my favorite beers that we're making right now, 100%.

Ryah Lempert 20:52

That is when I go out, I am getting kickabout porthole, always drinking it there.

Brett Willis 20:57

They have they have kickabouts. They have kickabouts? Yep. I didn't know that. Did you know that, Jason? No, I don't go to the porthole very often. That's awesome. Yeah, I'm glad to hear that.

Ryah Lempert 21:06

And I always, every time I have it, I hear up the hearts.

Brett Willis 21:09

Oh, amazing. Yeah, there you go. Um, we entered this beer in an interesting category, though. And that's something I kind of want to hear from you, Jason. So it's entered into international style Pilsner. Why? Because there are a couple different lager categories.

Jason Perkins 21:24

Why that's yeah, I mean, there is a component to entering uh beer competition that's a very interesting piece of it, and is making sure your beer is entered in the right category because these judges, uh, and I did it for many years, we and we've had other staff members here who have done it as well. You know, they you know, their the the the the the kind of skill set and tenure and and knowledge base of these judges is pretty amazing. Like a table full of six or seven judges, you might have an accumulative beer knowledge of a hundred or beer time and beernessing of a hundred years or more. Like it's a lot of really experienced people, and in front of them they have a list of attributes that are assigned to the style. And they're looking for good beer, but they're also looking for beer that fits what the style category outlines. And so when we're deciding what beers to submit, we look we obviously we don't design beers for beer categories, um, but we when we look at what we're gonna enter, we're like, okay, we gotta better put it in the right categories. And we we have plenty of beers we make here that don't fit very well in any categories um because um you know, I'm honestly if you're like kickabout that we just talked about, like that has a little bit of citrady hop character in it, but it's a lager, so it doesn't necessarily it's harder to find a fit for this. Um whereas triple and white go into triple category, a white category. Yeah, in this case, this lager really is kind of closest to a kind of European style, continental style Pilsner. Um, and so it fits pretty nicely. I mean, it's it's um, you know, it's hopped with uh Hallertou and um Saw, so German hop, Czech, Czech uh Republic hop. Um there's a little bit of American hop in there as well, Laurel. But um it is definitely designed and more in that in that continental style category. So it fit the category really well.

Brett Willis 23:12

Okay, because yeah, I was, I was imagining it had to do something with the hop character because it's like that Hallertau is like as as described by Patrick, who came up with this recipe, who I'm going to talk to about that win because I think he was super excited about it. So that will be inserted here. All right. I'm here with Patrick Chabanel, RD manager. Uh, and I just want to talk to you, Patrick, because you are, you know, we talked about the lager recipes, we talked about we had multiple of them, and they're like, you know, they went through this process, but your recipe is the base for what ended up being Alagash Lager. And you told me a story after we won uh the after That beer won the gold medal about your experience of that. And I just wanted to kind of like have you be able to recount that for uh for folks because I thought it was pretty cool.

Patrick Chavanelle 23:55

Cool. Um, yeah, so like any normal person, uh on the day of the ceremony, I made my family all sit down in the living room and watch the live stream. Uh no, I didn't make them. They just the TV was on. My kids are like, ah, TV. So we all sat down in the living room. Uh, you know, and they're going through the first, whatever it is, 40 or so categories. I think this is 40 something. Yeah. So like my kids are yelling at me like, what are we watching for? How long does it take each one to go? Not very long. Like, I don't know, a minute or so. Alright, not too bad. But they're children, you know.

Brett Willis 24:34

Oh, I mean, my kids would be yelling at me after like two seconds, so it made sense.

Patrick Chavanelle 24:38

Uh so I was sitting there, and then this one came up. And then for this one, you know, the like they do for all the other categories. Uh they announced the category, then they say the bronze medal winner is, and like they announced it.

Brett 24:52

I was like, oh dang it.

Patrick Chavanelle 24:54

Because I was like, uh, you know, if we're gonna get anything, right, maybe bronze.

Brett 24:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Patrick Chavanelle 24:59

And then they announced silver.

Brett 25:01

I was like, dang it.

Patrick Chavanelle 25:03

And we'd missed that. And I was like, okay, well, there's no way we're gonna get it. And then they're like, gold, Alagash Lager, and I I think I blacked out for like 10, 15 seconds. I just start screaming and jumping up and down. We live in this, like, we call it a hobbit house, so the ceilings are pretty low on the first floor. Yeah, pretty sure my head like upgrade is the ceiling. I jumped so high. I was swearing a bunch, and my kids are like, Oh my god, what's going on? And they're like, Why are you swearing so much? And uh, I don't know, I was just like so excited. Yeah, because I just, you know, we had no clue. Like for beers like white and triple, yeah, there's like an expectation that we're gonna win something. Yeah. So when we see those up there, not that it's not exciting, always special, but it's just like yes. It's more of a like a yes to totally unexpected. Yeah. Like I don't remember the last time we won a gold medal for a beer that we've entered that wasn't those two. I know. Like, I I don't know, it's 10 plus years. Like, I have no idea.

Brett Willis 26:06

You are correct. It has been a significant amount of time since anything other than white or triple won.

Patrick Chavanelle 26:11

So it was I don't know, and the fact that it's core beer too, yeah, and the fact that like we all worked so hard on this over this like long period of time. It just felt so good. So literally for the rest of the day, like I'd find myself going and just like randomly giggle like throughout the day, even into the next day. That's good. Like I was just so, so happy that you know, if you think about it, I'm like, ha ha uh that only lasted two days. That's good. Well, I mean, that's good two days. But it was, yeah, I don't know. It was a really great feeling.

Brett Willis 26:48

So that hop character, that's what set it apart.

Jason Perkins 26:50

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. You know, among other things. I mean, there's still malt character to it. I mean, it's you know, any with any beer, balance is so important. And this beer has um, you know, if we just hopped it and didn't didn't give it the nice malt character it has, it wouldn't work either. So um there is a good portion of um pills or malt from the state of Maine in there, from Blue Ox, Blue Ox uh malt house. That's a pretty big component of the flavor profile as well. That's awesome. Um so yeah, to go blue ox.

Brett Willis 27:20

Tasty beer. Yay. Uh so and then these two wins led to our third win at this GABF, which is brewery of the year in our group size. Is is where are we brew group category? Is this large brewery, large?

Jason Perkins 27:38

Okay, so it's you know, over a hundred thousand barrels a year.

Brett Willis 27:40

Right in some category. You have these different size uh of like brewer of the year, and it's based on the medals you've won in that competition. You are the the top medal earner of your size category. And so we were it's awesome. Yeah, very cool.

Ryah Lempert 27:55

Yeah, incredible.

Brett Willis 27:56

Right, how'd you feel about it? When you hear that, are you like cool, whatever?

Ryah Lempert 28:00

Do you like I think I told everyone I knew. I was like, I work there. I do, I think it is so cool.

Brett Willis 28:06

Did you really?

Ryah Lempert 28:07

I did. Wow, I'm glad to hear that. Yeah, I had friends visiting the week on Saturday. Yeah. Today it was announced, and we happened to be here when the announcement was made. And I like went up to get a drink, and everyone was like talking about it. It was so cool.

Brett Willis 28:23

That's super cool.

Ryah Lempert 28:24

Yeah, really awesome.

Brett Willis 28:26

Yeah, it's also I mean, Portland's not big. I think that's the thing, is like Portland's not big, and then you I don't know, you come by Alligash and you just hear what are we all looking at? Someone I thought it was a squirrel trying to get into the uh video with her kids.

Ryah Lempert 28:38

I saw a kid. I saw a kid walk by, and you just don't really see that.

Brett Willis 28:44

Could have been could have been my kid, who knows? Uh we're coming for pumpkin carving pretty soon.

Ryah Lempert 28:49

That's very exciting. Good times.

Brett Willis 28:51

But my point was Portland's very small. No, no, no, I interrupted myself because I was thinking about there's a squirrel in our parking lot that like keeps trying to get in everyone's cars. Yeah, yeah.

Jason Perkins 28:59

Don't leave your windows down.

Brett Willis 29:00

No, I mean that squirrel is like a fat, happy squirrel.

Ryah Lempert 29:03

Yeah, he's getting snacks.

Brett Willis 29:05

This should be his name, Snacks the Squirrel.

Ryah Lempert 29:08

Aww.

Brett Willis 29:09

Should try it. Yeah.

Ryah Lempert 29:10

That's so cute.

Brett Willis 29:11

Snacks the squirrel. It's named.

Ryah Lempert 29:13

I love it.

Brett Willis 29:14

All right. Awesome. Uh the point I was just trying to make is that Portland's not very big, and it's just so cool to kind of be at this place that is doing such incredible work in just kind of like pushing the quality of beer forward. And it's just awesome that it's in this little town of 65,000 people. So kudos to us here at the Ash. And the brewing team, of course. It's funny, every single person who I saw who is more directly related to the brewing and production of the beer, who I said congrats to, every single person said congrats back to you. We all did it. And I was like, Man, we like brainwashed.

Ryah Lempert 29:48

It's true.

Jason Perkins 29:49

You did you help rate the beer, those logger various lager trials? I did. Yes. That's there.

Brett Willis 29:55

You go. You know what? That's very true. I was directed. Yeah. All right. Hey, kudos. Kudos to me, kudos to all of that stuff. That's awesome. Um, and my last question just kind of like it's a somewhat reflective question on who we are as a brewery, but like, so we've won in the past for Belgian style ales. Alagash White and Triple have many awards, that many different competitions, and that is awesome. We've also won for kind of like wild and spontaneous beers, like Cool Shipper Surgum has won. I think Cool Ship Red, like you look at these awards, like we've done in this Belgian sort of area a lot of really solid stuff. And this lager, I was looking at our uh awards for various beers. I think this is kind of the first one that's like outside of that. It's more like a traditional, just like American beer style. And so I guess for you, Jason, like, does this for me? I'm excited. That's like this lager win is like a validation of like so much of what we're doing here where it's like we don't just have to be in this realm. It's like we're doing this really well. And so I guess it it marks a little turn, not a turning point, but something that just feels like an exciting look at the future of like we that's awesome. We just did that. So do you feel did did it feel that way to you, or is it just kind of another beer metal?

Jason Perkins 31:02

No, it it definitely feels different. I think it feels different for a variety of reasons. I think you kind of outlined a little bit part of it, like um, you know, we the this is a beer that's a little bit outside of the traditional Alagash, at least historical model. I mean, and really we for a long time, we really were only making beers that fit in a Belgian style category. And um, for the last couple handful of years, we've been branching out a little bit more. I think more than that for me is like this is a beer that because it was newer, because it kind of was developed in this process where, like you alluded to earlier, where the brewing team got together, submitted a bunch of different ideas. We whittled down to four different ideas from four different people. They were blindly tasted by all our entire staff, anyone who wanted to be a part of it. We then took that feedback, refined the beers a little further, brewed them again, et cetera, et cetera. It really kind of felt like, yeah, that you mentioned that the spear came from Patrick or Chavez, as we call him. Yeah. And it absolutely did, and huge credit to him for creating the recipe in the first place. But then also what followed after that was just like this almost like full company effort to create the spear in a way. Yeah. And that feels feels uh awesome. And then lagers, lager, right? Lager's everywhere. Like, you know, the by far the biggest brewed beer style in the world, and it's pretty cool. It's very cool. Yeah, so for a variety of reasons, it feels different for sure.

Brett Willis 32:29

Cool.

Ryah Lempert 32:30

Incredible. Yeah.

Brett Willis 32:31

Way to go. That was all I had. Uh, do either of you have thoughts or anything you'd want to add that I didn't touch upon?

Jason Perkins 32:39

No, but I mean you should buy the variety pack because it's the most variety pack in the world. Right there.

Brett Willis 32:45

You didn't even touch on that. Yeah, I mean, that is the the subtext is triple. I mean, we've been keeping tally of these major beer competitions and where we stand against other beers that are in this style. And I think we're not we're not gonna put a TM on it or anything like that just yet. But I think like Alagash Triple might be the most awarded triple in the world of its category in these major competitions. And I think this one just like solidified that. Where I think we were basically there last year, but it was like we had more points, but we had maybe the same number of medals. But anyway, now it's like definitive. We have more medals, and that's pretty awesome. So more to come on that potentially in the future. But to Jason's point about the variety pack, it's so you got Alagash White, which has like a ton, a lot of awards, which is awesome. Kudos to the team, triple, ton of awards. Lager now awarded Hazy IPA. Who knows? It's coming, it's coming. That's a that's a toughie.

Ryah Lempert 33:37

You're basically drinking gold.

Brett Willis 33:38

Yeah, exactly. It's uh it's cool. And I mean that the thing I love about a variety pack is it's a variety pack. It's like very it is of four significantly different styles of totally agreed. 100% agreed. Really fun. Yeah. I have a I have a big Alagash uh like uh a friend who's a big fan of Alagash, and he uh he gets the variety pack now. He's like, Yeah, it's my go-to. It's just easy, it just gets everything I want in there. Yeah, very nice. All right, Raya, Jason, thank you so much. That was awesome. It was fun chatting. Thank you. Fun trying these tasting these beers while talking about them. This is awesome.

Ryah Lempert 34:13

Now I have to go get a variety pack.

Brett Willis 34:17

Go to Alligash.com slash locator for your notion.

Ryah Lempert 34:21

Where are you gonna find it?

Brett Willis 34:22

Yeah, they're out there. They're out there. Awesome. All right, I'm gonna do the outro. This has been an Alligash Brewing Production. If you have something you'd like to talk to us about or a question for our team, just send us an email at podcast at alagash.com. And as always, thanks for listening.

Ryah Lempert 34:35

Yay. Woo! Woo! Thank you.