Orono Brewing Company, the two-year-old craft brewery based out of Orono, will on Thursday, Aug. 25 open the doors at 3 p.m. at its second location at 26 State St.
The new Bangor spot will feature many of the same things on tap at the flagship Orono spot — a selection of rotating OBC beers, available as pints as well as flights served on paddles and in growlers to go. The street level floor will hold the tasting room, while the basement will be where OBC Brewmaster Asa Marsh-Sachs creates a pilot brewery, a barreling room, and a new Wild Beer program, utilizing wild yeasts to create the popular, often sour-tasting, experimental beers. To celebrate the grand opening, OBC is doing a can release at the Orono tasting room, with cans of Ozone IPA and Lightning Tree IPA available, with a one case per variety limit per customer.
The renovation of 26 State St. by OBC owners Heather and Abe Furth and Mark Horton has been in the works for about a year, with the Furths purchasing the 1911 building in Sept. 2015 and undertaking extensive renovations to the space almost immediately, gutting all four floors of the narrow building and installing new stairs, new floors and a complete redo of the building’s facade, among other fixes. During the renovation process, it was discovered that not only was the building the former home of Bangor Cigar Manufacturing Co., but that there were a number of relics left over from the former business, some of which have been incorporated into the design. The upper three floors will old one loft-style apartment each.
Hours at the new OBC location will be 3 p.m. to close Monday–Friday and at noon on Saturday and Sunday.