Breweries and Wineries
Discover your new favorite beverage on a self-guided Beer or Wine Tour.
Raise a glass to the brewers and vintners of DownEast Acadia. Nine breweries and four wineries span the region. Visit one, two, or all of them, for special releases and vintages, local foods, a horseshoes game or cribbage, and a little live music, for a True Maine experience.
DownEast Beer Trail: A Self-guided Tour
A subsegment of the larger Maine Beer Trail, this self-guided tour of the region's breweries, micro-breweries, nano-breweries, and brewpubs will check all the boxes for beer enthusiasts. Many of our breweries offer live music and game nights, some year round.
At Strong Brewing Company in Sedgwick, try the Acadia Sunrise brew, one of the brewer's many ales and lagers. DeepWater Brewing Co., in Blue Hill, hand-crafts each and every beer from the best ingredients available. Enjoy a pint with a side of local oysters on their brick patio.
Stop by the Airline Brewing Company's Pub in Ellsworth for an Old World pub experience that features the slogan "Peace, Trout, and Milk Stout" or their Brewery in Amherst, a refurbished wood working mill from the late 1800’s.
Fogtown Brewing Company offers craft beers aged in barrels, cider & seltzers, and a line of products that use locally sourced ingredients. Enjoy wood fired pizza in their dog-friendly beer garden and taproom in Ellsworth, or visit the taproom and kitchen in Bar Harbor.
Bar Harbor is home to Atlantic Brewing, one of the state's oldest brewers featuring tours, pours, and growlers. Friar's Brewhouse in Bucksport is Maine's first taproom, run by the Franciscans of Bucksport, who brew the beer at their monastery nearby.
Lubec Brewing Company is Maine's utilizes a one-barrel system to produce traditional red and brown ales and an India pale ale. Across the bay in Eastport, Horn Run Brewing offers fresh craft beer with breathtaking views from their downtown waterfront location.
Visit one or two, or all of them for special releases, perhaps a horseshoes game, and some True Maine experiences!
DownEast Wine Trail: A Self-guided Tour
DownEast Acadia's wineries are part of the Maine Wine Trail, which consists of more than 20 wineries across the state, producing grape and fruit wines, distilled spirits, meads, ciders, and fortified wines. Four call our region home.
Enjoy the artisanal experience of traditional oak barrel-aging at Catherine Hill Winery in Cherryfield, which keeps its vineyard planted with several cold-hardy grapes. They have been hand-crafting in small batches since 2021. The winery produces complex, barrel-aged reds, crisp, refreshing whites, and berry wines of intense flavor. Visit their intimate tasting room and outside seating area in Cherryfield. On a hot summer day, you may even be offered a wine slushie.
The oldest of the region's vintners, Bartlett Maine Estate Winery, has been making wine from local fruit since 1975. They have been so successful that when Bartlett's Blueberry Reserve was sent to France, the tasters refused to believe it was pressed from blueberries. Bartlett Spirits of Maine Distillery produced Rusticator Rum, a small bath rum made from organic molasses and aged in oak. Please stop by their tasting room from June to October.
Perhaps you'd like a blueberry, pear, apple wine, or a cranberry or honey mead crafted at Shalom Organic Orchard Farm & Winery in Franklin—the first organic winery on the East Coast. Their fruit wines are grown and vinified organically, certified by MOFGA under the NOP standards. They also offer Farm Stays in a lovely, private apartment in the ell of the farmhouse.
Sow's Ear Winery in Brooksville exudes a sense of free-spiritedness and a willingness to experiment with new methods and products. I began in the early nineties with traditional English-style hard ciders and expanded to some unique fruit wines. Their Rhubarb Wine, made from local, organically-grown rhubarb stalks, is described as having a natural tartness that translates into a fruity aperitif. The small tasting room is open during the summer months.
Visitor Resources: Maine Wine Trail | Maine Beer Trail