Maine! (CHAPTAHH TWO!)

We arrived in Portland around 11am and the Holiday Inn was courteous enough to prepare a room for early check in, normally check in is around 3pm.  Cheers to you, Holiday Inn.  I had been salivating the whole ride up because I had my first taste of Shipyard microbrew the day before.  We put our bags in the room and went to the concierge to ask about local breweries.  Sweet J informed us that there was a kick-ass brewery that gives tours, but we forgot the name.  The concierge told us about Shipyard brewery and it all clicked - "That's the one!" I thought.  She circled it on a map and was like "You should go there."  So we did, and we arrived around 1145am.

Note: I felt a little degenerate-ish going to a brewery with blind faith that our arrival would coincide with a tour time.  Wouldn't you?

Well it turns out that Bacchus was smiling down on us that day, because the next tour started at high noon.  There was a brief powerpoint illustrating how awesome and cool they were and we were given a lecture about how the assembly line works.  Big ups to my steel trap memory, because I remembered that the assembly line can fill up 159 bottles in a minute.  That gave me a full free glass when the tour was over.  All the other people, nay all the philistines had to be sated with 1 oz portions, but I had a stately 3 oz portion of each beer!  Hooray!

We ate like Vikings that day.  2 lunches, 2 dinners and ice cream on the walk home, and about 4 lobster rolls during the day - they are soooo cheap, how could you not?  I recommend: J's Oyster Bar (cheap oysters, steamers and salty locals).  I'm talking 13 oysters for 12 bucks.  That's bonkers cheap, that's batshit cheap.  I also recommend a wood fire restaurant called The Grill Room and Bar, specifically - everything on the menu.  But we were drawn there when we walked past the place and saw a chalkboard appetizer special.  Grilled chicken livers with an egg and sweet onion sauce.  Yes please.  Our ice cream place was called "Mt. Dessert".  I had a carmelized plantain ice cream and Dawn had blueberry basil sorbet.  How cool?

The next day we had brunch at The Front Room (owned by the same dood as the grill room).  Awesome manly brunch.  And good Lord, is Portland beautiful.  Here is a video of some parks there.  Enjoy! 

Coming next: East Coast Tour continues as I go to Philly for an audition and more Gut Punch news.....stay tuned!