A wine shop offers a free tasting, as many of them do, and people don’t get overly excited. A beer shop schedules a beer tasting, and the word goes all around: FREE BEER.

Madden Beverage, 335 North St., Saco, sells both wine and beer, and it has held quite a few wine tastings. But from 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday, it will hold Blarney and Beer, an afternoon of beer tasting and conversation — the company’s second beer tasting.

Such beer tastings have been legal for only about six months, shop owner Ed Madden said, and the change is a fortunate side effect of some confusion in the Legislature. A couple of years ago, the Legislature passed a law requiring that wine tastings be out of the view of children. That law created quite a stir, so it was repealed, and the repeal included a provision to make beer tastings legal.

Madden said tastings — whether for beer or wine — help people expand their beverage repertoire.

“Who wants to spend money on an entire bottle to see if you like it or not?” Madden said. “If you don’t like it, you have only an ounce in your cup, and you can throw it out. But you hate to dump out a whole bottle.”

Madden has 16 cooler doors filled with beer in his shop, and two of them are dedicated to larger bottles, which often have some rarer offerings.

Although the tasting will have an Irish theme and Madden is Irish, one of the stars of Sunday’s tasting will be Unibroue, a Quebec brewery. In addition to the company’s beers, Madden will serve a stew made with Unibroue Maudite and cookies made with another Unibroue beer.

Other beers he plans to have on hand are the Unearthly Imperial IPA from Southern Tier Brewing in New York and some Dogfish Head offerings — although he did complain that brewer Sam Calagione’s show on Discovery Channel has made it harder to get some Dogfish Head beers at his shop.

Madden’s tasting is the same day as Mary’s Walk, a popular cancer fundraiser in Saco, and he hopes that some of the people taking part in the walk will drop by and have some beer.

“It’s always fun having beer geeks around, tasting good beers and talking about them,” Madden said. “We are also getting into beer-making supplies, and they’ll taste something they like and then see if they can make it themselves.”

The shop’s website is maddenbeverage.com, and the phone number is 282-8720.

PARTY HELPS DECIDE BARREL AGED STOUT

Sebago Brewing held a party last week to help determine what blend to use in its Barrel Aged Stout — inviting a number of people who do business with the brewery.

Co-owner Kai Adams and head brewer Tom Abercrombie led the tasting, and asked all the people attending to fill out comment cards and choose their favorites.

I chose the middle of the three offerings, which I thought had the most bourbon. Then Abercrombie brought out a pitcher of the beer with 100 percent from the barrel. Although the first sip was good, after a few I came to the conclusion that it would be better diluted with a bit of the traditional Lake Trout Stout.

Adams said the final beer has 50 percent barrel-aged and 50 percent Lake Trout Stout — and I think that was the one I liked best.

The beer was tasted without carbonation, and the carbonation will change the flavor.

The beer is only one batch, and it will show up at the four Sebago brew pubs Friday and in 22-ounce bottles at some stores shortly thereafter. I’m looking forward to tasting it with carbonation. 

Tom Atwell can be contacted at 791-6362 or at atwell@pressherald.com