Sneak Peak

I had an opportunity to sample some of Peak Organic's finest this past week with Tim Adams, a regional manager for the Portland-based brewery. Peak is comitted to brewing with organic ingredients. They are equally comitted to a quality product, and the two beers I sampled, the Nut Brown Ale and the Pale Ale, met the mark.

The Nut Brown is rich, malty--in a chocolate toasted malt sort of way--and yet crisp at the finish. A nice, tasty beer that I could easily drink a lot of, without worrying about a pesticide "hangover".

The Pale was a special treat. We drank it at the Great Lost Bear, which is the only place that Peak distributes firkins of the product. The result: a cask conditioned beauty of a beer--served cool, not cold, and with carbonation provided only by the cask and the strong right arm of the barmaid.

Peak Pale is a hoppy pale--bordering on IPA level hoppiness. By hops I mean cascade hops, less sophisticated, maybe, but much more flavorful than their British brethren. It's great. I'm going to try the bottled version soon (probably not for a few hours, though) but I've been jonesing for a return trip to the GLB for the cask-conditioned stuff ever since I left there.

Peak Organic is the brainchild of Jon Cadoux. The Pale is essentially the recipe he used as a home brewer. Peak has hired Shipyard to do their brewing now. And under the watchful eye of Portland's unofficial brewer laureate, Alan Pugsley, the brewing quality is a lock, although extremism is unlikely (and I'm a bit of a sucker for extremism). In addition to the beers I sampled, Peak brews an Amber Ale, and recently bottled a Maple Oat beer. Rumor has it that they will offer a somewhat unique white (a tough product to differentiate) in the summer.

If you are out and about, Peak is available at the following venues:

GLB
Flatbread
Fore Street
Vignola (soon)
Cinque Terre (soon)
Green Elephant
Silly's
Big Easy
O'naturals
Beale St. BBQ (rotates)
Frog N' Turtle, Westbrook (rotates)

Cheers!