Courtesy / Rising Tide
Heather Sanborn, co-owner and director of business operations at Rising Tide Brewing Co., was honored as a Mainebiz Woman to Watch in 2015.
Updated: September 6, 2022
Portland brewer plans year-round sales of top beer
Courtesy / Rising Tide Brewing Co.
Maine Island Trail Ale, the best-selling brand of Portland's Rising Tide Brewing Co., is a summer beer that's about to become a year-round offering.
Nearly a decade after Rising Tide Brewing Co. launched Maine Island Trail Ale to raise money for a local nonprofit, the Portland-based craft brewer will turn its best-selling, seasonal beer into a year-round offering.
Maine Island Trail Ale was introduced in 2013 to to raise money, and awareness for the Maine Island Trail Association, a Portland-based nonprofit dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of coastal Maine's wild islands.
"The coast of Maine has inspired us from the start, as you can see in our labels and beer names," said Heather Sanborn, co-owner and director of business operations at Rising Tide, which employs 43 people at the height of its summer season. "We also knew when starting the business that we wanted to find meaningful ways to give back to the community."
Rising Tide has a manufacturing facility, tasting room and private events space in Portland's East Bayside neighborhood. The company also has a food truck it built during the pandemic.
Though Maine Island Trail Ale has only been available from April through September until now, it is Rising Tide's best-selling beer. As the brewer ramps up production to make the award-winning beer available year-round, the plan is to increase the sales volume by around 25% to 30%, Sanborn said.
"We also now have broader distribution in the state of Maine through Pine State Beverage's merger with Mariner Beverages, so we're looking forward to a year of growth," she told Mainebiz. Sanborn was honored as a Mainebiz Woman to Watch in 2015.
On a more general note, she said she thinks that attention to corporate responsibility is growing in all sectors.
"Because we make a product that needs a new name for every brand, we have a ready-made and fun way to be able to form these sorts of partnerships with nonprofits and to give back," she said, adding: "The most successful collaborations go beyond just slapping a label on a beer, though."
She noted, for example, a recent Maine Island Trail Association island clean-up effort in which a large group of volunteers from Rising Tide participated. And besides donating cash proceeds from the sale of each case of Maine Island Trail Ale, the brewer donates beer for the nonprofit's other fundraisers.
"They can count on us each year," she said, "and now even more so with year-round sales of the beer."
'The future is bright'
Sanborn is bullish on business, both for Rising Tide and Maine's craft beer industry as a whole.
"We're excited for a post-summer season that feels more like the pre-pandemic days," she said. "Craft beer in Maine is a competitive landscape for sure, but we're finding new customers, both locals and visitors, to try craft beers and building our reputation as the best beer tourism destination in the country, so the future is bright."
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