My favorite line from my favorite book, Moby Dick, is “As for me, I am tormented by an everlasting itch for things remote. I long to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.” The plot is centered around the epic chase for a certain white whale. Of course, “white whale” is a term that is near and dear to the hearts of many craft-beer aficionados, as it describes rare and highly desired beers. In my 29-year career as a brewer, I have had the good fortune to collaborate on beer projects that have encompassed every continent. (Reverse-osmosis melted-iceberg water from a U.S. military base on Antarctica was perhaps the hardest-to-source ingredient I have ever brewed with.) So, I have been lucky enough to scratch the “everlasting itch” for adventure through my beery wanderlust with friends and family near and far.
Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder. There have been hundreds of beers I have tried and loved from breweries around the world. For this list of six notable beers, I am focusing on beers that have left an indelible impression on my memory—not just the sensory experience of the beers themselves but also the moments and atmospheres in which I enjoyed them. My plan is to recall and document the six experiences from most to least recent. Even though the earliest beer memory I am sharing here is from almost two decades ago, I swear I can still smell and taste that beer as if I were there in the farmlands outside of Prague enjoying it yesterday.
Allagash North Sky
(Portland, Maine)
I’m typing this from our cabin in Dogfish Head, Maine, where we have a two-barrel R&D brewery, a wood-fired pizza oven, and a sweet little motorboat to explore the beautiful rustic harbors, tidal rivers, nooks, and crannies of Mid-Coast Maine. Earlier this summer, my wife Mariah and I and our two dogs took a boat ride from our home to Robinson’s Cove, which is the best aquatic farm that raises the most luscious, velvety, minerally oysters you could ever taste. We picked the oysters out of the water and shucked and ate them on the spot, garnished with nothing but a squirt of lemon juice. To complement the oysters, we had a four-pack of Allagash North Sky, a silky Belgian-inspired stout. It’s a right-roasty 7.5 percent ABV, silky-smooth beer that perfectly complemented our simple seafood lunch. As my pal and Allagash founder Rob Tod describes it: “North Sky is our interpretation of the small batch you can hunt down in Belgium, and we use our house yeast for fermentation. It balances light notes of fruit and sweetness with a roasted-malt character.”