Our second brewery of the day was a place that came highly recommended. It got great reviews, and was said to be a “must visit”…so we did.

Oxbow is a larger organization with multiple locations and wider distribution, so I was expecting it to outshine Odd Alewives.

It didn’t.

Tucked away in the woods of Newcastle, it was rustic and a little bit rednecky.

Well, I didn’t hear banjo music…

But the place was a bit of a mess.

And the rest rooms?

Not what a girl wants to see when she’s been drinking beer and riding a motorcycle all day.

But, we were there.

And there was beer, so we  didn’t have to but I made them  had to try it all.

Eight 4 ounce samplers of dishwater later… I still hadn’t found one I  would order full sized.  How was that possible?

The one on the end was called Magenta and was made with… are you ready?… grape juice.

It smelled like sweet grape candy and tasted like  fermented pigs feet, sour piss, rotted muskrat carcass  I don’t know what.

But trust me, it was bad.

I ended up finishing everyone’s samplers, because bad or not… beer is a terrible thing to waste…. but I was thinking of alternate uses as I drank.

And then, since our friends had a long ride home, we saddled up and headed out.

And bad beer aside…

It really was a lovely day.

We love craft beer, and we love discovering quirky new breweries. It’s a rapidly growing industry in Maine and we tend to take full advantage.

First stop on Sunday was Odd Alewives in Waldoboro.

An alewife is a fish.

And thankfully, there weren’t any in the beer.

This was a brand new, small batch brewery run out of a renovated 1850’s barn on a young couple’s farm.

It was literally on their front lawn.

And absolutely not motorcycle friendly.  A steep gravel  (not good!)  driveway and a sloping parking lot is not what 2 wheels and 850lbs wants to find.

But the brewery was wonderful, with a lovely laid back vibe.

And the tasting room/bar was fun.

Of course my purist husband looked like this….

When he saw they had painted the old barn board floors….

But after a few samplings, he got over it.

We did flights and tried all they had on tap before choosing.

The Buzz and Blue were delightfully light and refreshing, while the Spell was deep and full bodied.

There was live folk music, and it really felt like you were just hanging at a friend’s house knocking back a few. I wanted to take my beer and walk around the farm gardens…. but I was out voted and we moved on to brewery #2.