Beer in a can?!

Apparently there's a whole craft beer in a can movement I never heard of. I stopped at the store last week and, as I often do, just kind of wandered around looking for stuff that I thought "looked good". Of course "looks good" is wholly spontaneous and wildly dependent on my mood.

There with the chilled wines is a variety of 6 packs in cans! I don't ever remember seeing them before.

I'm shaking my head when..wait..I see Baxter Brewing Company. Now, Baxter State Park is in north central Maine and anything with "Baxter" in its name and a moose on the can has to mean..well..north central Maine. That's bona fied wilderness country out there. The towns have numbers rather than names. I'm quite sentimental about it. Fished there for years. Besides. The terms of its use as property of the state of Maine as a gift from former governor Percival P. Baxter make it a very special place. Downright unique actually.

Ok, enough about that. Turns out Baxter Brewing is in Maine sure enough but not hardly north central. More like "not far from here". Maine's a big state as far as New England goes. But it caught my attention. So I grabbed a 6 pack of their IPA. That's kind of a brewery's benchmark, I think. But after a few strides I decided no, I *always* drink IPA. So I went back and got this:

Baxter Brewing Pamola Xtra Pale Ale
What am I leading up to? This is the very *best* beer I've had in I don't know how long. And I'm just amazed it came from a can. I haven't had beer in a can since I was a teenager! I have no idea what it looks like. It just doesn't seem right somehow to pour it into a glass.

Now, after making that comment, I'll have to go over and read the review on Beer Advocate. For all I know they all agree it's the worst beer ever. I like to make up my own mind before I read reviews. As often as not what I think is *great* the beer snobs rate somewhere around "meh".

Edited to add:

Baxter State Park September 1986
Awesome fishing there!