New England, October 2021: Maine food & drink

by | Oct 30, 2021 | Food & Drink, Travel, USA Travel

When I was planning the Maine part of the trip I knew we would have to visit Allagash, but I also stumbled across the large list of sours and dark beers at Barreled Souls Brewing — definitely a place that fits both our tastes!

The entry is around the back of a shared building, with the tasting room in a basement space with several nooks.

Barreled Souls Brewing

With so many sours available I couldn’t choose just one so I went with small pours including:

  • Sourpuft Girls – blackberry, strawberry, marshmallow
  • Speakeasy cherry lemonade – bourbon-barreled gose with cherry, lemon, ginger
  • Summer Jam – wheat ale with strawberries and rhubarb
  • Speakeasy rum punch – rum barreled gose with pineapple, orange, cranberry, and pomegranate
  • Speakeasy margarita- tequila-barreled gose with lime

All were really good, but the speakeasy collection was the most memorable, and we ended up getting a 4-pack of the speakeasy rum punch.

Barreled Souls Brewing

DuckFat is on every list of must dos in Portland, so we put our names in and waited for a call-back. Nearly an hour wait early on Sunday evening!

waiting for our table @ Duck Fat   fries @ Duck Fat

And the food was… just okay. The infamous fries were fine, not memorable at all, and our sandwiches were good but not great. I had the bahn mi and Eric had the Cuban.

Our original reservations were for the East Ender next door, so we decided to keep those and order cocktails and some oysters for me. :) Sadly, they didn’t have any desserts on offer…

oysters @

Around the corner from the flagship LL Bean store is Wicked Whoopies, a small shop entirely dedicated to whoopie pies! We tried the signature and the chocolate and both were delicious. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that the shelf life on these are short – most of the ones we brought home to share with friends were completely covered in mold after three weeks. :(

Whoopie Pies   yum.

After LL Bean we stopped at Allagash which had all-outdoor seating. Thankfully it was a nice afternoon, so we found a table in the back and sampled several of their beers. As a bonus we ordered pretzels and beer cheese from the Bite Into Maine food truck.

Allagash - ID hand-stamped

Allgash Brewing

Definitive Brewing is directly across the street from Allagash, so we walked over and sampled a few of their beers as well. Nice open space with options to sit inside or outside.

Definitive Brewing

From there we drove back into Portland, then walked to The Shop by Island Creek Oysters where Leandra tried three of the different raw oyster offerings.

selection @ The Shop by Island Creek Oysters

The Shop by Island Creek Oysters

Our Itinerary

2024 Trips

San Diego, CA (Jan)
Sarasota, FL (Feb)
Madrid, Spain (Mar)
Valencia, Spain (Mar+Apr)
Palma, Mallorca (Apr)
Croatia (May)
Long Island, NY (July)
Faroe Islands (Aug)
London, UK (Sept)
Bari, Italy (Sept)
Rome, Italy (Oct)
Frankfurt, Germany (Oct)
Grand Rapids, MI (Nov)
London, UK (Dec)
Manchester, UK (Dec)

2022 Trips

Florida (Feb)
NC Mountains (Apr)
Washington DC (Apr)
Valencia, Spain (May)
Hilton Head, SC (May)
Pacific NW (Jun)
Long Island (Jul)
Florida (Sept)
Chicago (Sept)
Poland (Sept)
NC Mountains (Nov)
Euro Xmas Markets (Dec)