Facial hair reigns: Portland's Stache Pag 2012

[Video and photos by Gabe Souza, digital visuals specialist | Text by Shannon Bryan, content producer]

The mustache doesn't always get respect.

But it should. Just ask the men (and women) who wear them. March Mustache Madness - a month-long celebration of the 'stache - helps bring attention to swath of bristled hair that boldly hovers under the nose. And a handful of years ago, the folks at No Umbrella Media launched the annual Stache Pag in Portland to reinstate the mustache's rightful place in society and on men's face.


The yearly pageant is a celebration of whiskers - from the mutton chop and handlebar to the delicate wisp and lip-concealing cookie duster.

And just like the finely combed or wild and free mustaches on men all over Maine, the Stache Pag grows every year.

This year's pageantry takes place at 9 p.m. on Friday, March 30 at Port City Music Hall in Portland. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at www.stachepag.com.

Anyone with a shadow of hair over the lips can enter - including women. Entrants are divided into four categories, based on their individual mustache character:

The Magnum P.I. - The natural or common mustache, it is a full, well-integrated friend of your face. Not too flamboyant, but certainly stating something in bold print.

The Thigh Tickler - These 'staches leap from the face, a la handlebar, Fu Manchu or Pancho Villa.

The Uncle Rico - This category refers to mustaches belonging to men who, for reasons unclear, aren't able to grow enough hair on their upper lip to enter either of the other two categories.

The 1899 Maine Legislature - "These boys knew how to live large, while retaining their gentleman status. This is the category for handlebars, horseshoes and other large, yet culturally acceptable moustaches," according to the Stache Pag website.

Stache Pag judges narrow the field to five finalists in each category, and the winner will be chosen based on audience applause. But this ain't no lazy man's game. Finalists work to win the crowd during segments like the "Stache Strut" and "Rapid-fire, Five-second Statue."

Category winners - as well as a judges' selection - will walk away with a Stache Pag trophy, a title and bragging rights for the year.

In the morning, many of the night's mustaches will find themselves razored into the bathroom sink. But they'll go with honor, having helped bring the modern man's mustache one hair closer to its proper glory.

FMI and to buy tickets: www.stachepag.com

Winter rowing aboard a Cornish pilot gig

Two teams of power rowers in Belfast have been rowing all winter in preparation for the upcoming Snow Row in Hull, Mass.

Text by Shannon Bryan, MaineToday Media content producer // Video and photos by Gabe Souza, MaineToday Media digital visuals specialist

Snow, row, row your boat

Community rowing programs like Come Boating! in Belfast lure novice rowers to the water during the warmer months.

In the winter, when air temperatures hover in the 20s and the ice coats the water's surface like a protective tarpaulin, recreational rowers tend to store their oars for the season.

But the power rowing teams of Come Boating! keep rowing.

The dozen or so rowers who fill the organization's two 32-foot Cornish pilot gigs aren't gluttons for punishment. They simply don't like losing.

Both teams - a coed team rowing in a boat named Selkie and an all-women's team in a boat named Belle Fast - are competing in the annual Snow Row, a 3.75-mile race in the waters off Hull, MA on March 10. To win, teams need to prepare, even when it's freezing outside.

"Who rows in the winter?" said Wes Reddick, a Come Boating! member and rower for team Selkie. "You're frickin' freezing, wondering, 'What are we doing?'"

The Snow Row lures rowers from New England, the East Coast, and Cornwall, U.K., where the pilot gig retains a long and competitive history. Over 100 boats turn out, including work boats, kayaks, canoes, shells and pilot gigs. With so much traffic in the water, things can get a little chaotic.

Boats begin the race with their bows on the beach, requiring the crew to sprint across the sand, scramble in and row backwards before attempting to turn their boat around. The coastal water quickly becomes an uproar or oars and calls from the coxswains. Boats jockey for space to turn around, sometimes colliding like wheel-less bumper cars. Oars tangle, sometimes thwacking a fellow rower.

"Imagine 20 to 30 gigs with 12-foot oars on each side," said Reddick. "It's pandemonium."

The race is divided into waves of similar class boats, which helps reduce the bedlam. But not by much.

"Boats are turning around and bumping into each other. One year one boat tore our rudder off," said Willy Reddick, a rower for Belle Fast who is also Wes Reddick's wife.

All that action draws a crowd. And winning the Snow Row brings cache. Bringing home a trophy and some bragging rights also helps ignite interest in the free community rowing programs offered during the warm months. And that interest is the driving force behind Come Boating!

That, and a healthy appreciation for frigid weather, layered fleece and a bit of Snow Row commotion.

"It's pandemonium," said Wes Reddick, "and it's wonderful."

Maine's (hard) cider house gang

Spotting a trio of 20-somethings tipping back glasses of hard cider at Mainely Brews in Waterville isn't out of the ordinary.

What is: Discovering that the three have fermented the beverage themselves, and here, on a Thursday afternoon in early January, they're tasting it fresh from the keg for the very first time.

"It's good," said Ross Brockman, 23, one of the three recent Bates College graduates behind Downeast Cider House, a hard cider company based in Waterville. "I mean, we knew it was good. But you wonder how it's going to pour the first time."

Downeast Cider House officially launched three weeks ago when it delivered its first kegs of hard cider to a handful of bars in Waterville, Richmond and Portland.

Brockman and fellow co-founders Ben Manter, 24, and Tyler Mosher, 23, have done plenty of sampling over the last nine months since deciding to start a hard cider company.

Mosher's father was the first to suggest the idea, but the concept, they said, had been staring them the in face all along. Manter grew up on an apple orchard in Vassalboro, and bushels were continually finding their way to campus. And of the hard cider options already out there, they found none to be very appealing.

So what were three soon-to-be college graduates to do?

Manter began a semester-long thesis on fermenting. "I told my teacher, 'This is what I want to do with my life,' " he said.

And the trial and error process of measuring, mixing, tasting and tweaking began.

"There was a lot of error," Mosher joked. Sixty-four errors, in fact. That's how many recipes it took to arrive at the final version. That's the "holy shucks, this is really good stuff" version, according to Manter. (The worst-tasting of them all sits in a place of semi-honor in the fermenting room. "In five years, that stuff is going to be gold," said Mosher.)

Hard cider drinkers in Maine can now sip for themselves at Mainely Brews and 18 Below Raw Bar, Grill & Lounge in Waterville; The Bag and Kettle in Carrabassett Valley; The Old Goat in Richmond; The Thirsty Pig and Nosh Kitchen Bar in Portland; and a growing list of others.

Downeast Cider's presence in those establishments is a testament to the trio's determination amid bank loan rejections and naysaying college buddies who weren't certain about the idea.

"We had discussions (with other friends) on our couches," Brockman said. The response to their proposed venture had been heavy on skepticism: "You guys are idiots" and "It's not going beyond this room."

But the idea did go beyond that room. And now it's expanding from a home base inside a repurposed mill off Water Street in Waterville, where in January the indoor temperature rivaled the outdoor temperature and the scent of fermenting cider filled every inch of the space.

The fermenting room houses two lumbering, 1,000-gallon tanks. Charts tacked to the wall keep track of the process # the cider's journey takes about 16 days to go from freshly pressed apples, shipped from Ricker Hill Farm in Turner, to kegged Downeast Cider.

Over the next six months to a year, Manter, Brockman and Mosher are looking to have the cider in 20 Maine bars and restaurants.

"We want to make a good product, but at scale," said Brockman. "Not make any sacrifices."

And they want to take time learning the industry and gaining feedback.

Getting there, they said, is just a matter of taste.

"It's just about getting them to try it," said Mosher. "They try it, they like it. If they talk to us, we can tell them who we are, why we think this is different."

Eventually, they're also hoping to make Downeast Cider available in cans. Until then, Mainely Brews customers like Travis Simpson of Fairfield don't mind being among the first to sample a glass.

"It's awesome. It's like a treat," Simpson said. "I like it because it's not too sweet."

Despite the compliments, Mosher, Manter and Brockman aren't getting ahead of themselves.

"People say, 'Congratulations,' " said Brockman. "But we haven't done anything yet."

Well, they have brought a drinkable idea across the dorm room threshold and into the hands of Maine's hard cider lovers. And Maine's soon-to-be hard cider lovers.