Building Community with Portland Rising
The name Portland Rising may not be household quite yet, but Maine’s first professional ultimate frisbee team is well on the way to cementing themselves within our local culture. Founded in 2020, the team is one of the original members of the Premier Ultimate League (PUL) - a national organization that is paving the way for progress in the sport of ultimate frisbee. As a company full of disc sport enthusiasts, with more than a couple past or present ultimate players in our ranks, we were stoked to hear that Maine was going to have a presence in the League. It goes without saying that the beginning of the Rising’s story was a bit rocky due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but once 2021 rolled around the team was hitting the ground running bringing high quality ultimate frisbee and conscious community engagement to Southern Maine.
As the 2022 season of the PUL got rolling, we jumped at the chance to connect with the Portland Rising and start building a relationship. We hosted watch parties for their livestreamed away games at our Westbrook taproom, and got the pleasure of meeting the team’s ownership & management. The ultimate community in Southern Maine is a lively one, and we had a blast watching the exciting games with the crew that came out to the events. We knew we’d have to up our game in 2023.
When the snow started to melt here in New England, we started putting our heads together with our Portland Rising friends, and trying to come up with ways to advance our partnership. Naturally, we knew we’d get to play host to more watch parties as the team traveled around the country, but as two organizations with such great local roots we knew we could do more. The idea emerged to collaborate on a beer that would bring attention to the work both Rising and Mast Landing are doing - we’d get to share our space with the team during the brewing process and then we’d get to enter the world of ultimate by running the beer garden at the team’s home games.
The teams collaborating on brew day for Portland Rising Pale Ale
In early April we welcomed a crew of Portland’s finest athletes to our production facility in Westbrook to brew the first ever pro ultimate/brewery collab! The recipe for Portland Rising Pale Ale was a group effort - with the team giving us direction on what type of beer they like to reward themselves with after a big win. Mast Landing’s Production Manager Weston Shepherd led a tour of our production facility, and we got to learn more about members of the Rising in the process. It was truly a highlight of the year so far for us. Sharing our space with guests is always a treat, but this was an especially fun day of brewing, conversation, and bringing together our two organizations.
The release of Portland Rising Pale Ale was timed up to celebrate the team’s home opener against the Philadelphia Surge. On a sunny Friday we once again got to hang out with the awesome local ultimate frisbee community in Westbrook, this time with a beer that proudly wears the stamp of both Mast Landing and the Rising. Each pint of Portland Rising Pale Ale poured in the taproom adds a little more to our financial support for the team as part of this project. The response to our collaboration has been extremely inspiring, and has been an amazing way to meet new folks from the area. The next day, we headed to Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland for a super fun beer garden and some great ultimate frisbee. While the Rising may have fallen to the Surge, we loved getting to cheer on our favorite local athletes.
Portland Rising Pale Ale gets some love from the Boston men’s professional ultimate team - the Boston Glory
As the 2023 season goes on, we’re excited to see how the Portland Rising continue to make their mark in the PUL and here in Southern Maine! We couldn’t be more honored by the opportunity to partner with such an awesome team, and give them huge kudos for their creativity, energy, and support. Be sure to catch one of their home games, and come say hey to us in the beer garden when you do. Together we RISE!