\nBangor native taps into beer market at new Orono facility<\/strong><\/p>\n
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By Jessica Bloch When Tim Gallon isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t brewing beer, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cleaning the tanks in which his beer is brewed.<\/p>\n And when he isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cleaning tanks, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing all the little things to run Black Bear Brewery, which recently moved into a space off Mill Street in Orono formerly occupied by IGA.<\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot of work for Gallon, a 31-year-old Bangor native who is the owner of the brewery and its only full-time employee. He spent most of 2008 doing construction and getting his operation up and running.<\/p>\n Now that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s able to brew up to three batches of beer per week, however, Gallon is ready to get out the word. The Bangor area, he feels, needs a brewery with a local identity. And considering all the connections his business has to the area, Gallon wants Black Bear to assume that mantle.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the goal,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said on a recent morning in the brewery\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s storefront area. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I want to be the [local] microbrewery.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Black Bear Brewery isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a new business. Gallon has been at it for several years, since he learned the intricacies of beer brewing in a back room of the Bear Brew Pub, which is located diagonally across a parking lot from the brewery. Gallon is hoping the move from the brew pub, where he had around 500 square feet of space, to his new 2,500-square-foot shop will relaunch the brewery.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Next year we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to do a big sales push, really hit the downtown bars\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in Bangor and Orono, he said.<\/p>\n Gallon believes his business is one of few breweries north of Bangor. The Sea Dog Brewing Co. restaurant in Bangor also brews some of its own beer, and Gallon said Oak Pond Brewing Co. in Skowhegan makes its own beer.<\/p>\n So far, Gallon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s business has been very local. He sells kegs to Paddy Murphy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Pub in Bangor and Mainely Brews Tavern in Waterville, and brews beer for the Bear Brew Pub, also in Orono. It seems fitting considering all the connections Gallon has to the area.<\/p>\n He graduated from Bangor High School in 1995 and has been brewing beer for six years. He learned the craft from Milos Blagojevic, the former owner of the Bear Brew Pub. Matt Haskell, another Bangor native, took over the Bear Brew with Gallon in March 2002 and bought out Gallon about 1\u00c2\u00bd years later. Gallon rented space in the Bear Brew building where he still brews beer for Haskell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Bear Brew label.<\/p>\n He now has one part-time employee in Elliott Hale, who also grew up in Bangor. Gallon got his beers into Mainely Brews through one of its owners, Luke Duplessis, who is from Old Town. Isaac Wright, a local artist, designed a label for each of Gallon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s beers. Paddy Murphy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s owner, John Dobbs, a 1999 University of Maine graduate, worked with Gallon and Haskell at the Bear Brew before opening his own pub.<\/p>\n Dobbs said the fact that Gallon is brewing in the area is attractive to him as a bar owner, and the two are friendly from their time at the Bear Brew.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My wife [Rachel] and I try to stay as local with everything as we possibly can,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Dobbs said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We love Maine, we love Bangor, and especially in these times we want to keep our money local and help each other out. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a great product. We can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even keep the Gearhead in stock.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Gearhead Ale is one of four types of beer Gallon is currently brewing. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s similar to an Irish red ale, he said. Gallon also brews a pale ale, which he has named Pail Ale, a porter called Voodoo Bear and a stout called Black Demon. He has also done seasonal beers, such as a blueberry ale for the summer.<\/p>\n They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all known to be strong beers.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All my beers run around 6 percent alcohol,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re big beers and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re flavorful.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Gallon has a 10-barrel system, which translates to a 310-gallon capacity.<\/p>\n Gallon moved into his new space last spring, but it took him the rest of the year to get the business up and running to the point where he is able to consistently produce what people want. He self-distributes \u00e2\u20ac\u201d with Hale running a big part of that end of the business \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in Penobscot County and uses Bangor-based Wicked Wines to distribute outside of the county.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s taken about a year from the first bit of [demolition work] to actually having a brewery here,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Gallon said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s taken me another four months to get my feet under me. Brewing beer is a tricky process, and it requires a lot of attention. There were trial batches and a lot of tweaking. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m looking at 2009 to really be the first year of having enough beer that I can put a supply out there and be known.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Businesses such as Paddy Murphy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, which is in a visible downtown Bangor location across from West Market Square, have given him a boost locally, but Gallon got his start at the Bear Brew.<\/p>\n In addition to watching Blagojevic brew beer, Gallon read books and talked to people about the process. He took over the operation and found his interest growing to the point where he wanted his own brewery business<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I started to figure out where I was going to build and what I was going to do,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Gallon said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I wanted to focus more on the beer side. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kind of what I enjoy. I like craft beer and the process of it drew me in.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Gallon uses the same methods brewers have used for ages. He starts with different grains for different types of beer. The grains are ground and then mixed with hot water in a tank called a mashton. That process converts the sugar in the grain and breaks it down. The result is a kind of sugar water, which is then boiled for about an hour. Toward the end of the process, Gallon adds hops, dried cone-shaped buds of the hop vine that have been pulverized and packed into pellets, which add aroma and bitterness.<\/p>\n After the mash is boiled, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cooled quickly. Yeast is added to facilitate fermentation and the mixture sits for five days. The beer is then moved to a cold room, which Gallon keeps just above freezing, where the beer ages and clarifies as particles settle at the bottom. The beer is then carbonated and ready to go.<\/p>\n That process has been made more expensive in the past year, Gallon said, because of the weak national and global economies. The sharp rise in the price of hops alone \u00e2\u20ac\u201d from $5 per pound a year ago to $20 to $30 per pound now \u00e2\u20ac\u201d forced Gallon to raise his prices a bit, although most other brewers have, too, he said.<\/p>\n The price increase has made him think more carefully about when and how much hops he adds to his brews.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153To really get that good, strong hop aroma that everybody loves, you add them in at the end of the boil,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you add them too [early], all that nice smell evaporates. You add three pounds into the end of the boil, and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve just dumped $100 into the kettle. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worth it, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going for.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Eventually, Gallon wants to turn the storefront area \u00e2\u20ac\u201d which currently contains pallets of grain \u00e2\u20ac\u201d into a retail space to sell bottles and growlers, which are half-gallon glass jugs that customers put a small deposit on and can be refilled and cleaned. Those advances may come in time, after Black Bear has developed the kind of local foothold Gallon envisions for his business.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This area needs this,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Gallon said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good-quality, fresh, local beer. I think my job is kind of to turn people on to that and get them excited about microbrews and craft beer. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not huge up here, but it is nationally. When you try a local beer, you never know what kind of gem you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to find.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
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