LEWISTON — Baxter Brewing makes one of the best beers in America.
That’s the opinion of a panel of judges at the Great American Beer Festival last weekend in Denver.
Baxter’s late winter/spring seasonal beer Window Seat, a coconut almond porter, received the silver medal in the “Field” category at the prestigious festival, considered the Super Bowl of beers. This year’s festival featured 6,738 beers from 1,532 breweries with gold, silver and bronze medals awarded in 92 beer styles.
According to the Great American Beer Festival website, field beers use “vegetables as flavor or carbohydrate adjuncts in either the mash, kettle, primary or secondary fermentation, providing obvious (ranging from subtle to intense), yet harmonious, qualities.”
Coconut is considered a vegetable in beer competitions.
“Real toasted coconuts and almonds give this porter a robust but drinkable, toasty flavor unlike any other with very little hop flavor to distract from the tropical ingredients,” is how Baxter describes Window Seat.
Window Seat was introduced earlier this year as one of Baxter’s seasonal offerings. According to a post on its Facebook page, Window Seat will be back in stock sometime in mid-January.
Luke Livingston, the founder, president and CEO of Baxter Brewing, was unavailable for comment.
The gold medal in the Field category went to Beets, Rhymes and Life from Fonta Flora Brewery in Morganton, N.C. Broken Glass Brewing’s Coconut Porter of Breckenridge, Colo., was awarded the bronze medal.
Allagash Brewing of Portland was the only other Maine brewer to win medals. Its signature Allagash White received the gold medal in the Belgium-style Witbier category, while Allagash Tripel took silver in the Belgium-style Tripel category.
Maine received special mention for having the highest ratio of medals to entries of any state, at 21 percent. In its coverage of the festival, Fortune magazine’s article began, “If you’re looking for a good beer, you might want to head to Maine.”
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