New England Premiere of Castles in the Sky

We love hosting events. With such a great shop in such a great setting, we almost feel obligated to do it. Our July class wraps on Saturday July 24th, and we figured what better way to show how much we appreciate our friends and customers than to premiere Taylor Steele's new surf film “Castles in the Sky”. Pray for a starry night 'cause we plan to show the film outside on the barn wall - bring your beach chairs. Shop opens at 7pm and we’ll be hitting the play button around 8:30pm. It costs $5 to get in but the popcorn and cotton candy are on us. BYO Beverages.

Map to Grain Shop.

Dogfish Head Brewery Returns to Maine Roots

It started when a couple of Delaware surfers road-tripped up to Maine for a surf film fest we helped with in Rockland last spring. While visiting the shop, they spied a small trailer that was only half full - basically, the scrap we generated over the entire winter.  Kyle and Mark turned out to be from Dogfish Head Brewery, famed for groundbreaking and unique heritage brews - often seasoned with wood. 

They quickly decided that the wood left over from our board building would make a perfect accent for a new beer, called "GrainToGlass", which has been released and can be sampled for a limited time at the Dogfish Head Brewpub in Rehobeth, Delaware. Join us at a party hosted by Novare Res Bier Cafe in Portland Maine on Sunday, July 25th.  We'll be meeting up with Dogfish founder Sam Calagione to get our first taste of some hard-to-find beers that afternoon.  If you can't make it, you can experience this whole story vicariously when the Discovery Channel program "Brewed" is aired later this year.

Thinking back, it must seem obvious that two unique companies like Grain and Dogfish Head would find each other and, more importantly, discover that they're driven by the same values.  After all, Dogfish Head Brewery is named after a point of land near Sam's family home up in Boothbay.  Meant to be.

A Weighty Proposition

Designing new boards is one of the most exciting things we do around here. In the beginning, we laid out new shapes on plywood and faired the lines with battens. Today, we design boards using advanced 3D modeling software. What we love most about this process is that our customers can be as involved as they like, helping to dial in the shape until it’s exactly what they dreamed of.

If there’s one thing we’ve come to appreciate, it’s that our boards weigh a bit more then foam. For some shapes, that can be a detriment (and we tend to stay away from them), but for boards that are designed to paddle fast, get into waves early and bee-line it down the line, wood is good. As we write, we’re putting the finishing touches on a 12’ gun design for Alan C. Alan is large man and surfs even larger waves. He grew up on Bells Beach in Australia, and is now an Alpaca farmer on the coast of Oregon. We'll even add weight to this board to keep Alan ahead of the curve so to speak... keep an eye on our blog over the coming weeks, we’ll be posting some photos as we build from wood, what we’ve created in space.

Last Chance - November Class

Just a reminder that if you're still hoping to make it to Maine to build your own board, your down to just one chance. We still have room in our November class, so sign up soon before another year slips away. November can be a beautiful month in Maine, with more predictable waves, air temps around 50 (maybe) and water temps about the same. It can also be a much more affordable vacation due to off-season hotel rates. So sign up soon before it’s too late.  Or think about your very own Board Builder's Fantasy Camp: your dates, any board we build, you, and one Grain board builder for a week on the farm here in Maine.

Free Little Black Wheels DVD with any kit.

We were delighted to work with Mick Waters on his new film Little Black Wheels. We sent two boards to Mick and Dave Rastovich in Australia for this project and they ended up being surfed by some amazing surfers including Rasta, Johhny Abegg, Nick Chalmers and others. We love this film so much that for a limited time, we’re gonna send a free DVD with every kit sold. We’ll also throw in a couple bars of our Rollin Nolan Organic Blend Wax.

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