Allagash

Allagash are one of the breweries that helped completely reshape American craft beer, although they did it in a very different way from most of their peers. Founded in Portland, Maine by Rob Tod in 1995, the brewery started with a fairly unusual idea for the time: instead of chasing hop-heavy American pale ales, focus almost entirely on Belgian-inspired brewing traditions. Back then, that was a genuinely risky move in the US beer scene, but it ended up becoming the thing that made Allagash so influential.

What’s always made the brewery stand out is the level of obsession behind the scenes. Rob Tod spent years travelling through Belgium studying traditional brewing methods, fermentation techniques, and barrel ageing long before those things became standard talking points in modern craft beer. That influence still runs through the entire brewery today. Mixed fermentation, bottle conditioning, wild yeast, oak ageing, spontaneous fermentation, all approached with a level of care that feels much closer to wine than industrial beer production.

At the same time, Allagash never really feels overly serious or inaccessible. There’s a warmth and generosity to the brewery that probably explains why they’ve remained so widely respected for so long. Even as the American craft beer world shifted through trends, hype cycles, and endless IPA arms races, Allagash mostly stayed focused on refinement, balance, and brewing beers people genuinely want to sit and drink rather than simply photograph once. That consistency has quietly made them one of the most important breweries in the US over the last few decades.

The brewery has also become hugely influential in pushing Belgian-style beer into the wider American market. Allagash White in particular helped introduce a huge number of drinkers to wheat beer brewed with coriander and orange peel, becoming something close to a modern classic in the process. Around that core range though, there’s still loads of experimentation happening, from coolship beers and spontaneous fermentation through to farmhouse styles and barrel projects. The overall feeling is always the same though: thoughtful brewing, huge respect for tradition, and beers built around balance and drinkability first.