BELFAST — Before the Belfast Co-op made plans to celebrate its 40th anniversary this week, they turned to another Belfast business, Marshall Wharf Brewing Co., to collaborate on a commemorative brew.

Belfast Co-op’s Zafra Whitcomb, a home brew enthusiast whom Penobscot Bay Pilot covered back in 2013 in our story “Looks like we have a ‘Winnah!’” was the one to develop the recipe for the red wheat ale, calling it Principle 9.

Whitcomb and Kate Harris, the Co-op’s former education and outreach director, had gotten the idea from a conference in Wisconsin, where the local co-op had done a collaboration beer with the local brewery.

“We came back from that and said, ‘We’ve got to do that too,’” said Whitcomb. “So, we talked to David Carlson, Marshall Wharf’s owner and he was open to the idea.”

Working with Jared Maruhnic, the head brewer for Marshall Wharf, Whitcomb said it took two years from the initial idea to the first pour. 

“I came up with the recipe, but he was the master of the process,” he said. “When we decided we wanted to release it in June, we talked to local producers and explored the idea of doing a 100-percent Maine beer.” That was before realizing that the availability of those ingredients was going to be limited.

Making a 100-percent Maine beer is not as easy as it sounds. The two malt houses, Blue Ox and Maine Malting, in the state are still developing a process to produce colored malts, such as caramel or roasted malts — but they’re not there yet.  So, in making Principle 9, if he chose to use malted wheat exclusively from a Maine malt house, the beer would have no color, and Whitcomb wanted that deep warm red.

“It’s close,” he said. “It’s made 85 percent from Maine malt and 50% of that malt is MOFGA-certified organic. The other 15 percent is amber rye and roasted barley. We had to go to Valley Malt in Massachusetts, which is still regional.” Valley Malt has been around a lot longer and already had an established track record for producing colored malts.

On a sunny evening, right after the longest day of the year, a number of people had lined up at Marshall Wharf Brewing Co’s outdoor bar to get a first taste of the new brew.

Asked why he chose a red ale over everything else?

“I just like a pretty beer,” he smiled.

With Marshall Wharf brews typically in the higher alcohol by volume range, Whitcomb also wanted to create a lower alcohol beer at 5 percent, which is on par with a common production beer.

The one-off red ale is now pouring on tap and available in cans as well.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com