16 Craft Breweries to Visit in Portland, Maine

When you think of Portland, Maine, you probably think about lighthouses, lobsters, and beautiful coastal views. However, does craft beer come to mind? 

If not, it should! Portland is filled with dozens of independent, local craft breweries that churn out an impressive array of beers—from lagers and ales to stouts and IPAs. No matter what type of beer you prefer, you’ll find breweries in Portland, ME, that will have smooth, refreshing beers you’ll love. In fact, brewery hopping is one of the best things to do in Portland, ME!

During my recent trip to Portland, my husband and I tried to visit as many breweries as possible. We loved these four breweries in Portland, Maine, so I wanted to share them with you, too! Here’s a look at some stand-out brewpubs and breweries in Portland, ME. 

Best Breweries in Portland, Maine

1. Allagash Brewing Company 

• Location: 50 Industrial Way, Portland, ME 04103 
• Best Beer: Allagash White 

Allagash Brewing Company is an independent craft brewery in Portland, Maine. Allagash is the most famous brewery in Portland, ME, and they are best known for their signature Belgian-style wheat beer, Allagash White. 

Allagash Brewing Company has tons of great beer. My husband loved their seasonal, cask-poured Nocturna beer—a silky stout aged in bourbon barrels with vanilla beans. I tried the seasonal Haunted House—a malty, dark beer with a coffee-flavored aftertaste. I also tried their award-winning Allagash White, a light, refreshing wheat beer, and I have to say I preferred it over the Haunted House! 

However, Allagash Brewing Company is so much more than beer. We also loved the rustic ambiance of the outdoor seating area. Since we visited during the fall, we were surrounded by trees and colorful fall leaves. If Allagash were located close to home, I think it’s somewhere we’d frequently visit on the weekends. We both loved the environment so much! They also had lawn games, fun music, and local food trucks on the property.  

Out of all the breweries in Portland, ME, Allagash Brewing Company is definitely the one you must visit if you’re on a tight schedule! 

Austin Street Brewery 

• Location: 115 Fox Street, Portland, ME 04101 & 1 Industrial Way, #8, Portland, ME 04103 
• Best Beer: Patina Pale Ale 

Austin Street Brewery has two locations—a tasting room in Downtown Portland and a blending, bottling, and tasting room on Industrial Way, just down the street from Allagash Brewing Company. The tasting room on Fox Street also offers a food menu featuring local specialties like sushi, barbecue, and more. 

Austin Street Brewery is one of the best breweries in Portland, Maine, and offers a wide range of beers—from their popular Offset Double IPA to Obsolete Vernacular Tart Blonde Ale. You can sample what they have on tap to find your favorite.

3. Battery Steele Brewing 

• Location: 1 Industrial Way Units 12 & 14, Portland, ME 04103 
• Best Beer: Flume Double IPA 

Keep the fun going on Industrial Way at Battery Steele Brewing. This brewery was born in an old barn in South Portland and was reimagined on Industrial Way by founders Jacob Condon and Shane Noble, who share a collective of 25 years in the brewing industry. 

Battery Steele Brewing offers a wide variety of styles, flavors, and variations, including popular beers, like the Flume Double IPA featuring grapefruit, mango, and hops, and the Looking for Owls Imperial Stout with bold flavors of chocolate, toasted coconut, and brown sugar. 

4. Bissell Brothers Brewing Company 

• Location: 38 Resurgam Place, Portland, ME 04102 
• Best Beer: The Substance Ale IPA 

Bissell Brothers Brewing Company is one of the best breweries in Portland, Maine, and was founded in 2013 to change people’s perceptions of the “beer experience” while staying rooted in Maine. They have two locations in Portland and Milo, but their Portland location is called the “Bissell Brothers HQ” and is built in a hundred-year-old former railroad building. 

Bissell Brothers Brewing Company brews over 10,000 barrels of beer a year, including their flagship hoppy and malty beer—The Substance Ale IPA. You can also try other beers on draft, like the New Old Stock Baltic Porter and Kickflip Cream Ale, and they have a kitchen that cooks up wings, taquitos, sandwiches, burgers, and other munchies too. 

5. Bunker Brewing Co. 

• Location: 17 Westfield Street, Unit D, Portland, ME 04102 
• Best Beer: Libbytown Brown Ale 

Bunker Brewing Co. is one of the best breweries in Portland, Maine, located right down the street from Bissell Brothers, so It’s a great second stop. They have lots of indoor and outdoor seating, and they welcome well-behaved dogs on the patio, which is a great advantage! 

I’m a big fan of brown ales, so I’d recommend the Libbytown Brown Ale, but if you’d like to try something a little darker, they have an Oatmeal Stout Nitro that may be worth trying. They also have a Jubilee Barrel-Aged Imperial Chocolate Milk Stout with Cherries, Cranberries, Raspberries, and Maple Syrup that sounds interesting! 

6. Definitive Brewing Company 

• Location: 35 Industrial Way, Portland, ME 04103 
• Best Beer: Double Stuffed Imperial Milk Stout 

They may have just opened in 2018, but Definitive Brewing Company has already been an enormous success, with three additional locations across Maine! Their flagship location in Portland, Maine, is located on Industrial Way along with other popular breweries like Allagash, Austin Street, Battery Steele, and Foundation. 

Don’t miss the chance to try Definitive Brewing Company’s light and fruity Session Ales, including those made with Peach & Raspberry, and Blueberry & Mango. They also have many other beers, including dark beers, like Double Stuffed—an Imperial Milk Stout with Chocolate Sandwich Cookies. If trying unique beer flavors is your thing, you’ll definitively agree Definitive Brewing Company is one of the best breweries in Portland, Maine! 

7. Foulmouthed Brewing 

• Location: 15 Ocean St., South Portland, ME 04106 
• Best Beer: Blue Balls 

Foulmouthed Brewing is a small brewpub located in an old automobile garage in South Portland. They serve snacks and sandwiches and have a great list of unique beers on draft, including Blue Balls, a strong ale with blueberries, and Iron Goddess, a wheat beer brewed with green tea and honey. 

Foulmouthed Brewing is also one of the best breweries in Portland, Maine, if you have any non-beer drinkers in your group. They also serve a wide assortment of wine, cocktails, and nonalcoholic beverages.

8. Foundation Brewing Company 

• Location: 1 Industrial Way #5, Portland, ME 04103 
• Best Beer: Burnside 

Once you finish up at Allagash, walk across the street to Foundation Brewing Company. Foundation has a modern feel but offers a great selection of beers, from lagers and ales to IPAs and milk stouts.  

Although their most popular beer is Epiphany, a hoppy IPA with citrus and pine notes, I’m not a fan of IPAs, so I decided to order a brown ale instead! Burnside is a smooth beer with roasted coffee, burnt sugar, and chocolate notes that finishes with a malty sweetness. Overall, Burnside was my favorite beer we had in Maine. It was so good!  

We loved sitting on the full-sized patio right outside the tasting room, equipped with heaters, tents, fire pits, lawn games, a local food truck, and more. I would recommend stopping at Foundation Brewing Company during your time in Maine! 

9. Goodfire Brewing Company 

• Location: 219 Anderson St, Portland, ME 04101 
• Best Beer: Chime American Pilsner 

Goodfire Brewing Company is one of the top breweries in Portland, Maine, for hoppy beers like the Waves IPA and Prime IPA. They also brew an American Pilsner and Imperial Sour that is popular. They also have fun can designs you’ll have to check out while you’re there! 

Goodfire Brewing Company is currently located in East Bayside, but they’re opening another location in Freeport soon, so keep your eyes peeled!  

10. Liquid Riot Bottling Company 

• Location: 219 Anderson St, Portland, ME 04101 
• Best Beer: Persuasion 

Liquid Riot is another of the best breweries in Portland, Maine, if you’re looking for an extensive menu with cocktails, wine, and food. They serve sharable snacks, tacos, sliders, and lobster rolls—but don’t worry, their beer still takes center stage! 

Liquid Riot Bottling Company has tons of unique beers on draft, including their Cash Money IPA with hints of melons, limes, and tropical fruits and the Tropical Storm with pink guava, passionfruit, and mango puree. However, their Persuasion and Gold Brew caught my eye—the first is a Sour Brown Ale with hints of cherry, and the second is a Nitro Cream Ale with coffee and cocoa nibs. Yum! 

11. Lone Pine Brewing Company 

• Location: 219 Anderson Street, Portland, ME 04101 
• Best Beer: Portland Pale Ale 

Lone Pine Brewing Company has tons of unique beers. Their flagship beer is the Portland Pale Ale, but more notably, they have collaboration beers with The Holy Donut, including a Dark Chocolate Coconut Imperial Stout, Triple Berry Glaze Double IPA, and Holy Cannoli Ginger Glaze Imperial Stout. The Holy Donut is kind of a staple in Maine, making Lone Pine Brewing Company (and its donut beers!) one of the best breweries in Portland, Maine. 

Lone Pine Brewing Company has a location in Portland right next to Goodfire Brewing Company, so these two local breweries are perfect to pair together. They also have a location in Gorham, Maine, with more outdoor seating and live music.

12. Maine Beer Company

• Location: 525 US Route 1, Freeport, ME 04032 
• Best Beer: Lunch & Dinner 

Despite its (somewhat) distant location, nearly twenty minutes outside of Portland, Maine Beer Company is kind of a staple when it comes to craft breweries in Maine, so it earns a rightful spot on this list if you’re willing to drive a few miles. 

Maine Beer Company serves several types of beers, but they’re perhaps best known for “Lunch” and “Dinner”—not the meals, but their IPA and Double IPA. You can also know that your purchase is going to a good cause. Maine Beer Company donates 1% of its annual gross profits to environmental nonprofits, and its brewery is powered using only clean energy sources. With a motto of “Do What’s Right,”—what else would you expect?

13. Oxbow Blending & Bottling 

• Location: 49 Washington Avenue, Portland, ME 04101 
• Best Beer: Midnight Blue 

Oxbow Blending & Bottling is located in Downtown Portland. Oxbow Brewing Company has three locations—their brewery in Newcastle, a beer garden in Oxford, and their blending and packaging location in Portland! 

Oxbow is one of the best breweries in Portland, ME, and is best known for its farmhouse-style ales. They have dozens of brews that they are constantly rotating. I tried the Midnight Blue, a blended farmhouse ale with Maine-grown blueberries, and I loved it.

Oxbow Blending & Bottling is located in a giant warehouse with floral designs painted on the walls. We visited on a Thursday night, so it was quiet, but I could imagine the place packed with people on a Saturday. If you get hungry, Oxbow also shares an outdoor space with Duckfat, an award-winning local restaurant specializing in Belgian-style fries. 

14. Rising Tide Brewing Company 

• Location: 103 Fox St, Portland, ME 04101 
• Best Beer: Nature’s Gold Maple Golden Ale 

Rising Tide Brewing Company is a family-owned craft brewery that prides itself on creative flavors, consistency, community, and a love of the outdoors. Many of the beers are themed around the outdoors, like the Mountainside IPA, Dockside Light Lager, and Promenade Pale Ale, and they focus on local ingredients for fresh, authentic flavor. 

However, they have some unique flavors, like Nature’s Gold Maple Golden Ale and Capsize Ginger Lime Cream Ale, that are worth trying. You can try what they have on tap, can or bottle pours, or pre-selected flights. They also serve burgers, sandwiches, lobster rolls, and more! 

15. Sea Dog Brewing Co. 

• Location: 725 Broadway, South Portland, ME 04106 
• Best Beer: Hazelnut Porter 

We kind of discovered Sea Dog Brewing Company by accident—but I am so glad we did! After a long day of exploring Portsmouth, we looked for somewhere to grab a brew and a bite to eat and found Sea Dog Brewing just minutes away from our hotel in South Portland. 

Sea Dog Brewing started in Maine (they have five locations across the state), but also two locations in New Hampshire and three locations in Florida. They have a straightforward list of beers—their flagship beer, Sunfish Ale, Apricot Wheat Ale, Old East India Pale Ale, Riverdriver Hazelnut Porter, Raspberry Wheat Ale, Blueberry Wheat Ale, and a seasonal Pumpkin Ale. 

I ordered the Pumpkin Ale, and it was good, but I have to say, my husband’s Hazelnut Porter stole the show! It was warm, rich, and nutty without being overwhelming. Sea Dog Brewing Company is also a brewpub, so you can order appetizers, soups, burgers, sandwiches, and other pub bites. Plus, who can resist their adorable mascot!

16. Shipyard Brewing Company 

• Location: 86 Newbury St, Portland, ME 04101 
• Best Beer: Pumpkinhead Ale 

Shipyard Brewing Company was founded in 1994 and was considered one of the trailblazers of the brewery scene in Portland, Maine, along with Allagash Brewing Company. They produce over 100,000 barrels of beer annually, and their beers are available in almost every state across the USA, so it’s easy to see why this local spot is one of the best breweries in Portland, Maine!

If you’re visiting during the fall, Shipyard’s Pumpkinhead Ale is pretty much a staple. However, if you’re visiting in the winter, try Bayley’s Brown Ale, a cozy beer named after a Chocolate Lab with notes of caramel, toasted nuts, and chocolate. 

Tips for Visiting Breweries in Portland, ME 

• Watch the closing times. We were surprised to discover that many breweries in Portland, ME, close early in the evenings—like 5 PM. Visit the breweries that close earlier during the daytime, and save the breweries that stay open later for the night. 
• Book a beer tour. If you want to remove the stress of brewery hopping (and driving), consider booking an all-inclusive beer tour. Maine Brews Cruise and Bike & Brews are two highly-rated beer tours in Portland. 
• Stay on Industrial Way. This street has at least five breweries within walking distance, including Allagash Brewing Company. If you want quick access to several great breweries in Portland, Maine, in one day, I’d suggest concentrating your energy here! 

Best Places to Stay in Portland, Maine

Looking for a place to stay in Portland? Here are some of my best recommendations!

• Portland Regency Hotel & Spa—This hotel is situated in the heart of Old Port. It’s a great luxury stay located close to everything in the city!
• The Press Hotel, Autograph Collection—Located in Downtown Portland, this hotel has a chic design and awesome amenities. It also offers close access to all the action in Portland.
• Tru By Hilton Portland Airport—This is the hotel we stayed at that’s just minutes away from Sea Dog Brewing Co. We loved the comfortable rooms and the great complimentary breakfast.

Kick Back & Relax at the Best Breweries in Portland, ME

Which of these four breweries would you visit first? And what’s your favorite type of beer? Let me know in the comments below!

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. This helps me keep free content on my website, like this post about the “4 Best Breweries in Portland, ME!”

Pin “The Best Breweries in Portland, ME” for Later!

Planning a road trip in New England? Check out some of my other posts if you love this post about the best breweries in Portland, Maine:

• 10 Best Things to Do in Portland, Maine
• How to Spend the Perfect Day in Portsmouth, NH
• 10+ Things to do in Plymouth for History Lovers
• 10 Delicious Places to Eat in Newport, RI
• How to Spend a Charming Weekend in Newport, RI
• Best Luxury Hotels in Newport, RI
• 26 Best Things to Do in Boston
• 12 Best Day Trips from Boston
• Complete Guide to the Freedom Trail
• Ultimate 10-Day Coastal New England Road Trip Itinerary