How Allagash White conquered the world

Boston Globe

25-02-2025

'I couldn't give it away,' he says.
Back then,
Today that beer is the most honored Belgian witbier in the world. It has scooped up more medals at major beer competitions than any other witbier — even those made in Belgium, such as Hoegaarden's famous one — and has driven Allagash Brewing Co.'s enormous growth.
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As Allagash and its flagship beer turn 30 this spring, Tod's company has become the largest beer producer in Maine and the 15th largest in the United States, according to data from the Brewers Association. In New England, only
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At a time when IPAs dominate the craft beer market, particularly in New England, how did a strange Belgian-style ale from Maine conquer the world and propel a twentysomething keg washer to become one of the world's elite brewers?
Persistence. Legwork. Long days.
'An average day for me in 1995 might have been coming in at 5 in the morning and washing kegs till 11 in the morning, going into town, seeing two or three accounts, coming back to the brewery, putting on my boots and washing kegs till 8 at night, and then going back into town and seeing a couple more accounts,' Tod, now 56, says over a pint a Allagash White in the brewery's tasting room on the outskirts of Portland.
Allagash White.
Steve Greenlee
What started 30 years ago as one man making one beer has turned into a 130-employee workforce producing a stable of eight year-round beers, eight seasonal beers, and dozens of limited-run beers. They're almost exclusively Belgian styles, from saisons, tripels, and stouts to sour ales, barrel-aged beers, and spontaneously fermented wild ales.
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In hindsight, Allagash White seems like an obvious choice for the flagship beer, but it was an oddball in 1995. Microbreweries in Maine were focused on British ales — beers like Shipyard Export Ale and Geary's Pale Ale — using Ringwood yeast, which imparted a buttery, toffee-like character. India pale ales were starting to make a splash, but they were mild and tame compared to what Tree House and Trillium churn out today.
Belgian yeasts produce aromas and flavors that are quite different from what most beer drinkers are accustomed to. They're particularly pronounced in a witbier (literally 'white beer'). Unlike American wheat beers, Belgian wheat beers are peppery with strong notes of banana and clove. Allagash's is brewed with coriander and orange peel, making it even more complex. It's bold and full flavored yet light and refreshing at only 5.2 percent alcohol — a session ale before session ales were cool.
Pub drinkers may not have taken to it right away, but connoisseurs did. Allagash White won a gold medal at the 1998 World Beer Cup, has repeated twice since, and has taken gold five times, most recently in 2023, at the Great American Beer Festival, the country's premier competition. The beer has won 18 medals in all at the world's three top contests, which include the Euro Beer Star.
That's not all. Allagash was named brewery of the year at the 2021 and 2023 Great American Beer Festivals, and Tod was named outstanding wine, beer, or spirits professional at the 2019 James Beard Awards. The brewery has become a destination for locals and tourists, drawing 100,000 people a year to taste and learn about Allagash beers.
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If it seems like an unlikely success, it was an unlikely beginning. Tod wasn't all that familiar with Belgian beers when he started out. He didn't even visit Belgium until four years after he launched Allagash.
After graduating from Middlebury College in Vermont in 1991 with a geology degree, Tod moved to Colorado for two years but found himself drawn back to Middlebury, where he found a job washing kegs at Otter Creek Brewing Co. He knew immediately he wanted to brew beer for a living.
'From the moment I walked through those doors, I was falling in love with everything,' he says. 'I like to work with my hands. There was like every trade imaginable in there — electrical and plumbing and welding, and pipes and pumps everywhere. I've always loved mechanical stuff. I was a science major in college, and there's a science component. There's the creative component — recipe writing.'
He and his co-workers would share interesting beers after work on Fridays. He began gravitating toward Belgians.
'I was just fascinated by how different they were than anything I'd ever had,' he says. 'It seemed to me like there was almost an infinite number of ingredients and processes and techniques and approaches.'
Tod told his boss he wanted to start a brewery but wouldn't do it nearby, to avoid competing with Otter Creek. So he moved to Portland, bought secondhand dairy tanks and got to work. He asked a friend to come up with a name for the company that evoked Maine because he never thought he'd sell beer outside the state.
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He had no interest in brewing anything that was popular. British and German beers were hot, and West Coast pale ales and IPAs were starting to make their way into the market.
'I just figured, what's the point of going to all this trouble building a brewery only to make something people could already get?' Tod says. 'So I looked at the Belgian beer tradition as an opportunity to do something truly different.' He settled on a Belgian wheat ale because few breweries made one.
That seemed like a huge mistake at first. Nobody wanted it. His handwritten ledger shows that in August 1995 he sold a grand total of five kegs.
He quickly determined he wasn't going to sell enough beer in Maine to survive, so he began making inroads in other states, pleading with distributors to take Allagash.
Eventually the craft beer boom caught up. In 1990 there were fewer than 300 breweries in the United States. Today there are nearly 10,000. As the surge began in the late '90s, American consumers grew comfortable trying unfamiliar styles — highly hopped double IPAs, thick Russian imperial stouts, funky French farmhouse ales, and robust dark Belgian ales. Allagash struck at the right time with a beer that stood out from the pack yet had the potential for mass appeal.
'It's light, it's tasty, and it appeals to people who might typically drink wine,' says Tammy Portnoy, a longtime beer writer in Washington, D.C., who used to do marketing for Port City Brewing in Virginia. 'There's not a whole lot of beers that have lasted since 1995.'
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Lasted it has. The beer that Tod couldn't give away in the late 1990s now sells 110,000 barrels (220,000 kegs) a year, accounting for more than 80 percent of Allagash's sales. It's available in 22 states. You can find it all over California.
Chloe Makhani, co-owner of Casaléna restaurant in Los Angeles, keeps Allagash White on tap because her customers love it.
'It embodies the complexity we strive for in everything we serve,' she says. 'Its bright, citrusy notes pair beautifully with the Mediterranean flavors on our menu, making it a favorite among our guests.'
It has been available for 30 years with no break at the Great Lost Bear in Portland, the first place ever to put it on tap, on July 1, 1995.
Mike Dickson, who now co-owns the popular restaurant known for its huge craft beer selection, remembers Tod asking the owners to carry it.
'I was very interested in it because it was different from everything else that was being poured at the time,' Dickson says. 'It was sort of a shock to the senses. It's just so interesting. I fell in love with it.' He says Allagash White is consistently one of the top five sellers among the 60 draft beers there.
Tod credits bartenders with acquainting drinkers with the beer, especially at the Great Lost Bear, which he visits every July 1 to mark the anniversary with a glass of White at the bar.
Jeff Alworth.
Handout
Jeff Alworth, a beer expert from Portland, Ore., and author of 'The Beer Bible,' says Allagash White captures qualities that so much of craft beer lacks — it's complex yet low alcohol, nearly unique in style but approachable and eminently drinkable.
'Allagash White is a pretty sophisticated beer,' he says. 'It's an everyday drinking beer but also a fine cuisine beer.'
The beer's success, both in sales and in awards, owes to its rarity and the respect that Tod gives it, Alworth says.
'Other breweries don't take that style as seriously, so it's no surprise to me that it's won all those awards,' he says. 'Many breweries take things very seriously, but nobody takes beer as seriously as Allagash.'
Steve Greenlee is a journalism professor at Boston University. He can be reached at
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