Water:
Of the four ingredients of beer, water ranks as the most important, as it constitutes 90% of the end product. For this reason, we are extremely lucky to brew here in the great state of Maine. Sebago Lake provides the city water to Portland, and is so clean that we can use it in our beer without having to treat it at all. The pH is balanced and the natural mineral profile is highly favorable for making great beers.

Malt:
The malt, which is actually malted barley, provides starches and flavor to the beer. For our base malt, we use North America's finest 2-row barley. The 2-row barley is the highest quality of barley that a brewer can use. While it is considerably more expensive than the 6-row barley used by many larger breweries, the increase in quality of the final product more than justifies the expense. Some of the largest breweries will actually utilize adjuncts such as corn or rice in their brewing process in order to save money. However, the degradation in quality and taste makes this an unacceptable option for craft brewers like ourselves.

In addition to the base malt, we also employ the services of the best specialty malts the world's maltsters have to offer. We currently utilize grains from Germany, England, Belgium, Canada and the United States. These specialty grains allow us to adjust the flavor, color and mouthfeel of our brews, yielding end products ranging from our golden Pilsner to our dark and powerful Old Port Winter Ale.

Hops:
Hops, a flowering vine, are used to impart flavor, aroma and bitterness to the beer. We select hops that allow us to brew to style. For example, we import hops from Germany to brew our German-style Pilsner appropriately. For the remainder of our hop varieties, we look to the Pacific Northwest, an area famous worldwide for its high-quality hops. We use hop pellets in the boil and leaf hops in the hop back to add finishing aroma and flavor.

Yeast:
Yeast is a magical creature. A living organism, yeast eats the starch (imparted from the malt) and releases carbon dioxide and alcohol in a process called fermentation. Yeast makes beer, beer. We press two strains of yeast into service here. Our ale yeast is an American strain and offers a very clean fermentation. This means that the yeast imparts very little flavor to the beer and subsequently allows our brewers to fully utilize the flavor components of the malts and hops. Our lager yeast is imported from Germany to allow us to brew our pilsner to style.