31/03/2026
Following our attendance at the fantastic NERAX festival, our delegation has now rounded off its Stateside trip with an extremely memorable visit to Wilton, Maine, where we met Jeff Chaisson and his team at Ambition Brewing.
Wilton and its surroundings are a beautiful place and Jeff was an incredible host - not only showing us around his brewery and entertaining us at his taproom, but taking a day out of his schedule to drive us around the wider area, show us some of his favourite bars, and give us a tour of the amazing scenery - for which we were so grateful. It was also lovely to be introduced to his wife Marylena, team members Shane and Cassie, and some of the regulars.
Despite serving a population of less than 4,000, the Ambition taproom is a top class beer venue up there with the best found in big cities. As well as a wide selection of beers, including cask ale, it features a range of CAMRA books, British and American breweriana, and even a vintage bar billiards table manufactured in Hertfordshire!
Ambition's brewing is clearly heavily influenced by the UK, and those available during our visit included a 4.2% English bitter and a 5.5% porter, along with more adventurous offerings such as a 5.6% white stout, a 6.5% coffee milk stout, a 5.4% pineapple habanero sour, a 12% maple bourbon brown, plus the chaga mushroom beer that first established our friendship when Jeff sent a cask over to the 2024 St Albans Beer & Cider Festival.
On the way back to the airport we had time to call into one other great brewery. In a Massachusetts town called Beverly (close to the much better-known Salem) is Pete Harkins’ Backbeat Brewing Company. Another unashamed brewing anglophile, the initial welcome to Pete’s taproom is provided by cardboard cutouts of the King and Queen next to a shelf offering a range of English grocery items!
But it gets much better from there, and Pete explained to us that his passion for brewing began during a holiday to the UK in the early 1990s when he tasted Marston’s Pedigree and experienced cask ale for the first time. Today, he and his team are brewing their own outstanding range, some of which are loving tributes to celebrated British ales like Fuller’s ESB and Five Points XPA, while others are original creations like his Milestone India Pale Lager and delicious Old Ironsides black IPA. We were surprised to have our drinks served on beer mats from CAMRA festivals of years gone by, of which the taproom has acquired a large stock!
While this was a highly enjoyable trip, it was also very useful for developing and forging new connections. We are now working to get beers from Ambition and Backbeat across to the UK to serve at the 2026 St Albans Beer & Cider Festival, with other potential irons in the fire too. Both Jeff and Pete are hoping to be able to fly over to attend our festival in September and others from the New England brewing scene are considering it as well. We look forward to offering them as warm a welcome as they gave us!
