The Maine Dream Team-up Project has officially come to a close, a fifteen day blog series that asked seventeen different, beer minded individuals, four questions about who they would like to see collaborate on a beer. In return I received a total of 74 different dream collaborations that consisted of 25 different Maine breweries, 29 different U.S. breweries (excluding Maine) and 23 different international breweries.
The most commonly picked Maine brewery was Allagash Brewing Company with 22 collaboration picks. That means Allagash was in 29.7% of the total collaborations presented by participants. Oxbow Brewing Company was the second most common choice with 16 collaborations. Four out of the sixteen Oxbow collaborations also included Allagash, they were the only two Maine breweries paired together four times. Tied for third place with ten picks each are Maine Beer Company and Rising Tide Brewing Company. It’s also worth noting that Banded Horn, Funky Bow, Gneiss Brewing, Bissell Brothers, Foundation and Austin Street, Maine’s newest breweries were all thrown into collaborations, often times with older, established breweries.
The participants showed a lot of variety in their U.S. and International brewery choices; of the 29 U.S. breweries chosen only eight were picked more than once with Russian River and Hill Farmstead being the most popular with four collaboration picks apiece. There were 23 International breweries chosen of which only five were picked more than once with Cantillon being the favorite with three collaboration picks. It’s worth noting that all three of the Cantillion collaboration picks and three out of four of Russian Rivers included Allagash Brewing Company.
I’m extremely happy with how The Maine Dream Team-up Project turned out. I wanted to know what other beer geeks would come up with when asked about brewery collaborations, I think it was a challenge of their beer knowledge and a fun exercise coming up with creative fantasy brewery collaborations, some of the participants dove so deep into their answers that they dreamed up the style to be brewed with suggestions on what to name the beer.
Over the past couple of weeks as the Dream Team-up posts have gone live I’ve heard some rumblings that some of these collaborations could come to life. When I pitched this idea to the participants I never dreamed actual collaborations might come of it. I was just trying to get my fellow beer geeks to dream big and have fun doing it. If any of the breweries who were chosen in this series decided to make these collaborations a reality it would truly be making beer geek dreams come true.
Cheers
Chaddah
Maine Dream Team-Up Project Participants:
Day 1: Chad Lothian – If My Coaster Could Talk
Day 2: Mark Stevens – Maine Beer Tours
Day 3: Shahin Khojastehzad – Novare Res Bier Café
Day 4: Eric Mihan – Bangor Wine and Cheese
Day 5: James Sanborn – Insurance Guys Beer Blog
Day 6: Ben Lizzotte/Ryan Poland/ Tony C – Drink’n Think’n Podcast
Day 7: Tom Madden – Madden Beverage
Day 8: Gene Beck – Nocturnem Draft Haus
Day 9: Josh Christie – Maine Beer Author
Day 10: Greg Norton – Bier Cellar
Day 11: Matt Delamater – Local Brew TV
Day 12: Benjamin Moore – Active Beer Geek
Day 13: Richard England – Hogan Road Deli
Day 14: Carla Companion – The Beer Babe
Day 15: Adam Callaghan – The Maine Brew Bus