At Allagash, there’s pretty much nothing more important to us than the quality of our beer. It’s why we have a seven-person lab and train our employees in the science of sensory evaluation. We also taste every single batch of beer before it ever leaves the brewery. Below, you’ll find more on the specifics of our Quality Control efforts here at the brewery. Thanks for taking the time to stop in.

Have any questions for us?

If you have any questions, thoughts, or issues with any of our beer, please click the button below to send a message to our quality department.

Some QC facts we’re proud of

At the brewery, every single department has a hand in the quality of our beer. Below, you’ll find four highlights from the many different ways that we ensure our beer is consistently delicious.

Our Yeast

We now cultivate and store almost all of our own yeast. While we could outsource these time-consuming and labor intensive duties, we find that maintaining direct control over the quality of yeast yields huge benefits for our beer’s consistency and quality.

allagash employee quality control testing a stack of barrels

Test Every Barrel

For a barrel-aged beer like Curieux, we take a sample from every single bourbon barrel it ages in. For one batch of Curieux, that can be as many as 100 different barrels.

Dave uses the boomstick to sample from a super sack of grain

Grain Evaluation

Our warehouse crew uses specialized tools to pull grain samples from every bag, supersack, or truckload that arrives. The consistency of our raw ingredients defines the consistency of our beer.

Sensory Education

We have a sensory department dedicated to teaching staff to identify off-flavors in our beer. Every single brewery employee can be involved, meaning we have over one-hundred qualified tasters to ensure that all of our beer tastes just right.

Dive deep on quality control

Allagash group visits Aurora Mills and Farm to look at the cropBlogInside AllagashSustainabilityB CorporationQuality Control
March 31, 2023

Brewing with over 1 Million Pounds of Maine-Grown Grain

Back in 2016 our founder, Rob, decided to make a pledge: by 2021, we’d be brewing with one million pounds of Maine-grown and -processed grain, per year. And on December 1st of 2021, we brewed with 1,093,526 pounds of local grain that year alone. (more…)
Sidestreaming bay of bins at AllagashInside AllagashSustainabilityB CorporationBeer Releases and Brewery NewsQuality ControlBlog
April 11, 2022

What is sidestreaming and how does it work?

In a nutshell, sidestreaming is taking something that you don’t use anymore, and finding someone who could use it, recycle it, or generally keep it out of the landfill. (more…)
Allagash wort being held up by a brewerBlogWhat About Beer?Quality Control
January 20, 2022

What is Wort?

To answer the question technically, wort is a liquid solution of extracted grains, a sugar source which brewers create and then ultimately feed to beer yeasts. Non-technically, wort is sugary grain water. (more…)