So today I found out that the new apartment is within walking distance to Smuttynose Brewery. Yesterday we fell on top of Red Hook and had to stop in for a brew. Come to find out, Shipyard is within spitting distance across the river I cannot pronounce. Holy balls, I'm about to be surrounded by beer.
Shityard is OK, barely. Don't know the NH beer scene too well but some good Maine breweries that you should be able to find on tap and/or in stores include: Allagash. ALLAGASH. Gritty's, Geary's, and Sea Dog are all generally good and each one has one or two really good beers. Stone Coast is pretty awesome. Belfast Bay is really good. Oh, and the Bar Harbor Blueberry Ale is wicked popular but it's absolute crap. Someone will probably try to get you to drink one sooner or later but feel free to ignore them and their tastes after that.
I FUCKING LOVE ALLAGASH! Their double white is my go-to all the time, "just want a nice refreshing glass of awesome" beer. Not a fan of Sea Dog, I call it Soap Dog, mostly because everyone drinks their blueberry, and it takes like fucking soap in comparison to Wachusett or Newport Storm's RI Blueberry. Newport Storm may churn out a lot of ass (they're very experimental) but their blueberry and Octoberfest are failproof.
Smuttynose is pretty good, they can get rather hoppy, but their Old Brown Dog is a staple. Portsmouth Brewery is owned by the same folks. They're small. Red Hook is, well, Red Hook. It's Seattle beer with a 2nd brewery on the East Coast. It was a really nice place though and when we were asking questions to our server, she had the manager come over and we were invited back anytime to talk with one of the brewers because they like getting new ideas from the public.
So far I'm pretty impressed with the area. Everybody is genuinely easy going, but Freestaters really do get their feathers ruffled when you say you're moving in. That whole, "Welcome to New Hampshire, now please leave" attitude can be a bit much from some people, but at the same time, there's a lot of others that are like, "Oh, check this out, go here, go there, if you need anything give me a call." Especially Navy. Unlike Groton/New London where they're sick of the base, Portsmouth/Kittery still very much supports the shipyard (probably because it's their ONLY source of money in the off-season.) Although Kittery is one big shopping mall, but the Trading Post...OMG. I could stock up for the apocalypse there.
Basically, we're going to be there for a year and a half. So we figure we're going to make the most out of it. We are going to go to Portland for a day soon to check it out, and we've been invited up to Bangor as well to see "real Maine." Same thing up in the White Mountains to see "real New Hampshire."
I'm also looking into the area museums, especially the Strawbery Banke, to put in volunteer hours for curation and archiving so I can start getting things on my resume.
...I'm also very impressed with their snow removal skills.
